Combatting Cheek Hollows and Lower Face Thinness
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free skin care · Mon Aug 27, 2012 8:06 pm

P.S. I don't disagree that the position and angle used by CFF, Loulou, etc., are correct. In fact, I use a similar exercise in my arsenal. The point that you have wrong is that in this exercise, you are indeed applying resistance perpendicular to the muscle. Here's how you judge this: notice that at the outer corner of your eyes, the muscle fibers run vertically. BUT in this exercise, you apply resistance horizontally and hence are indeed applying resistance perpendicular to the muscle fibers.

The exercises you are doing are fantastic and I use similar ones myself. I don't dispute the exercise, and I use it regularly myself and think that it is excellent. However, if undereye hollows is a concern, what I am saying is that that exercise targets the outer eye area better than it targets the undereye area. Hence, to target all of the eye muscle, I recommend varying the placement and direction of resistance along the eye muscle fibers in the appropriate manner for a sphincter muscle (perpendicular to the fibers).

free skin care · Mon Aug 27, 2012 8:14 pm

Very well explained, CM. Thorough, technical, backed up by science. I like it Smile

Thanks!

free skin care · Mon Aug 27, 2012 11:11 pm

cm5597 wrote:

Nonie, I disagree with you, and so do people with PhDs in muscle physiology.

I don't want this to get too technical, but in considering skeletal muscle, there are a few general types of muscles (can be classified by shape and/or force-generation axis):

(1) Longitudinally arranged muscle: Muscles for which the force is generated parallel to the muscle fiber. You are claiming that all muscles fall into this category, which is just completely wrong.

(2) Unipennate muscles: muscles for which the force is generated not parallel to the muscle fiber

(3) Multipennate muscles: muscles that don't have a single axis or direction, in that all fibers are not aligned.

(4) Circular or sphincter muscles: muscles generate force by squeezing, and hence the applied force is perpendicular to the muscle rings.

http://muscle.ucsd.edu/musintro/arch.shtml

http://faculty.etsu.edu/forsman/Histologyofmuscleforweb.htm

The eyes are sphincter muscles, and hence resistance should be applied roughly perpendicular to the fibers. As another example of a sphincter muscle where the force is applied perpendicular to the fibers is the mouth muscle.

Can you imagine applying the force parallel to your mouth muscle fibers? It would be like pushing the middle of your upper lips to the left with your fingers and thinking that would provide resistance for your upper lip; that would be ridiculous and it wouldn't work. Instead, we all push our lips against our fingers, and the pushing inwards is in the direction perpendicular to the mouth muscle fibers. I hope that example illustrates things well.

Hence for all SPHINCTER muscles in my body (including my eyes), I apply the resistance PERPENDICULAR (or roughly so) relative to the muscle fibers AT THE SPECIFIC POSITION that I apply the resistance.

Regardless, intuitively, you want to resist the contraction so whatever angle works best for you in doing that is what I recommend.

And finally, in terms of placement (not direction), you can place your fingers whereever you want along the eye muscle. Loli (of FlexEffect), herself, also alternates the position of her fingers along her eye muscles, and Carole Maggio of Facercise also agrees and has exercises that put resistance at different places along the eye muscle, including under the eyes in the inner corner. Just make you you have the direction right (including right for your anatomy).

cm5597 you and I will never agree on anything and that's just fine. And you are putting words into my mouth. I never claimed all muscles are longitudinal. What I stated is that when doing resistance training, resistance should be applied against contraction regardless of what muscles you're working so your post didn't really explain what was wrong with what I said. All it did was just let everyone know you know various muscles and how they lie in the body but it doesn't change the point I made. I don't know what your classification of different muscles has to do with the price of eggs in the realm of our discussion but just so that everyone can see my point, I'll address each muscle you mentioned.

Let's take the mouth muscle. A circular muscle whose contraction is inward like the clenching of anal muscles. If one were to work the mouth muscle using resistance, one would have to find a way to work against the direction of contraction. So as the facial flex gadget does, it exerts a force against the contraction of that muscle. (I will return to the eye muscle later...to show how wrong your understanding of this is and why FE's resistance application is the reason for all the damaged eyes we've read about.)

Let's take the shoulder muscle. That's a multipennate muscle. Now because the muscle branches out in different directions, when working the shoulder muscles you need to do various moves if using a dumbell to hit the muscles in the directions they lie.

The bicep muscle while made of longitudinal/parallel fibers is usually put in a different category (fusiform) because the muscle bulges out in the middle. But for our purposes it provides a good example of a muscle fibers that are parallel and for which contraction is in one direction so resistance has to be applied against the contraction of the muscle. But if you wanna be anal and stick to REAL parallel muscles, then the rectus abdominus is one. If you do crunches with a weight held at your chest then you are providing resistance against the shortening of the muscle as is the way resistance should be applied.

So let's go back to the eye muscles. Unlike the mouth muscles where you can insert your fingers into the HOLE of the circle the muscle creates so that you are exerting a force against the contraction of the sphincter muscle, the eye muscle happens to have an eyeball in the way. And while it does contract in a way that makes the HOLE small (as all sphincter muscles do) the contraction is toward the inner corner of the eye. That is why wrinkles form in this fashion:

Because the pull during contraction is toward the nose so the wrinkling is fanning from that point.

Let's look at a diagram of the muscles of the eye:

As Lotusesther mentioned, the skin around the eyes is very delicate and deserves respect. If you pull on it wrong, you'll end up with a lot of loose skin and hence wrinkles (Touché!)

Let's consider the various ways the programs I believe in apply resistance. There's Eva Fraser's way where you place your fingers around the top of they eye over your eyebrow. Even with contraction happening toward the inner corner of the eye, your fingers are basically providing resistance over the top circle of the muscle so that contraction will be against that resistance. And this is why Eva's program changed my hooded eyelids to the eyes I have today with no hint of ever having been hooded.

