Facial Exercise - Any negative issues?
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free skin care · Mon Sep 06, 2010 2:50 am

Im interested to know if anybody has had problems with lines formed by facial exercise?
I have done eye exercises about 18 months.....and recently noticed a couple of lines had formed in the area where the muscle pulls when i do the exercise. This could also be caused by fat loss i guess.
In general i am a supporter of facial exercise and there seem to be many other supporters online too.
Does anybody have any other negative stories to share......particularly if you have done the exercises for more than a few months?

free skin care · Mon Sep 06, 2010 8:20 am

Not sure about lines, but what seems to be most common complaint is the monkey or chimp mouth which seems to be where the muscles build up and become very thick and prominent. That’s the only negative I’ve seen mentioned countless times with all the systems. Also I know that they don’t all grow at the same speed, so sometimes some muscles pump up and others don’t get with it till a good while into the programs.

Which program have you done? I know with many of the eye exercises I’ve done, they have you hold so lines can’t form and so it may be that you need to adjust your hold to not allow the lines to form?

free skin care · Mon Sep 06, 2010 8:42 am

I have done a variation of eye exercises but in the last few months i hold for a ten count about twenty times every other day.
I think the problem may be that i have built up the eye muscle so the lower part of the muscle has moved away from the upper part of the (unworked) cheek... exposing a small line.
Im hoping that by resting the eyes and focusing on the cheeks it may reduce.

free skin care · Mon Sep 06, 2010 9:12 am

Sean at FE has said that exposing a line tends to relate to lift and it will often work it's wa out as the new cells come forth.

free skin care · Mon Sep 06, 2010 10:40 am

Facial exercise has made my face way too gaunt, so I have cut back substantially. I would advise anyone who's thin to be aware of this side effect. The cheekbones are improved but I'm not sure the tradeoff was worth it.

free skin care · Mon Sep 06, 2010 12:41 pm

Hermosa this is why I have avoided doing exercises that pull the buccinators in, notably crush in Ageless

As for the chimp look, I would love to build up my muscles in the mouth area, as my mouth profile is currently a bit flat! Its all very relative..

free skin care · Mon Sep 06, 2010 1:34 pm

I am sad to say that I think my neck is not taking the neck exercising very well. I think it promoted the stringing (vertical slag under the chin) to more pronounced state. Now when I make certain facial expressions, I notice the string on the middle left side of the front on my neck sort of jump to contracted and then relaxed state.

One salon nurse told me that it happens when muscle is overused like in old people with time you can see pronounced strings under the chin. I thought, it cannot be, my muscle should be getting tighter because I am doing the exercises, but after making more observation, I think I should agree with her. Crying or Very sad

I guess, I have some kind defective muscle on one side, the exercise didn't help. BUT thanks God for BOTOX Very Happy

(I haven't tried it yet, bit I have hopes for it now)

free skin care · Tue Sep 07, 2010 7:11 am

You know no two people (even thin people) will respond to facial exercises identically. With guantness though, I’ve often argued in the past its very much connected to diet and have addressed this many times on the FlexEffect forum, simply as with facial exercises, your literally working facial muscles to much more of a degree than previously, so as a result the facial muscles need things like vits, mins, protein and even carbs to not only recover, but also to make many of the necessary motions or movements. In the past when I started having many clients who were experiencing gauntness, I really went OTT into looking at things like technique and resting etc, but then one day a client said to me: “you know maybe the exercises just aren’t for me as I didn’t have this problem prior to doing them” and for a split second I had to say I was thinking she was on to something but then I had a brainwave, her techniques etc were perfect, so I knew that wasn’t the issue, but I knew she also ate healthy but it suddenly occurred to me that she had reduced the calories she had been eating at the same time as starting facial exercises. So in almost the majority of all the cases where I see gauntness turning up, I tend to look there are more often than not its always the key and people often reveal this without realizing in saying similar things to my client and its very simple to correct although it does take some time.

