Shoulders hunched forward, bent knees when standing, head that’s leaned forward. Yep, your posture is screaming, “I sit and work on my desk all day!” A sedentary lifestyle leads to bad posture. Sitting all day in front of the computer could be tough. So, understandably, we can’t always be mindful about whether our backs are straight or slouching. We gotta fix that out! How? Two words: Face. Pulls.

With the pandemic still going on, Upwork estimates that 22% of the workforce will work remotely by 2025. That’s 36.2 million Americans. That’s 36.2 million workers sitting in front of the computer even longer than they did in the office. Unless you have posture police watching over you the whole day, it’s hard to keep track of your posture.

Face Pulls

Now, going back to face pulls. As defined by Boxrox, “Face Pulls are an isolation cable (or banded) exercise that activates and improves your back and shoulders.”

Let’s have a look at the benefits of Face Pulls aside from supposedly correcting your years of slouching from the time you were probably a teenager playing fun video games until you become a full-fledged adult working your behind finishing deadlines.

Face Pulls:

• Improve shoulder strength
• Are a great finishing exercise
• Target your body in a unique way
• Improve performance in other areas
• And of course, enhance good posture

How Does It Work?

Face pulls target the muscles that help keep your head and shoulders back. As per Very Well Fit, it “targets the posterior deltoids of the shoulder, which are often neglected by other shoulder exercises. You use a cable pulley machine to pull the weight straight toward your forehead.” What’s great about this exercise is that it won’t give you much fatigue as you would typically get, say, when doing jump squats. Also, if you have the right equipment at home, it’s an exercise that is not time-demanding and is something that you can do in between those long hours of sitting.

Okay, So How Do You Do It?

This is the step-by-step instruction, still from Very Well Fit:

Set up a cable pulley machine, so the pulley system is positioned slightly above your head. Use the rope attachment that features two hand-holds for this exercise.

1. Reach up and grasp the handles with both hands with your palms facing in. Step back until your arms are fully extended, engage your core and lean back slightly, positioning your body at a roughly 20-degree angle.
2. Pull the rope toward you just enough to start lifting the weight from the stack, then engage your shoulders, rolling them back to create good posture—you don’t want your shoulders hunching or rolling forward. This is your starting position.
3. Pull the handles of the attachment straight toward your forehead. Keep your palms facing in as your elbows flare outward toward the sides, engaging the rear delts.
4. Reverse the movement and slowly extend your arms without allowing your shoulders or chest to roll forward as you extend—you want to maintain good posture throughout the exercise.

Alternatively, you could use a resistance band looped on a pole. If you still couldn’t quite picture it out, here’s a video:

This new year is a perfect time to break the sedentary life habit and start practicing good ones. It’s not too late to correct that posture. Personally, we would recommend against using any kind of elastic material being pulled towards your face in a repetitive exercise, if it breaks you could, “put your eye out kid!”