Let's consider Loulou's way of placing fingers on the outer corner of the eye. IMO this is ideal because again the finger is going an area that is being pulled inward toward the inner corner of the eye. Eva does this too. Carole Maggio and Carolyn Cleaves place fingers on the inner and outer corners of the eyes which is very similar to the mouth resistance that Tom applies for his mouth exercise or the facial flex gadget applies. Resistance is applied at the outer ends of the sphincter muscle as if to hold it into place since contraction is inward and will work against that hold.

Carolyn Cleaves and Tom Hagerty have another placement of fingers, under the eyes but toward the outer corners of the eyes.

This again takes advantage of the fact that the pull of the contraction will be toward up and toward the inner corner of the eye so by placing resistance diagonally below the eyes, fingers are at the tails of the arrows of contraction so that again it against the contraction of the muscle.

Now let's look at the placement of the fingers in FE, the one I believe was the reason my eyes got ruined. Fingers are placed under the eye.
What's more, instead of realizing that you're dealing with a thin muscle hence you should be applying gentle resistance, Deb tells you to pull down really hard then flex upward. She did it in the 2nd Edition DVD and told me over the phone you had to be that aggressive to see results--even in my naivety I knew that looked wrong hence my call. So not only do you stretch the delicate skin of the eyes threatening to ruin its elasticity, but because you are pulling down on the bottom of the circular muscle, you are not applying pressure on the muscle in a way that is against the CIRCULAR INWARD pull of the muscle. You have the contraction being inward but more toward the nose, and you have your fingers in the middle of the contraction and somewhat parallel.

To understand this, here's the diagram again showing how the orbicularis contracts:

Instead of placing fingers at the point from which the arrows originate, y'all place fingers directly under the eye. So you have contraction below the eye happening in a horizontal direction that curves upward toward inner corner and y'all are pulling down? Question

How the hell is that providing resistance for that contraction???

See cm5597 you could jump in here and throw in big words to show your knowledge of different muscles and how they behave but there's no way you can convince anyone who's paying attention that the placement of fingers in 2nd Edition FE lower eyelid resistance exercise which is also repeated in 3rd Edition is the correct way to exert resistance for that eye muscle.

So fitgineer don't let the fancy scientific language impress you. Think logically about what is being said here and realize that when working a circular muscle, perpendicular exertion of pressure is best applied by applying resistance in a way that seems to stop the muscle from getting smaller. If the contraction is equal from all sides, then resistance would have to be applied in equally opposite directions so that the circular muscle pressing inward against the resistance uniformly. In the case of the eye muscle, while indeed it does tighten in a way to close the hole of the circle, pull is more inward from the outside part of the muscle as the inner part of the muscle is somewhate anchored. So if not placing fingers on both inner and outer corners where the muscles converge, then you MUST at least place resistance on the outside part of muscle the as the pull is mostly away from there.

Anyone who wants to test my theory, lightly close your eyes and gently place your fingers at the outer corners of your eyes gently while your eyes are relaxed. Now keeping fingers there, tightly close your eyes and notice how your fingers are pulled inward or at least you'll feel the muscle move inward.

Now place your fingers under your eyes in the center, whether on the ocular bone, or even on the muscle itself gently again and once again close your eyes tightly. Notice how you either don't feel the muscle movement of the eye muscle...or if you do feel it, it's like you have gathering of the muscle on the outside as if your fingers are in the way...or if you have good tone, you'll feel your fingers move sideways...in a horizontal direction CONFIRMING my point about how applying resistance under the eye in a downward direction pull makes no sense as contraction is horizontal in the area below the eyes and it most certainly that sort of pull is NOT PERPENDICULAR to or AGAINST the contraction no matter how you look at it--which is what resistance training is all about.

free skin care · Tue Aug 28, 2012 9:07 am

CM, Nonie,
I want to thank you both for your input. I do not have any experience nor knowledge of facial exercises, so I cannot yet chime in on the issue. After all, I believe I indirectly asked the question that started the exchange of posts between a few members on this thread, so I am hungry for your replies and I appreciate you taking the time to explain you points of view.
I wish I could say that I am going to experiment on myself, but the truth is, I do not want to take the risk, so I am going to read as much as I can before I reach a conclusion on the finger positioning that I am comfortable with around the eye area.
-fitgineer

free skin care · Tue Aug 28, 2012 4:34 pm

Thanks Nonie and CM. Even though you both seem to have opposing views most of the time, I really appreciate all the detailed explanations provided. They are making me rethink the way I do my eye exercises. Looking at things in a different way is always a good thing.

Wed Aug 29, 2012 7:47 am

Hi, Nonie.

I follow CFF, and Carolyn has an eye exercise where you pull directly below the eyes (albeit on the top of the cheekbones). Do you do that one?

TIA for your reply.

free skin care · Wed Aug 29, 2012 3:28 pm

newera wrote:

Hi, Nonie.

I follow CFF, and Carolyn has an eye exercise where you pull directly below the eyes (albeit on the top of the cheekbones). Do you do that one?

TIA for your reply.

Hi newera,

Yes I do all of Carolyn's exercises and to me the placement of her fingers are more toward the outer corners not directly under. Also, because I was pretty sure pulling down under my eyes was the reason my eyes got messed up in the first place, I do not pull; I simply place my fingers on the orbital bone without pulling then I do this exercise as gently as I possibly can. In other words, I take this piece of advice, found in one of Carolyn's articles on her website, to heart:

Quote:

When performing exercises around the eyes, all exercises should be performed again, with a light touch and less vigorous movement when exerting a “stretch”. This will allow toning and firming that is just right for your facial build.

Source: http://www.carolynsfacialfitness.com/how-to-achieve-the-build-you-want-using-the-right-touch

Thu Aug 30, 2012 2:34 pm

Nonie aka AD wrote:

newera wrote:

Hi, Nonie.

I follow CFF, and Carolyn has an eye exercise where you pull directly below the eyes (albeit on the top of the cheekbones). Do you do that one?

TIA for your reply.

Hi newera,

Yes I do all of Carolyn's exercises and to me the placement of her fingers are more toward the outer corners not directly under. Also, because I was pretty sure pulling down under my eyes was the reason my eyes got messed up in the first place, I do not pull; I simply place my fingers on the orbital bone without pulling then I do this exercise as gently as I possibly can. In other words, I take this piece of advice, found in one of Carolyn's articles on her website, to heart:

Quote:

When performing exercises around the eyes, all exercises should be performed again, with a light touch and less vigorous movement when exerting a “stretch”. This will allow toning and firming that is just right for your facial build.