Having said that, there is always a solution, its just a matter of working out whats taking place with a person. What is interesting though is that you say you have cut back substantially, but if gauntness has shown up and your unhappy with it, I would actually stop exercising the face to allow it to do all that extra repair work and have a break. Then you may want to reintroduce them but not doing them either as intensely perhaps or adding some extra carbs so that your body can make a full and complete recovery. Its important to note though that I’m not talking about going out and eating everything in site and putting on a lot of weight, I’m suggesting that the body is provided with nutrient rich foods to help it to firstly be healthy but secondly to do the deep repair work that is necessary for the face. I wouldn’t think you have to accept that trade off unless you want to.

Hermosa wrote:

Facial exercise has made my face way too gaunt, so I have cut back substantially. I would advise anyone who's thin to be aware of this side effect. The cheekbones are improved but I'm not sure the tradeoff was worth it.

You know the buccinators are often misunderstood by many people, and people will read messages and believe that they will pull in for everyone, but I’ve actually seen a wide variety of responses from people having worked their buccinators. Yes for some they do curve inwards in the beginning, but I’ve also seen this change during a timeframe, so I just mention this to ease any concerns people may have over doing any exercises like this. There’s no guarantee (sadly some might say) that the buccinators will pull inwards.

mowgli wrote:

Hermosa this is why I have avoided doing exercises that pull the buccinators in, notably crush in Ageless

How long Ella-stella have you been doing the exercises for? Are you doing both Ageless and FlexEffect on the same days?

With the neck, it sometimes takes a while for it to really benefit from the exercises, and many times a persons posture is also playing a key role in the appearance of the neck. With the strings though, what I’ve found in many cases is that the skin takes the longest to respond to both tightening up and strengthening simply because it’s the furthest distance from the body. This is clear when you look at examples of people with good posture, your often notice their necklines are very good looking in comparison to someone who is hunched over, or whose shoulders are curving inwards.

Where the salon nurse was kind of wrong, is that the neck isn’t just muscle and so the strings that she mentions under the chin may be muscle for some, but for others it can be skin, but the good news is that all of these (and more) can be improved with facial exercises and/or massage, but with the skin you might want to look at both topical and exfoliants too to help the skin renew itself and become healthier.

Whilst I can understand that there are good reasons for botox with conditions like hyperhydrosis, I often cringe when I hear people use it for antiaging benefits, simply as I don’t see that botox does antiage anything. Yes it can remove and relax frownlines etc, but in doing so by paralyzing the muscles, the muscles simply atrophy faster as a result and so to me it can be just as problematic as anything out there – but hey there are many routes to any destination and people have the right to choose what they want to do (and rightly so).

ella-stella wrote:

I am sad to say that I think my neck is not taking the neck exercising very well. I think it promoted the stringing (vertical slag under the chin) to more pronounced state. Now when I make certain facial expressions, I notice the string on the middle left side of the front on my neck sort of jump to contracted and then relaxed state.

One salon nurse told me that it happens when muscle is overused like in old people with time you can see pronounced strings under the chin. I thought, it cannot be, my muscle should be getting tighter because I am doing the exercises, but after making more observation, I think I should agree with her. Crying or Very sad

I guess, I have some kind defective muscle on one side, the exercise didn't help. BUT thanks God for BOTOX Very Happy

(I haven't tried it yet, bit I have hopes for it now)

free skin care · Tue Sep 07, 2010 7:19 am

I think that in some cases, FE can be too effective. I also became gaunt many months ago....but backed off and things returned to normal.
In order to combat ill effects i think less is more, particularly at a younger age. The most i exercise is every other day and do less reps but longer hold.
I may be at the point now where i can just exercise a couple of times a week and comfortably maintain. That is what i intend to do after having a few weeks rest.
Certainly in your twenties and early thirties, daily facial exercise is overkill IMHO.... especially when you are a slim person.

free skin care · Tue Sep 07, 2010 8:42 am

Sure at a younger age, the goals and repair work isn’t going to be the same goals in place as someone in their middle years or even later years but the trouble is that people all start from different places, with different goals etc and so there is a lot of learning that’s involved and obviously the results aren’t always immediate. But a side note though is that when I have taught clients, they always get to a level where they are happy with their results and just want to maintain, and they can quite easily back off to working out only a few times a week.

