Larger Muscles Create Lift
Muscle resistance training actually builds muscle fiber that creates lift. As we age, we lose the underlying layer of fat just beneath the skin. The loss of this fat is one of the reasons we look older and tired as we age. It’s probably responsible for the majority of facial sagging. As you exercise the face, you actually enlarge the muscles, giving the appearance of a fuller more youthful look. While isometrics will tone the face, neck and skin, which is also part of the CFF™ program, they just won’t give a real build on the face that muscle resistance training can give.
Healthier Skin is Another Side Benefit
As well, the increased circulation of blood can be as much as ten times greater than normal when you contract a muscle. Facial exercises allow more oxygen and more nutrients to reach the cells of the skin. Damaged cells are swept away. The result is a clear, healthy skin with good color. The muscles on the face are attached from the bone directly into another muscle or the skin. This allows us to make facial expression. It also means the skin lifts as the muscle tones and regains its original shape. In the body, the muscles are mostly connected bone to bone. Therefore, you will see faster results on the face and neck than in the body as you build the muscles up.
Muscle Resistance and Isometrics
So, to achieve the results you want, I had to base my program on muscle resistance training. I also had to include isometrics and exercises that actually tone the muscles as in the jowl area in order to allow the elegant, graceful, youthful and powerful look I wanted to realize.
Study of muscle resistance exercisers: Healthy participants aged 40 to 65 years with photo damage, associated mild to moderate facial atrophy, and with an interest in facial exercises were included. Participants received formal instruction on 32 facial exercises. All participants attended 2 live 90-minute muscle-resistant facial exercise training sessions with a certified facial exercise instructor (G.S.). Neither participants nor those administering the interventions were blinded. After the initial training sessions with the instructor, participants performed daily 30-minute exercises for 8 weeks at home. During weeks 9 to 20, participants continued practicing exercises every other day (3-4 times per week).
Twenty-seven participants were enrolled (33 screened, 33 found to be eligible, 6 declined to enroll). Sixteen received the full 20-week intervention (11 dropped out) and all follow-up visits, and the data from these were analyzed.
Result - On average everyone in the study had 3 years taken off their faces and necks!
More Benefits
When you use muscle resistance training with facial exercises, you are tensing the muscles and working them against pressure. The muscle becomes toned overall, which means it’s either bigger because you’re building muscle fiber and/or more dense as the muscle tones from the center of axis and appears to look shorter.This can be seen with rounder, higher, firmer cheeks and jowls that lift up, as well. With muscle resistance, you lift and straighten out the “damage” you’ve done over a lifetime by frowning or laughing or moving a muscle repetitively in only one direction. The key is to tone the muscle through muscle resistance training. You are not only releasing the stuck down wrinkle and literally ironing it out, you are also building the muscle back up to its evenness which it had when you were young. As the muscle regains tone, your wrinkles smooth out and your face lifts up, too. Your face and neck regain that vital, firm, younger look of your youth.