Source: http://www.carolynsfacialfitness.com/how-to-achieve-the-build-you-want-using-the-right-touch

Thank you, Nonie. Looks like the hold you use is the same as Tom Hagerty's with no pulling down. Carolyn's method is gentle enough for me, but I can understand your cautiousness.

free skin care · Thu Aug 30, 2012 4:40 pm

Hi Nonie, I was always afraid to pull my under eye area downwards so I used to do eye exercises without any resistance, just trying to raise my lower lids up , like in the blinking motion but more forcefully; anyways, for the past few times I have been placing fingers on the outer corner of eyes, as you suggested, and I really feel the resistance, gentle enough though.. and it seems to give my eye area a pretty good work out, so thank you!

free skin care · Thu Aug 30, 2012 9:31 pm

daler wrote:

Hi Nonie, I was always afraid to pull my under eye area downwards so I used to do eye exercises without any resistance, just trying to raise my lower lids up , like in the blinking motion but more forcefully; anyways, for the past few times I have been placing fingers on the outer corner of eyes, as you suggested, and I really feel the resistance, gentle enough though.. and it seems to give my eye area a pretty good work out, so thank you!

Hi daler,

Thank you so much for that feedback. Good for you for listening to that caring voice inside that warns us when something may not be good for us. I ignored mine and boy did I pay for it. I'm glad I was able to help. Smile

newera wrote:

Nonie aka AD wrote:

newera wrote:

Hi, Nonie.

I follow CFF, and Carolyn has an eye exercise where you pull directly below the eyes (albeit on the top of the cheekbones). Do you do that one?

TIA for your reply.

Hi newera,

Yes I do all of Carolyn's exercises and to me the placement of her fingers are more toward the outer corners not directly under. Also, because I was pretty sure pulling down under my eyes was the reason my eyes got messed up in the first place, I do not pull; I simply place my fingers on the orbital bone without pulling then I do this exercise as gently as I possibly can. In other words, I take this piece of advice, found in one of Carolyn's articles on her website, to heart:

Quote:

When performing exercises around the eyes, all exercises should be performed again, with a light touch and less vigorous movement when exerting a “stretch”. This will allow toning and firming that is just right for your facial build.

Source: http://www.carolynsfacialfitness.com/how-to-achieve-the-build-you-want-using-the-right-touch

Thank you, Nonie. Looks like the hold you use is the same as Tom Hagerty's with no pulling down. Carolyn's method is gentle enough for me, but I can understand your cautiousness.

Hi newera,

Nice to know this. Since I've been too chicken (post trauma?) to dare, it's nice to hear that people don't have to be afraid to do it the way you do. Thanks for sharing. Smile

free skin care · Fri Aug 31, 2012 12:12 pm

Nonie,

On the matter of your opinions of FlexEffect, the subject of being too aggressive, etc., I think that you and I disagree on what constitutes being too aggressive. But I think we both agree that there is certainly such thing as being too aggressive; it's just that we draw our lines at different points along the gentle to aggressive spectrum. My personal stance is that you can be quite aggressive, but the older you are, more underlying damage you have, the slower your recovery time, the shorter you've been training, etc., the gentler you have to be. If you have number of such factors, then you totally do want to start up gently and work you way up to find that "goldilocks spot" of being appropriately aggressive (or gentle, as the case may be) for you personally to see the best results. And I recommend anyone who has serious doubts to start off gently, but as you gain confidence, experiment every now and then with more.

On the topic of our discussion on the application of resistance, I know that you did say correctly that resistance should be applied against the contraction of the muscle:

Nonie aka AD wrote:

Because for anyone who understands resistance training, the shortening of the muscle should be pulling AGAINST the resistance.

However, your post indicated to me that you don't correctly understand the direction of the contraction for the eye muscles and how that varies along the eye muscle. Here is what you said, your words exactly:

Nonie wrote:

The contraction of the eye muscle, which is a ring that goes around the eye, is in the direction of the arrows below:

Thus, you said that you think that the direction of muscle contraction is along the lines of the arrows. But this is parallel to the eye muscle fibers and hence is not the correct direction to apply resistance for a sphincter muscle. Though later, you said something along the lines of the wrinkles being in the direction of contraction, but also isn't stricly true either, as there are some eye wrinkles that run parallel to the muscle fibers and others that run at oblique or right angles, depending on what parts of the eye muscle you are considering.

Let's take three different placements of the fingers on the eye muscle in turn. In each case, the yellow arrow represents the direction to apply resistance in and the green arrow represents the direction of the muscle fibers underneath your fingers.

The first will be the exercise from CFF and Loulou where you place your fingers at the outside corner of the eyes. FlexEffect and Facercise also have this exact same exercise in their routines. In other words, everyone agrees that this exercise is excellent for the eyes. For this exercise where you place your fingers at the outer corner of your eyes, the muscle fibers underneath your fingers are aligned vertically and you apply the resistance horizontally, pulling outwards away from your eyes. And you feel the eyes contract "inwards". Thus, the application of resistance is perpendicular to the muscle fibers, as shown:

Nonie wrote:

There's Eva Fraser's way where you place your fingers around the top of they eye over your eyebrow. Even with contraction happening toward the inner corner of the eye, your fingers are basically providing resistance over the top circle of the muscle so that contraction will be against that resistance. And this is why Eva's program changed my hooded eyelids to the eyes I have today with no hint of ever having been hooded.

