Shoulder health exercise
Face Pull
Build posterior shoulder and upper-back health under a heavy contact load.
- Equipment
- Cable machine, rope attachment
- Sides
- Both sides together
- Positions
- All positions
- Tempo
- 20X1
Setup
Rope attachment on a cable at roughly face height, or a band anchored at head height.
How to do it
- Pull the rope towards your eyebrows with your elbows high, finishing with your hands wide and your thumbs pointing back.
- Keep it light - this is a shoulder-health exercise, not a heavy row, and loading it up defeats the purpose.
- Do 3 sets of 12 to 20 reps.
Coaching cues
- Pull to the eyebrows, elbows high
- Finish hands wide, thumbs back
- Keep it light
Common mistakes
- Loading it heavy so it becomes a row
- Shrugging the traps instead of pulling with the rear delts
Sets and reps by goal
| Goal | Load | Sets | Reps | Rest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Size | Light | 3 | 12 to 20 | 60 sec |
Tempo 20X1: Take 2 seconds to lower it, no pause, lift it as fast as you can, hold for 1 second at the end of the lift.
Related exercises
- Shoulder External RotationStrengthen the rotator cuff for stability in contact.
- Rugby Shoulder Stability CircuitBuild shoulder stability for contact with a fifteen-minute band and ball circuit.
- Isometric Neck HoldsBuild neck stiffness in all directions with no equipment at all.
- Cable Neck IsometricsLoad the neck progressively with a cable and head harness, in four directions.
- Band Neck WorkGet scalable, portable neck loading that a whole squad can actually comply with.
- Back SquatBuild maximal bilateral lower-body strength, the foundation of scrum drive and contact.