Band face pull

What it is

Anchor a band at roughly head height — a door anchor, a railing, a post. Take an end in each hand, palms facing each other or down, and step back until there is tension.

Pull the band towards your face, leading with the elbows and keeping them high, roughly level with your shoulders. As your hands arrive either side of your head, your forearms should be rotating outward so your knuckles finish pointing up and back. Return under control.

The name is literal: the band comes to your face.

What it demands

Scapular retraction, plus external rotation of the shoulder under load — the job of infraspinatus and teres minor, which are small muscles doing a job that several much larger muscles oppose.

The rear portion of the deltoid and the middle trapezius do most of the pulling.

Coordination, more than most band movements. Getting the elbows high and the rotation happening at the same time takes a few attempts.

What usually goes wrong

Elbows dropping. They fall to the sides and it becomes an ordinary row. High elbows are what makes it a face pull.

No rotation. The hands arrive at the face with the forearms still horizontal. The external rotation at the end is the part that distinguishes this from everything else in the collection.

Too much resistance. It becomes a whole-body heave and the small muscles stop contributing.

Anchoring badly. A band snapping off a door handle at head height is worth avoiding.

Where it sits

One of the more useful things a single band can do, because it trains external rotation as part of a pulling movement rather than as an isolated drill.

That matters because external rotation strength is typically much lower than internal rotation strength in most people — two small muscles against several large ones — and this is a way to work it that does not feel like rehabilitation.

The band pull-apart is the simpler version needing no anchor; band external rotation isolates the rotation on its own.