For eye exercise #2, the one that you cite above from Eva Frasier as being terrific. FlexEffect has this same exercise, as does Facercise and Facelifting by Exercise. Here, the muscle fibers underneath your fingers run horizontally across the face. You push vertically upwards (outwards) and your muscles at the point underneath your fingers contract vertically downwards and inwards towards your pupil:

Finally, here is a third eye exercise. Both FlexEffect and Facercise have a variant on this exercise (Facercise's version is a little close to the nose), with Facercise's version being with lighter resistance and higher reps. Here again, since the muscle contracts inwards towards the eye, which is vertically upwards relative to the placement of your fingers, you pull downwards with your fingers to provide resistance. Here again, the muscle fibers exactly beneath your fingers run horizontally, and hence the applied resistance is perpendicular to the muscle fibers:

Nonie wrote:

Placing fingers under the eye would not be providing good resistance against this contraction. Placing fingers at the inside of the eye would not be providing resistance against this contraction. The only way you can provide resistance against this contraction is by placing fingers on the outside of the eyes.

Finally, here is an illustration of where I place my finger when I mean on the inside corners of the eyes:

where again I place the resistance perpendicular to the eye muscle fibers. And so I definitely disagree with your statement that there is only one place (on the outside corner) along the eye muscle that you can put your fingers to provide resistance against contraction; there are definitely other places that you can put your fingers as well.

The reason I do this and change up my finger positioning is to try to get effectively at ALL regions of the eye muscle, including the under eye area.

Anyhow, I hope this explains things better.

Finally, I would hate for anyone to not try facial exercise simply because some of us (Nonie and myself included) like to debate certain points.

The one thing we both agree on is that both of the two of us can't recommend facial exercises highly enough! They really are fantastic if you stick with them in the long-term and figure out what works and doesn't work for you personally Smile

free skin care · Sat Sep 01, 2012 1:52 am

cm5597 wrote:

Nonie,

On the matter of your opinions of FlexEffect, the subject of being too aggressive, etc., I think that you and I disagree on what constitutes being too aggressive. But I think we both agree that there is certainly such thing as being too aggressive; it's just that we draw our lines at different points along the gentle to aggressive spectrum. My personal stance is that you can be quite aggressive, but the older you are, more underlying damage you have, the slower your recovery time, the shorter you've been training, etc., the gentler you have to be. If you have number of such factors, then you totally do want to start up gently and work you way up to find that "goldilocks spot" of being appropriately aggressive (or gentle, as the case may be) for you personally to see the best results. And I recommend anyone who has serious doubts to start off gently, but as you gain confidence, experiment every now and then with more.

I on the other hand think RESISTANCE training is for building muscle. If you’re young and your face still has good muscle mass, then all you need is toning. You do not need to build your face. Also if someone starts face exercises when they have lost some mass, I do believe they would do well to start without resistance and introduce resistance later. But in either case, I do not believe one need to be so aggressive as to be sore. I’ve never ever done a face workout where I end up black and blue from a workout. I’ve never slapped myself either. Causing trauma to such tiny muscles IMO is not a good idea, which is what I believe the aggressiveness of FE does. But to each his own. Soon enough, people will find out for themselves which one of us is right.

Quote:

On the topic of our discussion on the application of resistance, I know that you did say correctly that resistance should be applied against the contraction of the muscle:

Nonie aka AD wrote:

Because for anyone who understands resistance training, the shortening of the muscle should be pulling AGAINST the resistance.

However, your post indicated to me that you don't correctly understand the direction of the contraction for the eye muscles and how that varies along the eye muscle. Here is what you said, your words exactly:

Nonie wrote:

The contraction of the eye muscle, which is a ring that goes around the eye, is in the direction of the arrows below:

Thus, you said that you think that the direction of muscle contraction is along the lines of the arrows. But this is parallel to the eye muscle fibers and hence is not the correct direction to apply resistance for a sphincter muscle.

OK, all muscles contract by shortening of the muscle fibers. Sphincter muscles make the inside circle that they envelope smaller by shortening fibers too so that they form a tighter circle. So the correct way to apply resistance is in a way that the shortening of the fibers will be working against the force you are applying. So if you want to apply resistance to the above contraction shown by blue arrows, then your fingers need to be placed where the arrows originate.

Quote:

Though later, you said something along the lines of the wrinkles being in the direction of contraction, but also isn't stricly true either, as there are some eye wrinkles that run parallel to the muscle fibers and others that run at oblique or right angles, depending on what parts of the eye muscle you are considering.

Wrinkles around the eye indeed form in the way contraction of the eye muscle happens thus the scrunching up the skin. This is why they tend to look like this:

Quote:

Let's take three different placements of the fingers on the eye muscle in turn. In each case, the yellow arrow represents the direction to apply resistance in and the green arrow represents the direction of the muscle fibers underneath your fingers.

The first will be the exercise from CFF and Loulou where you place your fingers at the outside corner of the eyes. FlexEffect and Facercise also have this exact same exercise in their routines. In other words, everyone agrees that this exercise is excellent for the eyes. For this exercise where you place your fingers at the outer corner of your eyes, the muscle fibers underneath your fingers are aligned vertically and you apply the resistance horizontally, pulling outwards away from your eyes. And you feel the eyes contract "inwards". Thus, the application of resistance is perpendicular to the muscle fibers, as shown:

quote]

Maybe that’s how it is with FE but with both Facercise and CFF (not sure about Loulou’s coz I haven’t seen it; just learned that she has a similar placement from a previous poster) do NOT pull. The shortening of the muscle in that area would be in opposite direction to the ones pointed by the green arrows. Fibers shortening = contraction. And the fibers there are vertical curving as you go up and as you go down. The main movement (as anyone who tried my experiment will have found) is movement is felt mostly in the lower corner and it’s toward the inner corner. By just placing fingers like Maggio and Carolyn do, you don’t risk pulling apart the fibers as you might doing it your way as shown by the yellow arrow. You instead provide a force against which the upward and inward pull of the contraction will work. If you look at CFF Interactive Chart and look at the Eye Flex, you will see that Carolyn’s placement of the fingers is sort of down and not high up in the corner…and like Maggio, she just applies pressure.

Quote:

[quote="Nonie"]There's Eva Fraser's way where you place your fingers around the top of they eye over your eyebrow. Even with contraction happening toward the inner corner of the eye, your fingers are basically providing resistance over the top circle of the muscle so that contraction will be against that resistance. And this is why Eva's program changed my hooded eyelids to the eyes I have today with no hint of ever having been hooded.

