exercise for the face?

when I do my workouts I always work my neck muscles. you can easily contract them hold and release, I swear you do this for five minutes a day and you will see a difference. also don't forget, exercise has a tendency to reduce aging in the face.

Commenting so I can try this later

I'm skeptical that face exercises would make a major difference. The facial muscles are very thin and aren't capable of building up much, so i don't see how they can fill the space where the fat was previously. And exercises don't shrink loose skin either. Working the face muscles a lot just leaves creases in your skin.

Exercising a muscle doesn't make it "tighter", and muscles don't sag, just skin... so I'm sorry but you're out of luck.

People do this all the time with exercise, they want to make things "tighter" but what sags is skin and fat, not muscle, and you can't exercise skin and fat.

Your best bet would be to discuss this with a dermatologist.

The reason why face exercise can stop facial sag is because unlike the skin on the rest of the body, that on the face is directly attached to the muscles which are attached to each other and some to bone. You tone slackened muscles, they tighten and lift the skin they are attached to so that it no longer sags.

You can see proof of face exercise's toning in my own face. I started the program I do in 2007 and had laugh lines that formed double parentheses and my lower face was somewhat gaunt--although it didn't bother me and I never considered it gaunt. I was 37. I am 44 now and I think I look a lot younger:

http://images38.fotki.com/v266/photos/3/31573/2988620/CFFProgressOctAfternoonPics-vi.png

I don't know what happened in your case, but my answer was based on research and books, like, science and stuff...

Exercising a muscle doesn't make it "tighter" or "toned", and muscles don't sag, just skin... so I'm sorry but you're out of luck.

People do this all the time with exercise, they want to make things "tighter" but what sags is skin and fat, not muscle, and you can't exercise skin and fat.

Your best bet would be to discuss this with a dermatologist.

I don't know what happened in your case, but my answer was based on research and books, like, science and stuff...

Exercising a muscle doesn't make it "tighter" or "toned", and muscles don't sag, just skin... so I'm sorry but you're out of luck.

People do this all the time with exercise, they want to make things "tighter" but what sags is skin and fat, not muscle, and you can't exercise skin and fat.

Your best bet would be to discuss this with a dermatologist.

The only scientists who deny this are those who have a lot to lose if people didn't pay for cosmetic surgery or fancy anti-aging cosmetics. Dermatologists who make a killing from injecting Botox into foreheads and selling you fancy anti-aging products would never endorse a method that means you never need to see them again. So unless you are seeing a dermatologist who does face exercises like Dr Serene (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcyRLKq3aZg), you're wasting your time. That would be like asking a seller of pharmaceutical company drugs if you would do better not to buy his stuff but to go to the herbalist down the road instead.

There is enough evidence that others have had the same success I have. The question is not whether the programs work; it is whether the people doing the face exercises are doing a complete and well balanced program that ensures all the interconnected muscles are toned evenly. Picking one or two exercises you find online and doing them when facial muscles are interconnected, would be like do ab work without balancing with back exercises and then wondering why your back aches. Here are some comments by scientists who are not trying to pull wool over people's eyes: http://www.flexeffect.com/DrReport.htm

Also it is not true that muscles don't get toned. That is the precisely what happens when you exercise your body. You tone your muscles. They get firmer and are less loose. That is precisely why fitness models have tight bodies. Toned muscles give them that. Now if skin is attached to the muscles as it is in the face, then as the previously slack muscles due to little use and gravity's pull become less loose, the skin they are attached too cannot help but be pulled up too.

Here's someone who looks younger now in her 60's than she did in her 50's. Face exercises did this:
http://www.carolynsfacialfitness.com/pictures-of-carolyn

Another example: http://www.carolynsfacialfitness.com/robert

Jack Lalane looked amazing for his age, and he did face exercises: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isLJ024EdMA

Tom Hagerty is in his 80's and has been doing face exercises for most of his life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AODKyF_dbvw

Eva Fraser also in her 80's and has been doing face exercises since her 50's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcyRLKq3aZg

But hey, you don't have to believe me, if you don't want to. I have nothing to gain or lose either way. Besides, there's always cosmetic surgery or one can just aging gracefully. I personally prefer to be toned from head to toe. Having a youthful looking body and an old looking face just does not work for me. I'd like my body to match my face...and so far so good.

*cough*bull*****cough*

Also, I didn't check ALL of your links, but the first few were to websites selling these training programs. Speaking of references to material which has a bias towards creating customers...

