Face pulls: the setup, the pull and the turn at the end

A face pull is a cable pull toward your face: a rope set at about head height, elbows high and wide, and a finish where your hands end up beside your ears with the knuckles pointing back. It trains the back of the shoulder and the upper back with a light weight, which is why it usually goes at the end of a shoulder or pull day.

This page covers the setup, the pull itself, what the studies say it trains, the common faults, and the band and dumbbell versions for when there's no cable. Where it sits beside the press and the raises is on the shoulder workout.

How to set up a face pull

1. Set the pulley at about face height, anywhere from your upper chest to your forehead, and clip on a rope.
2. Grip the rope ends with your thumbs pointing back toward you, hands a little apart.
3. Step back until your arms are straight in front of you and the weight has lifted off the stack. A split stance helps you stay put.
4. Stand tall, ribs down, with a very slight lean back. You shouldn't need to lean further as the set goes on.

The pull, step by step

1. Lead with your elbows, pulling them back and out to about shoulder height.
2. Pull the rope toward your forehead, separating the two ends as they come in, so your hands pass either side of your face.
3. Turn at the end. As the elbows stop, keep the hands travelling back so they finish beside your ears, knuckles pointing behind you. That last part is the turn the shoulder makes in a face pull and not in a row.
4. Pause for a second, then let the rope back out under control until your arms are straight. That's one rep.

The movement is two things at once: the arms swing out and back, as in a reverse fly, and the upper arms turn outward at the end. If the rope finishes at your chin with your elbows down by your ribs, it has turned into a row.

What face pulls train

• The rear of the shoulder. In a computer-modeling study of 10 healthy men, the standing face pull and the bent-over dumbbell raise produced about the same estimated force in the rear head of the shoulder, and both produced more than a bent-over dumbbell row.¹ That's an estimate from a model, not measured muscle activity or growth, and it's the only study found that looked at the face pull by name.
• The muscles that turn the arm out. The turn at the end is external rotation, which the infraspinatus and teres minor, two small muscles on the back of the shoulder blade, do together with the rear head of the shoulder.²
• The upper back. Drawing the shoulder blades back works the middle trapezius and the muscles between the shoulder blades, as in any pull with the elbows wide.

For context, a face pull isn't the only way to reach the rear head, or the one with the most evidence. A 2024 review of 33 studies of shoulder muscle activity ranked pull-ups highest for the rear head, with the standard pull-up and an inverted row on suspension straps at the top of the list.³ If your week already has pull-ups and rows, the face pull is extra work for the back of the shoulder, not the only work.

Grip and cues: what has been measured

• Hands turned in. The rope puts your palms roughly facing each other. The closest evidence is from a reverse fly machine: in 19 resistance-trained men, palms facing each other produced more rear-shoulder and infraspinatus activity than palms facing down.⁴ Different exercise, same direction of pull, so a rope is a reasonable default.
• Squeezing the shoulder blades. In 14 resistance-trained men doing a seated row, holding the shoulder blades back for the whole set and letting them move gave comparable overall muscle activity; holding them back raised rear-shoulder activity on the pull.⁵ That's a row, not a face pull, so treat it as a choice rather than a rule: either way worked the upper back about equally. What matters more is not shrugging.

All of this is muscle activity or a model estimate during a few reps, measured in small groups of men. None of it measured growth over months.

The common faults, and a fix for each

• Too heavy, so you lean back. If the torso rocks back to start each rep, the weight is moving you. Take a plate or two off until you can stand still.
• Elbows dropping. Elbows down by the ribs turns it into a row to the chin. Keep them at about shoulder height.
• No turn at the end. Stopping when the elbows stop skips the part that makes it a face pull. Finish with the knuckles pointing back.
• Shrugging. Shoulders creeping up to your ears. Keep the neck long and pull back, not up.
• Letting the rope snap back. Control the return as much as the pull.
• Pulling through pain. Sharp pain is not soreness. Stop, and see a doctor or a physical therapist.

Band and dumbbell versions

A band won't hold you back. A review of eight studies found elastic bands and tubing produced similar strength gains to weight machines and dumbbells, for the upper and the lower body.⁶ For the face pull, the difference is how the load feels: a band gets harder as it stretches, so the end of the pull is the hardest part. (The resistance band workout has a full session.) With dumbbells, the bent-over raise matched the cable face pull in the modeling study,¹ so it's a fair swap when there's no cable.

How face pulls fit a shoulder day

• After the presses and the raises. On the shoulder workout, the face pull can take the reverse fly's slot: two or three sets of about 12 to 16, a rep or two from failure. (How to judge reps left.) The American College of Sports Medicine's 2026 position stand advises at least two sets per exercise.⁷
• Or at the end of a pull day, after the rows and pull-ups, where the back of the shoulder is already warm.
• Pair it with lateral raises for the side of the shoulder: the two light exercises cover the heads that pressing misses.
• Progress slowly. Add reps first, then the smallest weight step the stack allows. On a full cable workout, it slots in at the high pulley.

If you'd rather not plan it alone

A face pull is easy to add; deciding whether your week needs it after the rows and pull-ups you already do is the part a page can't do. Coaching is the version where your workouts are built around the days you actually have, and a weekly call looks at the week you just had and rebuilds the next one. Coaching to build muscle explains how that works, and here's how to apply. Otherwise: set a rope at face height and do two sets of 15, elbows high, knuckles back at the end.