For eye exercise #2, the one that you cite above from Eva Frasier as being terrific. FlexEffect has this same exercise, as does Facercise and Facelifting by Exercise. Here, the muscle fibers underneath your fingers run horizontally across the face. You push vertically upwards (outwards) and your muscles at the point underneath your fingers contract vertically downwards and inwards towards your pupil:

The muscles actually do not contract down and inward toward the pupil; the contract down and inward toward the inner corner of eye as shown by the blue arrows above. If you don’t believe me, do my experiment again. Place the tips of your finger right under the outer end of your eyebrow and then close your eyes tightly paying attention to the direction your fingers move. You’ll feel they’ll move toward your nose. Move the finger tips to just under the center of your eyebrow and repeat the eye closing and squeeze eyes tight. You’ll feel the fingers move down as well as toward the nose. Now place fingers under the inner ends of your eyebrows and repeat the eye closing with a squeeze. You’ll feel a contraction that matches the blue arrows. So your saying you lift up and outward is just the perfect way to provide resistance for this exercises since contraction is down and inward. Resistance must be opposite to contraction. Eva’s demonstration matches this:

Quote:

Finally, here is a third eye exercise. Both FlexEffect and Facercise have a variant on this exercise (Facercise's version is a little close to the nose), with Facercise's version being with lighter resistance and higher reps. Here again, since the muscle contracts inwards towards the eye, which is vertically upwards relative to the placement of your fingers, you pull downwards with your fingers to provide resistance. Here again, the muscle fibers exactly beneath your fingers run horizontally, and hence the applied resistance is perpendicular to the muscle fibers:

Nonie wrote:

Placing fingers under the eye would not be providing good resistance against this contraction. Placing fingers at the inside of the eye would not be providing resistance against this contraction. The only way you can provide resistance against this contraction is by placing fingers on the outside of the eyes.

I am not sure I know what exercise you mean of Maggio’s. The Lower Eyelid Strengthener, The Eye Enhancer and the Lower Eyelid Firmer all just involve placing fingers firmly not pulling. In fact IIRC in one of them Carole Maggio says that when you squint up you will feel a pulse in the outer corner because even she understands that the pull will be from there. If you pull down as shown by the yellow arrow, what contraction are you working against? We all know sphincter muscles contract by making the hole the enclose smaller. But how do they do that? By shortening (contracting) the muscle fibers. Under the eye, because the muscles fibers are horizontal, contraction will happen horizontally. So if you’re pulling down, then you’re just going to end up with a lot of skin…and you will be pulling apart the muscle fibers—which explains the puffiness everyone who does this exercise as directed on FE, ends up with.

Quote:

Finally, here is an illustration of where I place my finger when I mean on the inside corners of the eyes:

where again I place the resistance perpendicular to the eye muscle fibers. And so I definitely disagree with your statement that there is only one place (on the outside corner) along the eye muscle that you can put your fingers to provide resistance against contraction; there are definitely other places that you can put your fingers as well.

.

Why would you do that? Contraction is happens as a sort of shrinking of muscle fibers. The arrows in the first image show you that contraction is not opposite to your pull so why apply resistance like that? Just like the FE way, this will just end up giving you a very weird look and not firm your muscles up at all. Seems as if you and FE are on a mission to pull muscle fibers apart from each other, not strengthen them. And since you are pulling in a way that there is no opposing force to your pull, your skin doesn’t even have the “supported” of muscles resisting your pull since there’s no contraction possible against that pull so who knows how much you damage the integrity of skin. I find the fact that you think this is OK so hard to believe. I’m actually horrified and hope this isn’t something you encourage others to do.

Quote:

The reason I do this and change up my finger positioning is to try to get effectively at ALL regions of the eye muscle, including the under eye area.

Unfortunately just coz you place a force all around a muscle doesn’t mean you provide any resistance training that is beneficial to strengthening the muscle. I liken your pulling in the inner corner to someone tying an elastic cord around the upper arm of someone else and while the one whose arm is tied holds arm down, the one with the cord pulls sideways and calls that working the bicep. You can’t pull across muscle fibers and claim you’re exerting resistance to the muscle. Resistance has to be applied against the shortening of the muscle fibers and they shorten along their length, not by being pulled apart.

Quote:

Anyhow, I hope this explains things better..

It certainly explains better how you understand things but I don’t agree with you.

Quote:

Finally, I would hate for anyone to not try facial exercise simply because some of us (Nonie and myself included) like to debate certain points.

The one thing we both agree on is that both of the two of us can't recommend facial exercises highly enough! They really are fantastic if you stick with them in the long-term and figure out what works and doesn't work for you personally Smile

My advice is to take your time deciding on a program. Don’t just listen to what folks say about a program. Don’t just rely on results of the trainer. Be skeptical and make sure you don’t ignore that little voice inside that tries to warn us when something doesn’t feel right. The fact that we can’t agree on anything should serve as a warning that there may some truths out there but there has to be a lot of misinformation too. So ask questions. Get more than just words. Ask for evidence of the so-called improvements people claim you’ll get from a workout before taking their word as gospel. Not too long ago, I brought to light a program whose idea sounds wonderful: acupressure is a good healing program and I don’t doubt it can help in the fight against aging. Except the very wonderful results posted as being from that program were all photos stolen from cosmetic surgery sites. So yeah, don’t rush into anything.

free skin care · Sun Sep 02, 2012 10:17 am

Nonie, I disagree with several things that you said and you twisted my words, but I'm not going to correct everything that you said, as the point of these threads is not to argue ad nauseum but to be helpful to people.

But the things that I do want to say and correct are:

cm5597 wrote:

On the matter of your opinions of FlexEffect, the subject of being too aggressive, etc., I think that you and I disagree on what constitutes being too aggressive. But I think we both agree that there is certainly such thing as being too aggressive; it's just that we draw our lines at different points along the gentle to aggressive spectrum....

Nonie wrote:

on the other hand think RESISTANCE training is for building muscle.

