> I currently have a pulled neck as a result of too many hours sitting at my desk.
I've found doing face pulls at the gym significantly helped build up all the supporting back/neck musculature that I was beating up sitting at a desk all day. Rows also were pretty helpful for my lower back.
If you're a desk jockey with bad posture you might not want to jump right in to face pulls. I'm a big fan of Athlean-X and all that, but I think a lot of folks aren't ready for even that level of workout. Some of us are so screwed up that the first thing we need is a couple months of foam rolling, scapular activation, awareness training, etc. If you go into face pulls without knowing what a face pull should feel like, you risk ending up with a shoulder issue.
I had shoulder surgery after blowing out my AC joint weightlifting. I went to one PT place that, while good in some areas, focused on strength of my rotators and neglected my mobility. My shoulders got worse after initially getting better and I thought I would need a second surgery. Fortunately I screwed up my lower back so I sought out a new PT place(Catherine at Fields in Motion, Campbell, CA) which not only fixed my back, but identified what was wrong with my shoulder and helped me fix it. It's only now, after months of flexibility and lower-trap strengthening that I know what a face pull is supposed to feel like.
Keep those sternums out, shoulders rolled back, and always keep your core activated(squeeze your cheeks and tighten abs) when you do anything physical. It seems so obvious now, but I went 45 years without figuring it out.
I had to finally learn about face pulls when I was doing hundreds of pushups per day and a bodybuilder friend pointed out how my front/top delt was massive and my rear delt was soft and flat. And sure enough, looking at myself sideways in the mirror, it was pretty comical.
Though there are other ways to work the rear delt. I prefer some rings at home.
A face pull involves setting up a cable machine so you can pull a weight horizontally towards your face, until the handles you're pulling with wind up on either side of your head.
It'd be sort of difficult to do without equipment since it's a cable exercise. If you didn't mind buying some resistance bands, and have a reasonably stable point somewhere at head-height to loop them through as an anchor, you could do that at home. (It's an exercise that you're supposed to do with reasonably light weight, so it wouldn't need to be too sturdy.)
As a personal trainer, yes there are several movements that have the same effect as a Facepull without gym equipment. I would recommend "YTWL" movements in a prone (face down) position. Search YouTube for "YTWL"
It's actually better to start without equipment because those muscles are typically very weak for people who haven't specifically exercised those muscles
I've found doing face pulls at the gym significantly helped build up all the supporting back/neck musculature that I was beating up sitting at a desk all day. Rows also were pretty helpful for my lower back.