However, I have to say that even twenties and thirty years that I have taught, I always recommend them to start out with daily exercises and to exercise everything (say 5 times a week with a two day rest period) simply because they are wanting to achieve a strong foundation (no matter if they are thin) and I have been training enough people now for such a time period to be able to really know that this is the case. Sometimes people get a little over enthusiastic and start customizing things too early on which is where the issues start developing (but these can always be corrected) or doing several programs at once. For example, doing 20 reps to a count of 10 can be quite overpowering for many people and will work the muscle intensely and so as you have seen the facial muscles do respond, but for most people I teach – I never get them needing to do a 10 count or anything like 20 reps, simply as its not necessary and I figure life is already complicated enough. Also as your post above shows, I always find that spot training does create problems, not only visible ones, but also it creates a disharmony in the face and the areas that get neglected look strange in comparison with those that have been trained hard so I tend to have my young clients exercise all the muscles for that very purpose. I like to think that in doing so your working with the body, your strengthening all the muscles and as a result your build a harmonious face.

When you have that foundation level of strength and the face is all good and healthy - the rest becomes so much easier in comparison to not having that at the start. I’ve often found that people who start out doing their own thing never really get the same developments as someone who has followed the suggested routes, but of course things need to be tweaked, and sometimes people are happy doing this on their own, and sometimes they need some guidance and provided they achieve the goals they are aiming for its all good in my opinion.

Also realized that Sis quoted me here and just wanted to add that when lines are exposed, the tissue to some extent has been compromised and damaged already (which is how the line was able to form) be it sundamage, expression formed etc so the main goal where there are lines in place is to get the tissue back to optimal health using things like exercises and massage to allow the body to repair and so the lines can and will go over time, but obviously that’s a factor that some people dislike.

Sun Sep 19, 2010 1:25 pm

I am new to facial exercises, and I notice some people here complain about the "chimp mouth" effect from certain exercises/programs. Now, I know what a chimpanzee's mouth looks like, lol, but I am still not clear about what people here are describing. Are you referring to the harsh vertical lines/wrinkles above a chimp's mouth, which are very similar to smokers' lines? Or, are you referring to the increased space/build that forms between the bottom of the nose to the upper lip? Does anyone here notice a thinning/curling in of the upper lip (similar to a chimp's) due to exercise? I am asking these questions because I have a long nose and would like to increase the space between my upper lip and my droopy nasal tip. Currently, I am experimenting with Facercise's nose shortener exercise. Also, I have naturally full lips, and a small, short chin, so I am not sure if I would look better with the "chimp effect." Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

free skin care · Sun Sep 26, 2010 10:11 am

Diega36 wrote:

I am new to facial exercises, and I notice some people here complain about the "chimp mouth" effect from certain exercises/programs. Now, I know what a chimpanzee's mouth looks like, lol, but I am still not clear about what people here are describing. Are you referring to the harsh vertical lines/wrinkles above a chimp's mouth, which are very similar to smokers' lines? Or, are you referring to the increased space/build that forms between the bottom of the nose to the upper lip? Does anyone here notice a thinning/curling in of the upper lip (similar to a chimp's) due to exercise? I am asking these questions because I have a long nose and would like to increase the space between my upper lip and my droopy nasal tip. Currently, I am experimenting with Facercise's nose shortener exercise. Also, I have naturally full lips, and a small, short chin, so I am not sure if I would look better with the "chimp effect." Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

Hi Diega36!

Chimp mouth means when the mouth muscle is overbuilt and is bulging outwards. It sort of looks like a tire is encircling the lips, if that helps better describe it.

Generally, facial exercises decrease the distance between the nose tip and the top of the lip, by strengthening and building the upper lip and helping it to curl more upwards in a pout....I'm not sure how to do the opposite.

Btw, Carole Maggio's Nose Shortener exercise is great. I've been doing it for years, and it does help keep the nose in check. Perhaps this is mostly want you need/want instead??

HTH Smile

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