* I am not using the word "aggressive" in a way to be interchangeable with "resistance". For instance, I consider CFF to be aggressive because of the rubbing/sliding/pulling on the skin during the exercises.

Nonie wrote:

If you’re young and your face still has good muscle mass, then all you need is toning. You do not need to build your face.

* I disagree with your black-and-white one-size-fits-all prescription that young people only need toning. By that logic, young males shouldn't lift weights, skinny young women with no butt and who want a bigger butt should just forget it and only do toning exercises because what matter is only their age, no one under 40 years old should lift weight...clearly, that advice would be ridiculous. My point is that what an individual needs is unique to that individual. Nonie, you are blessed with a full face that doesn't need build, but you can't generalize your unique circumstances to everyone like you do. There are plenty of young people who want build in at least some area of their face (e.g., if you have a small chin, you might want to build it; if you have small lips, then you don't want to do toning exercises, you want to use resistance exercises, etc.)

Nonie wrote:

The muscles actually do not contract down and inward toward the pupil; the contract down and inward toward the inner corner of eye as shown by the blue arrows above.

Actually, those arrows show the direction of the muscle fibers at those points, as well as the direction of wrinkles. Let me quote a few scientific resources that explicitly show that you are wrong, that the direction of contraction is not towards the nose (your blue arrows):

http://books.google.com/books?id=cMTMJ1JMOBEC&pg=PA70&lpg=PA70&dq=sphincter+muscle+perpendicular+contraction+oculi&source=bl&ots=vROKerDQpW&sig=rmCQGfiMgLLaKqF6SGQiL7mWlG4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=S45DUIzmC-7KyQHXh4DYBA&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=sphincter%20muscle%20perpendicular%20contraction%20oculi&f=false

"The brow musculature can be divided into those that elevate and those that depress the brow. Each independently contributes to the formation of rhytids [definition: skin wrinkles] that are perpendicular to their respective vector of contraction." This includes the frontalis (forehead), procerus (nose), and orbicularis oculi (eye) muscles.

Hence you are wrong that the direction of wrinkles is parallel to the contraction direction, as I said earlier.

Here is another choice quote from another published reference:

http://books.google.com/books?id=5QQwAsJkBiEC&pg=PA52&lpg=PA52&dq=sphincter+muscle+perpendicular+contraction+oculi&source=bl&ots=c8BwBfDeyw&sig=6SdezhHooU4QdewF5py9kvBafs0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=S45DUIzmC-7KyQHXh4DYBA&ved=0CDwQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=sphincter%20muscle%20perpendicular%20contraction%20oculi&f=false

"Wrinkles always occur perpendicular to the stretch of the muscle. In other words, the wrinkles develop when the skin lying over the muscle bunches up as the muscle contracts."

Hence again, if you want to figure out the direction of contraction, it's perpendicular to the direction of wrinkles. The wrinkles are NOT parallel to the direction of muscle contraction, as you so claim.

I'm sorry, Nonie, and I know you're passionate about facial exercises, too, but I feel that morally, I can't let you off the hook when you are spreading of patently wrong information that contradicts muscle physiology.

Sun Sep 02, 2012 1:47 pm

Nonie aka AD wrote:

And while it does contract in a way that makes the HOLE small (as all sphincter muscles do) the contraction is toward the inner corner of the eye. That is why wrinkles form in this fashion:.

Sorry but this does not make any sense at all. If the contraction were towards the inner corner of the eye, your eyelids would move towards the nose.

I don't know about you, but when I open and close my eyes, my eyelids move up and down, not sideways.

free skin care · Sun Sep 02, 2012 9:28 pm

AdrianP wrote:

Nonie aka AD wrote:

And while it does contract in a way that makes the HOLE small (as all sphincter muscles do) the contraction is toward the inner corner of the eye. That is why wrinkles form in this fashion:.

Sorry but this does not make any sense at all. If the contraction were towards the inner corner of the eye, your eyelids would move towards the nose.

I don't know about you, but when I open and close my eyes, my eyelids move up and down, not sideways.

AdrianP LOL you how your eyelids move and the contraction of the muscle are two different things. EVERYONE's eyelids go up and down, but if you squeeze tightly, contraction will be toward the inner eye corner.

Instead of just dismissing what I say, why not do the experiment I suggested? What's more, I didn't invent the image with the blue lines. That's from a scientific website: http://www.springerimages.com/Images/MedicineAndPublicHealth/1-10.1007_s00266-006-0024-9-5

The reason for the pull toward the inner corner is because that's where the bone insertion of the top and bottom parts of the eye muscle is. So unlike the mouth muscle which is another sphincter muscle that has pull inward from both ends, the eyes pull toward inner corner.

Last but not least, I've been doing face exercises for over 20 years and my eyes have got pretty good tone and the muscles are pretty strong so their direction of contraction is very easy to see let alone feel. My hubby doesn't do face exercises but I had him do my experiment and w/o doubt the muscles do move that way.

But you don't have to agree with me. Many don't and that's OK.

free skin care · Mon Sep 03, 2012 7:41 am

Nonie wrote:

The reason for the pull toward the inner corner is because that's where the bone insertion of the top and bottom parts of the eye muscle is. So unlike the mouth muscle which is another sphincter muscle that has pull inward from both ends, the eyes pull toward inner corner.

This is technically true about the attachment, but it's the subdominant effect, meaning that it adds a small vector component in that direction, but the main effect is still perpendicular to the muscle fibers.

AdrianP wrote:

Nonie aka AD wrote:

And while it does contract in a way that makes the HOLE small (as all sphincter muscles do) the contraction is toward the inner corner of the eye. That is why wrinkles form in this fashion:.

Sorry but this does not make any sense at all. If the contraction were towards the inner corner of the eye, your eyelids would move towards the nose.

I don't know about you, but when I open and close my eyes, my eyelids move up and down, not sideways.

I completely agree.

That's why I quoted those textbook references to prove that what Nonie said about the contraction of the eye muscle is just wrong: the undereye area does not contract horizontally towards the nose, but the undereye area contracts close to straight upwards (depending on where exactly your fingers are along the muscle fibers), exactly as you find when you do the experiment that Nonie suggests.

