On a 2:1 cable machine — the most common arrangement on dual-pulley functional trainers, and the ratio the Marcy MFT-942 publishes — setting the pin to 100 lb puts roughly 50 lb in your hand. On a 1:1 machine the stack number is the handle number. Nothing is wrong with either; they are different machines. But you cannot compare two cable machines, or a cable machine against a dumbbell, until you know which one you have.
Why a pulley changes the number
A pulley fixed to the frame only changes the direction of a force. A pulley that moves with the load splits it between two lengths of cable, so the end you hold carries half — and travels twice as far. Thread the cable so the stack hangs from a moving pulley and you have a 2:1 machine: half the weight at the handle, double the cable travel, which is what makes a long pulldown stroke possible without a ceiling-height stack.
That is the entire mechanism. There is no trickery in it and no manufacturer is cheating by using it — a 2:1 reeving is what gives a functional trainer its range of motion. The problem is only that most listings print the stack weight and not the ratio, so two machines with identical "200 lb" stacks can deliver 200 lb and 100 lb at the handle.
The arithmetic, in one table
| Pin / plates on the carriage | 1:1 machine — at the handle | 2:1 machine — at the handle | Cable travel for a 6 ft pull |
|---|
| 20 lb | 20 lb | 10 lb | 6 ft / 12 ft |
| 50 lb | 50 lb | 25 lb | 6 ft / 12 ft |
| 100 lb | 100 lb | 50 lb | 6 ft / 12 ft |
| 200 lb (full Marcy stack) | 200 lb | 100 lb | 6 ft / 12 ft |
Friction in the pulleys adds a few percent in practice, so the real handle figure is slightly above the theoretical one. Treat the table as the planning number, not a measurement.
Increments matter more than the maximum
Nobody runs out of weight on a cable machine doing face pulls. What they run into is the step size. A stack that moves in 10 lb plates on a 2:1 machine steps in 5 lb at the handle, which is fine for rows and far too coarse for lateral raises. This is why most stack machines ship with a small "add-on" plate that sits on top of the stack: it halves the first step.
A plate-loaded machine inherits your plate collection's granularity instead. If your smallest plate is 5 lb, your smallest step at the carriage is 5 lb — and on a 2:1 machine, 2.5 lb at the handle, which is better than most stacks. A set of fractional plates takes that down to a quarter-pound at the handle for about the price of a pair of cable handles. That is the single cheapest upgrade available to a plate-loaded trainer owner.
How to measure your own machine in two minutes
You do not have to trust any listing. Hang a luggage scale or a hanging scale between the cable end and a fixed point, load a known weight on the stack or carriage, and pull the slack out slowly until the load just lifts. Read the scale.
- Scale reads about the same as the load: 1:1.
- Scale reads about half: 2:1.
- Scale reads about a third: 3:1, used on some lat towers for long travel.
Do it once, write the ratio on a strip of tape stuck to the frame, and every training log you keep afterwards is comparable. None of the plate-loaded machines we rank publishes a ratio — neither the Mikolo crossover nor the JEEKEE cage states one on its listing — so this is the only honest way to know.
Why cable weight does not translate to barbell weight
Even once you know the handle load, a cable pound is not a barbell pound. A cable loads through the whole range because the pulley holds tension at the top and bottom of the stroke, where a barbell unloads at lockout. The line of pull is also fixed by the pulley position rather than by gravity, so a cable row and a barbell row load different ranges of the same movement.
The practical rule: log cable work in its own column and compare it only to itself. If you want the loads to be comparable between machines, the thing to standardise is the ratio, not the number on the stack.
What to look for on a listing
A published ratio. The Marcy publishes 2:1. Most do not. A brand that prints it is telling you it expects to be checked.
Stack weight per plate, not just the total. Total tells you the ceiling; per-plate tells you the step, and the step is what you will live with.
Cable travel or pulley height count. Seventeen positions, as on the Mikolo crossover, is a range-of-motion spec as much as a convenience one.
Nothing at all. Common, and not disqualifying — it just means you measure it yourself when it arrives. Our wider view on which cable machine to buy is in plate-loaded vs weight-stack cable machines and the ranked list is on the best functional trainers.