Like I said, you're entitled to your opinion. Of course those websites are selling the programs; where else would success stories be posted? If you go to a cosmetic surgeon's website you will see images of his work. Similarly, the people who do these programs have submitted their results for others who are interested to see. And the trainers/founders also post their photos to show their accomplishments. Why is that so strange? It was actually seeing Eva Fraser looking fantastic on a book cover in her 50's that led me to try face exercises. I had no idea about airbrushing so it never crossed my mind that that could be a possibility why she looked so good. But my naivete was a blessing in disguise because my innocent belief in what I was seeing is what led me to try them and now in my 40's I still don't use any anti-aging products, don't have any cosmetic work done, and my face seems to be getting better with passing time.

So call it BS if you like, but hopefully someone who is more open minded will give it a try and see for herself/himself. I have nothing to gain sharing this. I just love to pass on any good info I have and saw a few people wondering if there was a solution so thought I'd share. If you don't believe in face exercises, don't do them. As I said, there are options. Not as cheap but they satisfy those who choose them.

Ok so lets take this a step further. If you can make muscles tighter by working them out, wouldn't that lead to a lack of flexibility? So if I "toned" the back of my arms then I would have more trouble bending my arm over time wouldn't I?

By that same token, consider a "loose" muscle. Say... my quads (the big muscle in the upper front of your leg) was "not toned" or "loose". I suppose that would mean that if I were to try to walk, there would be a slight delay when I take a step due to the muscle first having to "tighten" enough to actually start pulling the bone along...

I suppose you haven't heard of muscle atrophy? Those muscles are weak and have little tone. Happens from disuse. And yes that would make walking hard. When you exercise a muscle, you contract and relax it and this helps to build and strengthen the muscle. Muscles that have been exercised have a firmness that those that haven't been exercised don't. So I don't understand your attempt at an analogy because anyone who knows anatomy and physiology knows that what makes you walk is not just your quads and that a contraction and relaxation of muscles is necessary to move the skeletal frame... So apples and oranges.

Or forget all that. This is about the face right? When you smile or do whatever you're doing with your exercises, do the wrinkles go away? Also doesn't some of your research show that smiling too much or wrinkling your forehead too much actually cause wrinkles? And isn't smiling or wrinkling your forehead using the muscles... just like when you exercise them?

You obviously missed the point of my first post. So let me go a little further in the hope of clarifying the difference here. When you smile, you use the Zygomaticus major and minor muscles, Orbicularis oculi musces, Levator labii superioris muscles, the Levator anguli oris and the Risorius muscles. You use them the same way every time. This repeated action means those muscles get worked and strengthened from that action. Because facial skin is attached, every time you use them, your skin creases and over time, loss of elasticity and collagen and the repeated creasing forms folds that become permanent in the skin. In some cases the strengthened muscles because they did not have any counter and opposite force end up in permanent contraction. That is why some people have forehead furrows from this permanent contraction. What face exercises do is help you engage other muscles and work your muscles differently from how you normally work them so that there is an opposite pull that,. along with massage to relax the very strong contraction, eventually opens up that permanent contraction leading to a smooth forehead. Another thing face exercise do is stimulate collagen production just like massage does. And this along with the stronger muscles helps to return the face to a state where it isn't in constant contraction and wrinkles open up. I mean, I thought my example was obvious. I got the hypertrophy so I no longer had a narrow gaunt-ish face and the parentheses I had around my mouth were filled and smoothed out.

The only thing I can figure that you might get from these exercises is the ability to increase sarcoplasmic hypertrophy over time, or just a "pump" from repeatedly doing exercises with the facial muscles. At any rate both are fleeting affects if not maintained, and if the skin or fat around the muscle is sagging or whatever, this wouldn't make much if any difference.

Well, we are getting somewhere finally. Growth of muscles is part of the deal. As we age, we lose facial mass so sarcoplasmic hypertrophy does help replace lost mass, not unlike the way fillers do. And if you know about fillers, they do eliminate lines, which face exercises also do. Any exercise program results (even for the body) are fleeting if not maintained. I mean, it takes 15 minutes to exercise my face which is nothing and since I don't wear makeup, spend hours doing my hair, waste time at a cosmetic surgeon's office waiting to be injected then days hiding waiting for healing, 15 minutes is nothing 3 times a week. It's become so commonplace to me, it is like how fitness fanatics think nothing of spending 2 hours in the gym to keep their bodies. Also with face exercises, initially you need to do them more frequently to awaken muscles that don't get used in ways face exercises ask you to use them. Once you achieve the results you want, then you can go on a maintenance program, which means you exercise less.

Here ya go. Works like a charm.

http://youtu.be/lSA-1tZZTPM