Moreover, her comments about the direction of wrinkles being parallel to the direction of contraction are also flat out wrong, as those references that I cited indicate.

That's why, unfortunately, sometimes you have to be careful about advice on this forum and check everything out yourself against a credible scientific reference.

free skin care · Mon Sep 03, 2012 8:34 am

cm5597 wrote:

Nonie wrote:

The reason for the pull toward the inner corner is because that's where the bone insertion of the top and bottom parts of the eye muscle is. So unlike the mouth muscle which is another sphincter muscle that has pull inward from both ends, the eyes pull toward inner corner.

This is technically true about the attachment, but it's the subdominant effect, meaning that it adds a small vector component in that direction, but the main effect is still perpendicular to the muscle fibers.

Sorry for the multiple posts.

I want to comment on this a bit more, hopefully it will clarify and not confuse things.

Say you put your finger lightly on your lower eye lid below your pupil. Now contract your eye. What you should find is that your fingers move mostly upwards, but if you are sensitive enough, you may notice that your finger also moves slightly towards the inner corner of the eye. Hence, if you want to get really technical, there is a small movement towards the inner corner of the eye due to the attachment of muscle to bone (as Nonie says), but MOST of the movement is upwards. So to lowest order (rough approximation), the contraction is close to perpendicular to the muscle fibers, but there is a small component that is parallel to the muscle fibers. Hence it is mostly but not perfect perpendicular to the muscle fibers.

If you are a newbie, I wouldn't about this too much but would just focus on opposing the muscle contraction in whatever way you feel best works your eye muscle.

free skin care · Mon Sep 03, 2012 8:38 am

well, I am not a scientist here but my 2 cents...my concern used to be pulling on the delicate under eye skin by placing fingers there for eye exercises but now I place fingers at the outer corner of the eyes, where the skin is much thicker and it works out perfectly, at least for me..

free skin care · Mon Sep 03, 2012 10:29 pm

cm5597 wrote:

Nonie wrote:

The reason for the pull toward the inner corner is because that's where the bone insertion of the top and bottom parts of the eye muscle is. So unlike the mouth muscle which is another sphincter muscle that has pull inward from both ends, the eyes pull toward inner corner.

This is technically true about the attachment, but it's the subdominant effect, meaning that it adds a small vector component in that direction, but the main effect is still perpendicular to the muscle fibers.

Sorry for the multiple posts.

I want to comment on this a bit more, hopefully it will clarify and not confuse things.

Say you put your finger lightly on your lower eye lid below your pupil. Now contract your eye. What you should find is that your fingers move mostly upwards, but if you are sensitive enough, you may notice that your finger also moves slightly towards the inner corner of the eye. Hence, if you want to get really technical, there is a small movement towards the inner corner of the eye due to the attachment of muscle to bone (as Nonie says), but MOST of the movement is upwards. So to lowest order (rough approximation), the contraction is close to perpendicular to the muscle fibers, but there is a small component that is parallel to the muscle fibers. Hence it is mostly but not perfect perpendicular to the muscle fibers.

If you are a newbie, I wouldn't about this too much but would just focus on opposing the muscle contraction in whatever way you feel best works your eye muscle.

cm5597 clearly your understanding of muscle physiology is different from mine.

Perhaps we should start first by understanding how it is that muscles contract:

http://youtu.be/EdHzKYDxrKc

So now that we know that contraction is ALONG the fibers, lets consider what happens when the fibers form a curve. Contraction will happen along a curve and by doing so the curve will shrink. If the curve forms a circular shape like the eye muscle, then contraction will be in a way that forms a concentrically smaller circle. And because of that you will of course feel the muscle move up if you place fingers under the eye muscle because it is becoming smaller and by doing so minimizing the circle it surrounds. This doesn't mean contract of muscle fibers of the eye is upward.

The example you're giving would be like saying, "Open your mouth wide. Now place fingers on your chin and pout. You will feel a pull upward." Of course you will coz the sphincter muscles of the mouth form a smaller circle when their fibers contract. But does anyone work the mouth muscles that way? No. Resistance is usually applied in a way that is trying to stop the shrinking of the muscle fibers. When resistance is applied at the mouth corners, it resists the shortening of the muscle fibers along their length. If fingers are inserted in the bottom lip and one pulls bottom lip back against that as some programs suggest one do, again one's resisting the shortening of the fibers of the mouth muscles along their length. Same thing the exercise where you put thumbs under the top lip and pull back against that resistance. Once again, you're trying to stop the shortening of fibers.

Pulling down directly under the eyes is not applying resistance correctly to eye muscles and everyone I know who's done this has ended up with eyes worse than when they started...or with eyes having new problems they never had.

For another visual on why I was saying contraction is up and toward inner corner, I tried to use Windows Paint to create the movement of eye muscles from relaxed (BLACK) to contracted (RED). The purple solid square shows insertion to bone at the inner corner. The rectangles show sections of the muscle fibers and the arrows show that every section along the muscle fibers shortens during contraction which is what makes the circle get small. But coz it's anchored on the inner corner, the muscle ends up moving toward that corner.

Anyway, those in favor of CM's way and find it beneficial, don't let my experience or that of Daler or even my attempts at explaining my understanding of muscle contraction get in your way. To each his own.

free skin care · Tue Sep 04, 2012 5:45 am

Pulling down directly under the eyes is not applying resistance correctly to eye muscles and everyone I know who's done this has ended up with eyes worse than when they started...or with eyes having new problems they never had

Actually I went to Eva Fraser and did a course with the lady herself over 6 weeks, and have to say that about 4-5 weeks into it she did have you apply resistance directly under the eye area – so Nonie you obviously are right and know more about facial exercises than the gurus.

For me the proof is always in the pudding – and Deb’s eyes look fantastic even at 60 years:
http://www.flexeffect.com/debpic.htm

free skin care · Tue Sep 04, 2012 11:11 am

TheresaMary wrote:

Pulling down directly under the eyes is not applying resistance correctly to eye muscles and everyone I know who's done this has ended up with eyes worse than when they started...or with eyes having new problems they never had

Actually I went to Eva Fraser and did a course with the lady herself over 6 weeks, and have to say that about 4-5 weeks into it she did have you apply resistance directly under the eye area – so Nonie you obviously are right and know more about facial exercises than the gurus.

