Facial Exercises

15 Mar 2014

Facial Exercises

I stumbled across this some time ago, and try to do a few of these exercises during the day to prevent sagginess and maintain some muscularity in my face to look young, active and healthy. I do some in the morning, during my evening workout, or just anytime I think about it (doing chores, watching TV, etc.).

These exercises are also helpful to 'wake your face up' in the morning.

Watching this video actually made me explode in laughter the first time I saw it.

I don't do the last exercise, but hold a 'kissing/blowing mouth' while contracting my muscles instead. I rarely do the 'bunny' one either.

Have you ever tried similar exercises? Any benefits to report?

Technically it makes sense that doing such exercises will help you maintain some definition in the face. I actually feel a strong burn after doing these for a few minutes.

15 Mar 2014

While I don't do these sorts of facial exercises, I always find that my face has 'lifted' and feels tauter after a 20-minute run (or skipping rope in an equivalent period of time).

16 Mar 2014

Hmm... I think these would be useful for those in maybe a long-term hospital setting where they rarely interact with people or change expressions. I think most people naturally make a lot of these expressions during the day so the face muscles are already contracting and moving.

Also, since there's no before and after, I'm not convinced it makes much of a difference. It actually goes against what plastic surgeons and botox devotees teach - the more elastic you make the skin, the more it wrinkles. I mean botox actually prevents one from making certain expressions to prevent permanent creasing, so not sure how 'expressions until you feel a burn' would be a good thing? Maybe I've got my medical science mixed up somehow, but the philosophies seem at odds with each other.

Honestly, I think ageing and sagging of the face are largely due to genetics, weight and skin care. This means your natural face shape/contouring, whether you have excess weight or bloating (eg. under the neck or on cheeks), lifestyle issues (eg. smoking, drinking) and the elasticity of the skin - which is both genetic and how you take care of it are going to be the main factors at play.

Having said that, I've heard blow-job facial exercises are the fountain of youth. silly

16 Mar 2014

Quote by Dancing_Doll
Hmm... I think these would be useful for those in maybe a long-term hospital setting where they rarely interact with people or change expressions. I think most people naturally make a lot of these expressions during the day so the face muscles are already contracting and moving.

Also, since there's no before and after, I'm not convinced it makes much of a difference. It actually goes against what plastic surgeons and botox devotees teach - the more elastic you make the skin, the more it wrinkles. I mean botox actually prevents one from making certain expressions to prevent permanent creasing, so not sure how 'expressions until you feel a burn' would be a good thing? Maybe I've got my medical science mixed up somehow, but the philosophies seem at odds with each other.

Honestly, I think ageing and sagging of the face are largely due to genetics, weight and skin care. This means your natural face shape/contouring, whether you have excess weight or bloating (eg. under the neck or on cheeks), lifestyle issues (eg. smoking, drinking) and the elasticity of the skin - which is both genetic and how you take care of it are going to be the main factors at play.

Having said that, I've heard blow-job facial exercises are the fountain of youth.

Haha. Yeah, you can include this with my other weird cosmetic practices, along with Derma-Rolling and applying Prep-H under my eyes. tard

I had the exact same doubts as you, to be frank. But then I read a bit about it, and they recommend to do these exercises in front of a mirror to make sure you don't have any laugh lines or crow's-feet crinkles when performing them. Somehow, the skin on my face is rather thick and I don't get any lines even when I try hard to; I'm literally immune to wrinkles. Seriously, I'm quite blessed in that department, all of my grandparents had very few wrinkles. But there are some sagginess issues on my father's side. These exercises also don't stretch the skin more than when performing common expressions; you just hold them long enough to feel a sensation.

My main issue is slight sagginess in the corners of my mouth, but mostly I have those baby-cheeks whenever I bulk and gain some weight, which tend to accentuate that sagginess. I look like a sad baby (lol). I've always accumulated fat easily in my cheeks; I actually used to whine about it when I was a kid.

When I lose weight though, I'm totally fabulous and even have some grooves in my cheeks. glasses8

I once read that when building muscles at a specific place in your body, you tend to accumulate less fat there because your body distributes weight 'strategically' for balance purposes. So my thinking was building extra muscle in my cheeks to prevent fat from accumulating there too easily. Trading fat for muscle, so to speak.

I also do believe that you can build more muscles in your face than you 'naturally' have by doing every day expressions. Similar to body-building; your arms have 'some' muscularity even if you move around through the day by doing random activities, but you don't get that extra-stimulation to really make them big. It's rare to get a 'burn' in your facial muscles normally, unless you laugh for a few hours continually. I try to do these facial exercises in a similar fashion to the way I train; hold each exercise for around a minute, release, repeat for 3 total sets.

So far, at least it helps to wake my face up in the morning (been doing it for 2-3 weeks). It also just wakes me up in general, and it's not really hard to do. I even perform some of these exercises when I go out in clubs (kidding, haha).

Anyway, as with maaany other tips/tricks concerning cosmetics, the studies/results are rather vague and obscure. And I agree genetics play the biggest part. But technically, it makes some sense to me.