I’ve tried them and the back is upper back gets smoked.
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Interesting, last time I did face pulls it actually felt like I hurt my rotator cuff as opposed to helping it, was messed up for a week. Maybe the cable is to high on the machine I have at home to do face pulls. Thought I had good form but IDK, maybe I was doing it wrong.
Their grip is wrong however. A proper facepull has your thumbs pointing towards you and incorporate external rotation into the movement. These are just rows.
Both can be done depending on what you want to work. The thumbs toward you allows for external rotation to occur which is a big part of the “therapeutic” aspect of face pulls though.
I personally always do my face pulls with a slight forward angle as depicted otherwise my traps get involved too much. It also avoids cheating by using your body weight to move the weight (on the standing version)
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Might be a controversial statement due to universal love of facepulls but cable sword pulls are a better exercise than facepulls.
Nope, just a different variation. Nothing wrong with either.
Note the form in the video in this thread. Scapular retraction and protraction is key, and I like the separation of the retraction and pull as well. Also @themaineventman you will notice the hand positioning. Again, just personal preference.
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Just as I suspected, was at the wrong angle and because of that I was doing it improperly. This was very helpful, thank you.
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I’ve been trying forever to not make my shoulders ache (facepulls, external rotations, trap 3 exercise) and I tried 4 exercises that made them feel great. You talked about the benefits of constant tension with shoulders I found shoulder plate rotations, full front raises, shoulder around the worlds work but the best was when i combined gironda swings with shoulder around the worlds using a plate. Ty for introducing gironda swings and the value of constant tension for shoulder health.
