The 10 BEST Cable Machine Accessories For Your Home Gym

You just bought a fancy new cable machine for your home gym. Good job. Cable Machines and a good selection of Cable Attachments can give you a TREMENDOUS amount of exercise options, and they make up a HUGE majority of the exercise selection in our gym. If you are going to get the MOST out of your cable machine, there are a few things I’ve found that can make your experience a little better.

Today we are going to take a look at a few of the cable machine accessories I have collected and use in my home gym, with my cable machine, to help you take those next steps.

Transparency Note

Everything mentioned in today’s article I purchased myself, for my gym, out of my own pocket. Some things are more recent additions, some I have had for more than a decade, but I definitely spent my own money on everything today.

Some of these I have affiliate links for, others I have discount codes, and some I don’t have anything. If you want to buy anything I mention today, using the links in this article helps me keep this going, and costs you nothing. I appreciate your support.

The BEST Storage For Cable Machine Accessories

First up, and this is one I’ve talked about in a handful of videos, is Wall Control. If you own a Cable Machine, and you own Cable Attachments, you need somewhere for them to be stored and I’ve chosen the route of Wall Control to be my Cable Attachment Shrine.

Wall Control is made in the US, and they have OUTSTANDING customer service. Any issues I had, way before I was talking about them here and on YouTube, they solved well beyond my expectations. The boards themselves come in a number of shapes, sizes, colors, and orientations, so regardless of your application you likely have the ability to fit at least one board.

They also have a long list of proprietary hooks and attachments, which are definitely an upgrade over your normal pegboard hooks, but you can also use any standard pegboard hooks on the Wall Control boards.

Wall Control is also made of metal, so it is ready for any of your heavy gym equipment. I’ve had over 100lbs of chains sitting on one board for years now, and no issues. And the final kicker, Wall Control is forever customizable. So, the next time you buy that “last thing you need for your gym”, you can move a few things around and add it to the wall.

This one is easy. Wall Control is the best storage option for a home gym for the vast majority of items, and it is absolutely the BEST option for cable machine accessory storage. 100% this is a better long-term solution than your standard particle board pegboard. It is slightly more expensive, but you won’t ever have holes getting warped, pegs falling out, or any other sexual innuendos happening with your wall storage.

I’ve written a full comprehensive guide on Wall Control, so you can see what panels and hooks I recommend for various items.

Wall Control – Comprehensive Guide – 2025

Fat Grips and Other Grips

This is for the dudes and dudettes that want to turn a single cable attachment into 2 or 3 or 4 cable attachments. Grips, by means of Fat Grips, Cone Grips, N-Gage Grips, can add some spice to your cable attachments and help make them more ergonomic, challenge your grip, build your forearms, or reduce some strain on your wrists and elbows.

If you snag a basic straight bar handle, you can toss these on and immediately you gain an extra couple of cable attachment options. I use them with a couple of my favorite chest and biceps options as well. Of course these can also be added to a normal barbell, pull-up bar, whatever you got. I find I use the Cone Grips most often as the cone grip feels very nice in your hands. But they all get some play at different times for different exercises.

Daisy Chains

A super simple one, is a pair of Daisy Chains. We use these in our gym for a lot of customization purposes. My daughter has a full set for her Ninja Warrior set-up, and we keep a set handy for adjusting cable lengths, extending attachment lengths, use on the sled, and other various odds and ends.

They really come in handy for anything where you want to sit back further away from the cable machine for various reasons, and don’t want to have to drag the entire length of the cable out while loaded. You can definitely use a number of straps and different solutions here, including lengths of chain, but the daisy chains are light, easy to use, have a ton of adjustment options, are fairly cheap, and can handle a lot of weight. Whenever I grab a different strap for something, I normally question why and end up grabbing the Daisy Chains instead.

Cable Connectors

With something like a functional trainer, you might run into a situation where you want to connect the two cables together. This allows you to use BOTH stacks together, for one exercise. Or in the case of my FT2, allows me to use the dual cable low and high pulleys with my favorite cable attachments.

I bought a pair of connectors from my guy David Dennis over at Gorilla Strength. If you want these, just poke him and tell him you want what Gray Matter Lifting has.

You can snag something like a Darko Shorty Bar or GymPin Holey Bar and connect them as well. OR my guy Kyle at Kaizen DIY created this piece.

Seat Buckle

Ok, stick with me here for a second. How many home gym cable machines are lacking in the stability market? As in, they often are missing pads to keep you down, or backrests, or all of the above to help you maximize your strength potential? A LOT OF THEM! This is where the GymPin Seat Buckle comes into play.

I actually originally bought this for use with my Freak Athlete Hyper Pro while doing Leg Extensions. Trying to keep myself down, when loading up heavy weight, so I could keep the tension in the quads, instead of the knees, and maximize my strength potential.

Yes, it is essentially a seat belt. Yes, you could strap yourself down with a belt or other strap or wrap. If you have access, 100% do that. If not, this has been a nice improvement to my space in the past several months as not only a cable machine accessory, but for use with a number of other machine movements as well.

Keep in mind that it isn’t perfect for all exercises. Lat Pulldowns for instance, work well if you happen to be just the right height. But a little bit outside of that range and we get into problems (you strapped yourself down, now you can’t reach the handle). So this is a “Maybe” purchase depending on your gym and needs.

GymPin & Micro Gainz

A common issue with a stack loaded cable machine, is that they are limited on total weight. Those pesky 2 to 1 ratios can cut a 200lb stack in half and leave you wanting more for back work. This is where my friends at GymPin come in. They made the first of these meant to handle a LARGE amount of plates. I have the standard in black, and as you can see I can add several 45lb plates, which are deep dish too.