For me the proof is always in the pudding – and Deb’s eyes look fantastic even at 60 years:
http://www.flexeffect.com/debpic.htm

TheresaMary, I just might know more than the gurus. Heck every day there's a genius born. Maybe I'm one. Very Happy

Wasn't it not too long where one of the so-called gurus gave wrong information on a field she's had years of experience in and li'l ol' me came and set the record straight? Yep, don't discount me! Wink

And how did I know you'd use Deb as your example. I don't believe Deb is all natural because I don't understand why her forehead wrinkles when she's not raising her eyebrows and why there's hardly any movement between her eyebrows...also what's the delay in the disappearance of the lines that form and why that upward curve? Normal forehead lines form horizontally and are all across from eyebrows to top of forehead, unless.... Razz

Also for someone whose program is to help people avoid cosmetic surgery, I've never understood why there's a cosmetic surgery forum. I think that's very telling.

Compare Eva's video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcyRLKq3aZg) with Deb's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih3VpSOeJPc). There are parts of Deb's face that look pretty frozen. So find me another example. Not Deb. Find me someone who has done that program and not ended up with puffy eyes. I can tell you that in 2007 I asked this question of PC and she asked on the FE forum for people who had improved their eyes with FE to post before-after photos (this was when they were touting the pinch and roll as the magic solution for the "awkwardness" everyone who did that program got around the eyes). NOT A SINGLE PERSON ever posted photos. What's more, progressive pics just don't happen on FE forum coz after the first few good results people may get...it's downhill thereafter so no one has anything good to report.

So yeah, I may not be able to tell whether someone's got fillers or had eye surgery, but the fact that ONLY Deb doesn't have damage is rather interesting to me. One of the reasons I stopped doing FE when my eyes got puffy was coz I saw the photos of someone who'd been doing it for 5 years+ at the time I started and noticed my eyes were getting bad and saw that her eyes looked awful. They were not only puffy but she had very pronounced crows' feet too. That person was the age I am today and from previous photos, her eyes never looked like that...but clearly 5 years of doing a program that encourages the downward pull under the eyes didn't work well for her. I saw this same thing happen to Cecilia who's photos are on the before/after pages showing 2 months' progress, but a year later she had puffy eyes with crows' feet. Sad

Anyway, instead of arguing aimlessly like you usually do, why not bring forth some points that support your theory that pulling under the eyes is a good idea. (Heck, Loulou was part of a program that did that; she no longer does. That to me is very telling.)

cm5597 I will respond to your long post another time. I started to but as usually happens, I end up losing my post and getting an error page when I try to submit or preview, which is so frustrating when someone's typed up a whole novel. Laughing

So I'll get back to you on that another time.

free skin care · Wed Sep 05, 2012 1:37 am

Really where was that missed it?

I see Deb’s face moving, and the fact that her forehead wrinkles and then when she stops raising her brows there is no wrinkles is to me significant of the way she trains. “Normal” lines – please everyone’s face moves and changes differently – hell if I asked one of my sons to raise their brows they look different to me doing it – so I don’t get the argument or point here?

I also think that’s a wrong presumption your making here against FE. They don’t advertise their program as helping to “avoid” cosmetic surgery and that’s one of the things I like. They say to try training before you opt for that.

Actually that video of Eva’s come under a lot of criticism on the UK forums, but ca la vie. You tink Eva is better than Deb – okay got that. However, why can’t we say that both are good exmaples of what Facial exercises can do?

Find you one person who has done that program and not ended up with puffy eyes – isn’t that what the whole before and afters section is for? Isn’t that also going to be interesting to you because that shows you that its not just Deb who has achieved different things?

free skin care · Sat Sep 08, 2012 8:59 am

Just wanted to give this thread some downtime.

Nonie, I noticed that you changed your position from:

Nonie wrote:

The contraction of the eye muscle, which is a ring that goes around the eye, is in the direction of the arrows below:

Nonie wrote:

You’ll feel they’ll move toward your nose.

TO NOW

Nonie wrote:

I was saying contraction is up and toward inner corner

Whereas before, you denied that there was any contraction of the undereye muscle upwards and you said that you should pull outwards.

In the future, out of respect for the people reading this thread, I'm not going to continue this particular argument with you Nonie, as it just becomes obnoxious for the other people reading this thread after a while....So in fairness, if I don't respond further to certain comments, that's why.

free skin care · Sat Sep 08, 2012 9:05 am

Hey TheresaMary,

I had to read your post a few times to make sure that I knew what you were getting at.

You were being sarcastic when you said that Nonie knows more then facial gurus, right? Because you said two things that indicate that you thought Nonie was wrong:

TheresaMary wrote:

Actually I went to Eva Fraser and did a course with the lady herself over 6 weeks, and have to say that about 4-5 weeks into it she did have you apply resistance directly under the eye area – so Nonie you obviously are right and know more about facial exercises than the gurus.

This was after Nonie said that Eva does not have you apply resistance under the eye.

TheresaMary wrote:

For me the proof is always in the pudding – and Deb’s eyes look fantastic even at 60 years:
http://www.flexeffect.com/debpic.htm

Since Deb has you apply resistance under the eye to target the undereye area and has you pull downwards, this sounds again like you are disagreeing with Nonie.

But Nonie took it as a compliment:

Nonie wrote:

TheresaMary, I just might know more than the gurus. Heck every day there's a genius born. Maybe I'm one. Wasn't it not too long where one of the so-called gurus gave wrong information on a field she's had years of experience in and li'l ol' me came and set the record straight? Yep, don't discount me!

So I just wanted to clarify that you were disagreeing with Nonie, correct?

free skin care · Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:14 am

Am I having a deja vu? Is this one of the old topics resurrected by someone looking for a 20% discount?

No. It's just people repeating the same old argument over and over again.
Just try things out and see what fits you and your particular face and issues. Stop bashing the competition. Please!

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