T Nation

Band Face Pulls, How Heavy?

#1

Yo Folks. Started working out in my garage a few months ago. As such, I lost access to a lot of those fun machines that helped me avoid confronting my terrible BP form. Had a couple weird weeks with shoulder kinks.Fast forward to today. I mounted a bracket on my wall and started doing band face pulls. Love the shit out of them.

Question: How heavy do you guys go on band face pulls before you stop. For arguments sake let’s assume I’m going to keep using them as assistance on bench and OHP day in a 5x10 kinda sense. Progressing forever on these doesn’t feel like the smartest move.

#2

Most people go for sets of at least 15…many go right up to sets of 25+…volume as opposed to sheer weight I think is key here, at least as a general approach. I know when I do face pulls, a lot of the time I barely even count reps, I just keep going until I feel fairly fatigued & pumped up.

#3

Makes perfect sense. Not sure if I can turn my OCD off long enough to not count the reps, but everything else sounds great.

Thanks!

#4

As heavy as possible while being able to fully control the movement from full range (i.e. not very heavy) e.g. pause at peak contraction. Might be talking semantics here but I don’t see face pulls as an assistance exercise but more prehab/rehab work. So the goal isn’t to add as much weight to the movement as possible ala an actual assistance exercise.

Maybe add weight sparingly and focus on adding volume and maintaining quality of movement. Another option is mixing it up. Slow and controlled one day and heavier on another