Face Pulls

One of my go-to exercises for shoulder health, correcting a number of postural imbalances, and all round ‘good hygeine’ as a client of mine calls it – is the face pull.  It's safe to say if I have been writing programs for someone, they will have become pretty familiar with face pull variations.

Jim Carrey, an outstanding face puller

In my opinion the face pull is a ‘must do’ movement for pretty much everyone, in its simplest form it encourages a posterior tilt of the scapulae, increases the sub acromial space, and encourages activation of both the lower traps, and the posterior cuff – whats not to love!?

 The sub acromial space - there is rarely a lot of it...

A certain amount of 'impingement' is inevitable, however, poor shoulder mechanics, less than optimal alignment at the scapula thoracic joint, and poor centration of the glenohumeral joint can all contribute to decreased sub acromial space, increased impingement, and hurty shoulder

To set up for the standard face pull there are a couple of key cues to remember

- cable column should be set to head height

- adopt a split stance to minimise the chance of achieving the movement through excessive lumbar extension (lock this down even further with a good squeeze of the glute on the back leg)

- pull the lower ribs down and get a solid brace through the anterior core

- pull the rope grip towards your face (towards, not into - I have seen it done trust me).

- ensure the shoulders stay away from the ears, and the elbows draw up higher than the shoulders

- smile

https://youtu.be/nQXjdUNt6nw



I like to program face pulls for medium to high reps - so anywhere in the 12-25 bracket.  I'm rarely looking to develop a great deal of force production in a movement like this, its much more about creating good movement and 'feeling' the exercise.  As for where they sit in a program, this is usually a C2 and acts as a 'filler' between working sets on secondary assistance movements, I also occasionally use it as a D2 to round off an upper body lifting session thats had a lot of heavy pressing, or even as part of the dynamic warm up for those folks 'stuck' in internal rotation and with a heavy kyphosis. 



Like all the best things in life, face pulls have variations to suit different needs ,  our job as coaches is to select the most appropriate version.  I have listed a few variations that feature most often in my programs - its by no means exhaustive  - but should serve as a decent starting point:

Face Pull to External Rotation (Supinated Grip)

Most useful for those wanting to throw a bit more stress on to the posterior cuff,  easiest to cue this one as two movements - the first pull, and then the external rotation.  Clearly loads will need to be reduced vs the conventional set up otherwise there is a tendency to shrug the weight back rather than engage the cuff (yes I know I totally need a haircut)


Half kneel face pull

I like to use this variation for those with an exaggerated kyphosis, the downward moment of the pull really encourages the posterior tilt these folks can often struggle with.  I will more likely use this variation with a newer trainee to help them understand what it feels like to have the low traps work and open out the chest.

Less useful for the 'athletic meathead' posture of shoulder blades stuck in downward rotation  - with these guys this variation could actually make them worse so make sure you conduct a thorough evaluation and assessment.

Low to High Face Pull

I love this movement for encouraging upward rotation of the shoulder blades.  Ideal for those guys who have deadlifts for breakfast lunch and dinner and find the shoulder blades stuck in downward rotation.   The upward moment on the pull will cause you to initiate a shrug as the arms pass horizontal.  For those with a really aggressive down slope on the collar bone, you may want to cue some upper trap recruitment at this point (yes we need upper traps too).

As above this movement will be great for some, and less so for others - if your client or athlete presents with abducted (winging) and anteriorly tilted shoulder blades,  and upper trap 'dominance', then this one may not be for them.

Summary

The face pull, and its derivatives are an excellent way to keep your shoulders healthy and pain free, improve posture, and allow you to go heavy on the bench press more often (which is the whole point right).

However, and there is always a however, we must must must choose the most appropriate version for the situation in front of us.  As I have alluded to above, the key to designing any form of training program is the assessment - there is no way we can get from point A to point B unless we know where point A is.  And although the face pull is as close a thing as I have seen to a silver bullet for many common shoulder niggles we must choose the correct tool for the job.  To quote the genius that is Eric Cressey if you aren't assessing you're just guessing.

No massive relevance to the article, but there are probably silver bullets in this gun. And who doesn't love Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale.

How Functional is the Overhead Squat?

