face pulls

Face Pulls are great for targeting the muscles in your upper back, shoulders, and traps. This exercise not only contributes to upper body strength but also promotes good posture overall. It’s worth adding to your back workout.

Here we will delve into the muscles worked, how to perform Face Pulls, benefits, common mistakes to avoid, reps and sets, how to progress this exercise, how and where to fit it into your workout plan and finally other exercises targeting the same muscle groups.

Muscles Worked when Performing Face Pulls

Rear Deltoids (Posterior Delts): These muscles are responsible for the backward motion of your arm, they support and stabilise the shoulders and play a key role in any pull exercises.

Trapezius (Traps): This is the broad flat muscle that extends from your cervical spine to your thoracic region. Specifically, Face Pulls engage the upper traps, enhancing their strength and definition.

Rhomboids: These upper back muscles are also engaged during Face Pulls

Rotator Cuff Muscles: This group of muscles surrounding the shoulder joint play a crucial role in shoulder stability.

You can use the muscle highlighted image at the top of this page for a visual guide of the muscles worked.

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How to Perform Face Pulls

Follow these steps to perform face pulls correctly:

1. Cable Setup: Head over to the cable machine and adjust the height of the cable to be level with your face. Ensure the pin is securely in place after making the adjustment. Attach a rope fitting and select a comfortable starting weight.

2. Grip and Stance: Stand facing the cable machine, gripping the ends of the rope attachment with both hands and holding them out directly in front of your face. Take a step back. Maintain an upright posture and keep your feet shoulder-width apart.

3. Pulling Motion: Step back again if needed and and lean back slightly to create enough space for pulling the middle of the rope directly toward your face.

4. Pull Apart: As you pull the rope attachment, pull it apart so that your hands end up on either side of your face. Stop before the middle of the rope attachment reaches your face.

5. Arm Position: Keep your arms parallel to the ground throughout the exercise. Hold the position for a second when your back muscles are fully contracted and engaged.

6. Return to Start: Release the rope attachment through the same clean and controlled movement back to the start position.

7. Go for reps.

Benefits of Face Pulls

Adding Face Pulls to your workout routine offers several benefits:

Upper Back Development: Face pulls target the often-overlooked smaller, but equally important upper back muscles, promoting balanced upper body strength.

Strong Shoulders: Strengthening the rear deltoids and rotator cuff muscles can help improve shoulder stability and reduce the risk of injuries.

Improved Posture: By working the upper back muscles, Face Pulls can contribute to better posture and cervical spinal alignment.

Face Pulls: Common Mistakes to Avoid

To make the most of your Face Pulls and reduce the risk of injury, steer clear of these common mistakes:

Neglecting Form: Sloppy reps may lead to improper muscle engagement, which will not only impact your results, it could also result in repetitive strain or acute injury. Focus on maintaining good posture and correct form throughout the exercise.

Lack of Mind-Muscle Connection: Pay attention to the muscles you intend to target during face pulls, ensuring effective engagement. If it helps check the muscle highlighted image on this page, it shows you exactly which muscles you should be engaging with this exercise.

No Momentum: Avoid swinging or using your body to pull the weight. Pull with your arms through your shoulders and elbows. Everything else should be stabilised throughout the exercise.

Reps and Sets

It’s on you to determine how many reps and sets you should perform. It depends on your goals, but more generally speaking, it depends on how much weight you can lift.

Beginners: Start with simply mastering the move. Keep in mind that if you’re just starting out, 4 reps is a valid set.

To determine how many reps/sets of Face Pulls you should start with, you first need to figure out how many reps you can comfortably perform. Then add 2, and perform that number of reps for 3 sets.

For example; let’s say you can perform 4 reps comfortably. Add 2 to make 6 reps. Perform those 6 reps 3 times over, allowing yourself sufficient rest inbetween.

Experienced lifters: You know your body and its abilities better than anyone, use your own judgment.

We recommend that you avoid performing more than 12 reps per set. If you’re comfortably performing 12 reps for up to 6 sets, it’s time to make the exercise more challenging.

How to Make Face Pulls More Challenging

You can make this exercise more challenging by simply increasing the weight you are working with. Alternatively, to make Face Pulls more challenging, you can slow the exercise down to increase your time under tension. You can also slow down half the exercise, so pull out at normal speed and then slowly release the cable back to start position in a clean and controlled movement.

How to Incorporate Face Pulls into Your Workouts

Face pulls fit nicely into your back workouts, but can also be placed in any shoulder workout or a general upper body workout. Pair them with exercises such as Lat Pulldowns, Rows or Triceps Ropes Pulldowns.

Because this is a cable exercise, targeting smaller muscle groups, it is best placed towards the end of your workout, so after all barbell and dumbbell exercises, but before any bodyweight or ab exercises.

You can learn more about exercise order here.

Exercises that Work Similar Muscles to Face Pulls

To complement the effects of face pulls and target similar muscle groups, consider adding exercises like Reverse Flyes, Cable Rows or Rear Delt Flys to your workout. You can also check out some other back exercises at the bottom of this page. Or you can check out our entire exercise database, broken down by muscle group here.

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