This will let me continue to push the weigh limits on exercises without having to simply add reps on reps on reps.

The other thing I like with GymPins, is being able to use them with micro plates. If your stack jumps 5 or even 10lbs at a time, for some exercises like lateral raises, this can be really tough to progress. The GymPin itself weighs 2lbs, which can be used to micro load your sets, and then pair them with a set of Micro Gainz that come in tiny fractions of a pound so you can progress piece by piece.

So, you get the ability to load up HEAVY when needed, as well as slowly progress where needed, which are huge for those chasing progressive overload and beating the log book at home. Snag a GymPin w/ 10% off w/ Code: GRAYMATTERLIFTING

Performance Pins

To this day I’m not sure any piece of gym equipment is, for lack of a better word, cooler, than the Performance Pins. These are a fun little add-on to help you do Drop Sets more effectively.

They are American Made, and are fairly simple to use. If you want to perform multiple drops, you set a Performance Pin at each plate where you want the drop to go, finishing with your standard pin for the last drop. Start your set, do your reps, then when you want a drop, you simply let it rest gently on the stack. The pin will shoot out, and be ready for the next set weight. Rinse and repeat as you continue to do your sets.

I first saw John Meadows use these, and was instantly intrigued. It took a few years for me to track down a cable machine that could use them, but they were an instant purchase. Keep in mind, there are some hiccups to these depending on your set-up, and they really shine in a situation where you aren’t RIGHT next to the stack during your exercise of choice. If you are considering buying these, make sure to check out the full video I have on them to know if they are right for your gym, or not.

Plate Snacks

This one is all about the aesthetics, being able to customize your stack with some sweet sweet Plate Snack decals.

Plate Snacks makes all kinds of awesome ways for you to tackle the customization of your gym, but today we are going to focus specifically on the custom Weight Stack Decals. They can make these for just about any weight stack out there, and when I say custom, I mean legit CUSTOM.

Got a favorite sports team? Color combo? Nudey pic of your spouse? They can make it happen. The ONLY reason I do not have this in my gym, is because the FT2 is likely on the way out at some point soon. If I had a piece that was a forever stack solution, this would be a no brainer for me.

Plate Snacks has a TON of ways to customize your home gym. But the coolest might just be the custom Weight Stack Decals. You can work directly with them to create a custom solution for a NUMBER of Weight Stack machine, as well as simply order a custom solution.

Stacked Bands

This is another one that I have not personally handled, but has caught my eye a couple of times. Stacked Bands. These give you the ability to add bands to your cable stack machine. Their site seems to be having some issues as I record this, so your mileage may vary here on actually being able to buy them, but the general idea is pretty interesting.

As a fan of the pump, I want to make sure people understand that some exercises are more conducive to additional band tension than others. Back for example, is a terrible application for bands. You are strongest in the stretch position and weakest in the fully contracted position, which would be exacerbated by bands. So don’t grab these and start adding bands to every exercise you ever do. Some cable machines like from Prime Fitness, actually have this feature built into them, so you can use normal bands without buying an extra piece. Well done Prime!

Carabiners

I’m a HUGE fan of a quality cable attachment. I went from budget Amazon cable attachments to finding the best of the best years ago. But for some reason I skipped one of the most important pieces of the cable attachment experience, the carabiner!

Your basic carabiner works. But in a world of “better”, there are definitely ways to improve on them. The latch mechanism can often stick and be inconsistent. The teeth on the carabiner opening can catch on straps and wraps, or even cut your fingers. And depending on the carabiner size, you can struggle to use it with all of your cable attachments.

The BEST Carabiner For Your Home Gym – 2025

I spent a solid month doing research, deep diving, spending over $500 on carabiners and handling a stupid amount of shapes, sizes, finishes, bends, mechanisms, and more… and I’ve got a few recommendations to make.

The best overall carabiner for general purpose use is the Beyond Power carabiners. They are small, they work with all of my attachments, the carabiner is spring loaded, non-locking, has an easy-to-use oval shape, and NO teeth to the carabiner, along with a massive weight limit. These have been my go-to for all cable attachment work in the past several months.

I’ve even been using them for my chains and several other uses around the gym. I had my dude Sanjiv Gupta, who is a grip specialist, try them out and they worked with all of his various loading pins and apparatuses as well. They are a little expensive, so be forewarned there, but these are my favorite carabiners for the VAST majority of my cable machine work.

The best budget option comes in at under $5 a piece, comes in a number of color options, and are actually our favorite for my daughters Ninja Warrior exploits. The wiregate on these isn’t my favorite for cable attachments, hence why the Beyond Power pieces get the nod, but it is a REALLY close call, and for the price hard to argue.

Some of my cable attachments I added shackles to, and some I added rotating shackles to. I found some that would handle the heavy loads of lifting, and were fairly small in general so we again weren’t wasting any precious range of motion.

Some people really like these rotating shackles, Bells of Steel even started offering them as an upgrade for their cable machines. I wasn’t super impressed by them and found I needed additional carabiners and shackles for them to work with everything I wanted, plus the multiple pins were less than ideal. Your mileage may vary based on your cable machine, cable attachment preferences, and more, so again, if you want to take a full ride on carabiners, check out that article. And if you have a carabiner that you are using currently and don’t have any issues, stay far away from that article.

Wrap-Up

You 100% do not NEED to buy any of the items I listed above, but they could help you get a little more out of your cable machine, or just enjoy using it a bit more. Make sure you pay attention to what kind of cable machine you have, the accessories that will and won’t work with your machine, and decide what is currently missing from your gym. This will help you choose the right cable machine accessories, and skip the rest.

🏅 Own a home gym? Like to save money? Check out my full list of discount codes.