I am well aware that this post may upset a few people – and whilst upsetting people is not its main aim – I do like to encourage people to challenge ideas, ask questions, and formulate their own opinions rather than blindly follow

 



 

Over the past decade there has been a shift away from the single joint machine based training popularized by Joe Weider in the 80s, and towards ‘functional’ exercise.  I am all for this – preparing people for life outside of the gym  - whether its on the sports field or simply being able to climb the stairs at home without any pain – that is what I’m all about.  However, there is a case to be made for the pendulum having swung too far…

 

[caption id="attachment_81" align="aligncenter" width="224"] Awesome bosu leap brah, let me high five myself in the face[/caption]

A functional exercise by definition must have a function.  As simplistically stupid as that may sound.

The overhead squat is often billed as the ‘king of functional exercise’ and the be all and end all of programming. In many functional gyms.   I would strongly beg to differ on this point.  How many times in your every day life, or even in your sports are you required to hold a load directly overhead and squat to the ground repeatedly, whilst keeping said weight directly over your head?

The overhead squat is a derivative of the snatch – one of the most dynamic and explosive movements in competitive sport.  As well as requiring speed and power, the snatch also requires technical expertise .  The ‘catch’ position of a snatch is, essentially, the bottom of an overhead squat.  For the competitive Olympic lifter – training this movement under load makes a lot of sense – they may have all the speed in the world to get under the bar, but without adequate core stiffness and lower extremity strength they wont be able to get ‘out of the hole’.  If your goal is to perform a loaded snatch, then yes, the OHS will be an important programming concern for you.  Now whether you should be programming the snatch for either yourself or your clients is a while other conversation!

 

[caption id="attachment_82" align="aligncenter" width="236"] Olympic lifter at the bottom of a snatch. note the heels, hips, shoulders, head and the centre of the bar are all directly above one another.[/caption]

The overhead  squat, in my mind, is an excellent assessment tool – it gives an indication of ankle mobility,  hip mobility and stability, core stiffness, thoracic mobility and scapular stability – all important parts of successful and pain free movement.

However – how many people that we assess ace it on every one of those?  Not many…   So how many of those could or indeed should be loaded through this movement pattern?  Even fewer….

 

[caption id="attachment_83" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Well aligned olympic lifter on the left. The guy on the right has neither the ankle, nor hip mobility to be in this position. The bar has to be above his feet or he will fall over - he is going into an excessive lumbar extension, forward head posture and hyper extension of his neck to try to maintain some kind of balance. Note the knees collapsing in due to the excessively wide stance he has had to adopt to get down there, this is also causing inversion at his ankles. We won't even go into whats going on with his shoulders.[/caption]

Heck 90% of the clients I work with (everything from Olympians through weekend warriors, to orthopedic referrals) don’t do any form of overhead lifting. Ever!

Now lets take those small number of  the population who can safely be loaded in an OHS position.  If we remove those who are competitive O – lifters, then what training effects are we going to give to the rest?

Can the person stably support enough weight in the overhead position to get any kind of training effect in their legs and hips?  I doubt it  - not unless the you were looking at higher repetition sets, however, in a high rep set what is going to fatigue first - the upper back or the legs?  When the upper back and the posterior cuff start to give out, and you're plugging away trying to get something out of it for your legs, what takes over?  Your lumbar extensors and the passive retrains in your shoulders - so essentially you promote hyper lordosis and hang out on the ligamentous structures of your shoulders - nice.

At best you may build in some upper back hypertrophy – given the time under tension required through the thoracic extensors. But if thats really your goal there are far safer ways to achieve it.

If I want to train an average Joe or Jane to get stronger, so they can better function in the outside world – surely deadlift variations, anterior loaded squat patterns, and loaded carries have far more relevance…

I’m fairly sure that when I changed my dishwasher the other day I pulled and lifted the old one over the step with it in front of me – I did not hold it above my head and repeatedly squat up and down with it.

If we think through the activities and movement patterns in most peoples daily lives, or indeed within competitive sports, the deadlift, and its derivations are infinitely more ‘fucntional’ than the overhead squat.

This is not to say the overhead squat is an entirely redundant movement.  Far from it.  as mentioned above I find it an excellent assessment tool, a very quick and easy way to get a snapshot of an individuals gross movement patterns.  I also think it has a place as a mobility drill, and I often use it as part of my clients dynamic warm ups.  It has a nice 'feel' for the client getting in and out of the position with stability, and is a great prep for doing some loaded front squats.    However,  just because something is a useful mobility tool does not mean we stick 60% of their bodyweight on a bar and ask them to do it to failure!

As Gray Cook  - creator of the FMS system so simply put it "Train the deadlift, maintain the squat"