Many people believe that a cable on their home gym has stretched. If a gym cable (or a gym wire as some people call them) has stretched, that indicates that the individual strands have begun to break and the cable itself is approaching the point of catastrophic failure and should be replaced immediately. If this is the nature of the gym cable failure, a close inspection of the entire length of the cable will reveal an unusually thin segment or a bumpy or wavy section at the failure point. If this is the case, inspect the other cables on the gym for defects too.

More often, a "stretched" cable is reported after a home gym has been disassembled and reassembled when a gym is relocated. In most cases, what has been reported as a stretched cable is really a gym cable that has not been correctly routed through the gym's pulley system, not adjusted correctly, not anchored correctly or there is a mechanical obstruction that is not allowing one of the weight selector rods to fully descend into its weight stack, which allows slack in the cable.

Sound gym cables only stretch about 1/8th of an inch over a ten foot length of cable. Anything more than that indicates the presence of a serious problem with a cable or some other part of the gym. This irregularity should be addressed before the strength equipment is used in order to prevent injury to the user.

When using a commercial strength equipment or a home gym, safety should be the first concern. If a gym cable has stretched, has rust showing near the fittings, has thin spots, bulges, damaged sheathing, missing sheathing, is in any way misshapened, kinked, cut or has any defect, don't take a chance on injuring yourself or someone else by ignoring it; replace the cable.