Face Pull: How to Do It, Muscles Worked and Mistakes

By Alex Lawrence · Updated 4 November 2026

Primary muscles: Rear delts, Upper back
Secondary muscles: Traps
Equipment: Cable

The face pull is a cable exercise where you pull a rope towards your face with your elbows high, training the rear delts and the middle traps that pull your shoulder blades together. It’s light, joint-friendly and fits at the end of almost any upper-body day.

What muscles do face pulls work?

Face pulls mainly work your rear delts and the middle and lower traps, with the upper traps and the small rotator cuff muscles helping. The rear (posterior) part of your deltoid pulls your upper arm back and turns it outwards. The middle trapezius squeezes your shoulder blades together.

Most of us train the muscles we can see in the mirror and forget the ones behind us. Face pulls are the equivalent of tidying the back of the wardrobe: nobody notices straight away, but everything at the front hangs better for it.

How to do a face pull

Set a cable pulley at about forehead height with a rope attachment, then pull the rope towards your face, splitting the ends so your hands finish beside your ears.

Set up. Put the pulley at head height or a little above. Hold the rope with your palms facing each other (or thumbs pointing back towards you) and step back until your arms are straight and the stack lifts.
Brace. Stand tall with a slight bend in your knees, one foot slightly forward if that feels steadier. Ribs down, no leaning back.
Pull. Lead with your elbows and pull the rope towards your nose or forehead. Keep your elbows at shoulder height or higher.
Split and rotate. As the rope reaches your face, pull the two ends apart and turn your hands back so your knuckles point behind you, like a double-biceps pose.
Pause, then return. Hold for a second, then let your arms straighten under control. Don’t let the stack slam.

Form cues that help

The cue that fixes most face pulls is “elbows high, hands back”: if your elbows drop, it turns into a row.

Elbows at or above your shoulders. Low elbows shift the work to the lats and biceps.
Pull the rope apart, not just towards you. The split at the end is where the rear delts and rotator cuff earn their keep.
Shoulders down, away from your ears. You’ll feel your upper traps join in a bit. That’s fine, as long as they aren’t doing the whole job.
Slow on the way back. Two seconds out, one second pause, about two seconds back is a good rhythm.

Think of it like opening a pair of heavy curtains from the middle: elbows up, hands apart, and you finish standing tall rather than hanging off them.

Common face pull mistakes

The most common mistake is going too heavy, which turns the face pull into a backwards lean and a jerk.

Mistake	What it looks like	Fix
Too much weight	Leaning back, rope stopping short of your face	Drop the weight until you can pause at your face for a second
Elbows dropping	Rope pulled to your chest or chin	Raise the pulley and lead with your elbows
No split at the end	Hands stay together in front of your nose	Pull the rope ends past your ears
Shrugging	Shoulders creeping up to your ears	Set your shoulders down before each rep
Rushing the return	Stack crashes between reps	Count two seconds on the way back

Sets, reps and weight

Face pulls work best with moderate-to-light loads and higher reps: 2–4 sets of 12–20 reps is a sensible starting point. The ACSM position stand supports a wide range of loads and reps for muscle growth, and small muscles like the rear delts tend to respond well to the lighter end, where you can control every rep.

Add reps before you add weight. When you can do all your sets at the top of your range with a pause at your face, go up one plate on the stack.

Face pull alternatives

If the cable stack is taken, any exercise that pulls your arms back and out with your elbows high works the same muscles.

Band face pull: the same movement with a resistance band tied at head height. Ideal at home.
Reverse pec deck (rear delt fly machine): sit facing the pad and sweep your arms back. Easier to load steadily.
Bent-over dumbbell reverse fly: hinge forward and raise light dumbbells out to the sides, thumbs up.
Prone Y-raise: lie face down on an incline bench and raise light dumbbells in a “Y”. This biases the lower traps.

Face pulls feature in our trap workout, push pull legs and upper lower split guides. You can log them in Get Gains and watch the weight and reps climb week by week.