How often should I perform the exercises – and what about moisturizer?

You Must Perform All 28 Exercises for Best Results

After much research, we’ve found that performing the basic 28 exercises (15 minute workout) once a day, three to five times a week for the first three months will give a perfect foundation for adding any bonus exercises (if needed) later on. Giving the face two days off to rest, once a week is also seemingly important for a couple of reasons. One, you won’t stop doing the exercises because the demand to workout is too much and number two, it “seems” (no scientific back-up here… just our observation), the face and the neck do better when they have a little weekly rest from the face exercises. The build on the face and neck seem to be more elegant, firm and balanced when the tissue has time to recover with this time off. The days you exercise can be distributed any way you like during the week. Just be sure you always take at least two days off out of the seven days … either together or not, it’s up to you!

Note: After the four month mark (always perform the Face Firmer with each workout):

• Under the age of 32 exercise only 2 or 3 times a week
• Between the ages of 32 and 42 exercise 3 times a week
• Over the age of 42 exercise 3 to 5 times a week

Space-out the exercises as evenly as possible throughout the week.

Lying Down Gives an Advantage

It will take you awhile to learn the facial exercises as well as gain control over the muscles of the face and neck. About two weeks. Once you learn them sitting up, please lie down and do them. Part 2 of the DVD shows you those exercises done a little differently lying down than how you perform them sitting up. This is very important to lie down. You are actually building muscle fiber and you need to lie down and lift your head to do this most effectively.

Face Firmer is a Must

You also need to perform the massage technique, the Face Firmer once with every workout. The Face Firmer helps to round out the exercises and makes sure that as your cheeks build, the hollows in the cheeks firm up and fill out to give you a more youthful, firmer and even look for which the CFF™ program is known. You can perform the Face Firmer twice a day on those days you miss your regular workout and you can also perform the Face Firmer on the days you’re letting the face “rest”, but only twice a day on resting days.

Create a Habit

I know this may sound strange to say, but if you don’t do the exercises, you won’t get results. You must exercise to get results. If you try and “fit in” the exercises during the day, you’ll probably fail.

For this reason, the exercises are designed to be performed all at once in a 15 minute workout. You can choose any time of day to do the exercises. Maybe doing them at night just before you go to sleep is more compatible for you or in the morning when you first wake-up? I just recommend that you do them at the same time every day.

Note: Some people think doing the exercises before going to bed not only releases tension in the face so they sleep better during the night, but they think they have better results from sleeping on the “just performed” exercises. Others prefer doing them in the morning when they first wake-up because they think they have a firmer-looking face during the day and it’s a great way to start the day, “fresh-faced”.

Building Slowly and Consistently Gives the Best-looking Build:

Body vs. facial muscles

The muscles only build when microscopic tears occur and heal. This is how you build muscle. The muscles in the face are finer than in the rest of the body, so they probably recover faster than the body. Fiber tears do not happen uniformly and this is okay in the body where the muscles are large and not a very big consequence can happen. However, in the face one must go slowly and gently or they can over-do and get a “lumpy” appearance.

Go fast by going slow

One needs to start off lightly and work very comprehensively to build the muscles of the face and tone it properly. Working out gently and daily is probably okay for the first couple of months, going from five to three times to twice a week later on. A gradual build of the baseline tone for the face is key. With facial exercises, you “go fast by going slow”. Meaning, that gradual building of the facial muscles is the key to good muscle tone and an elegant, firm and good-looking build of the face and neck.

Moisturizer and the CFF™ Program

A note about moisturizer and the CFF™ program: While it is fine to use a moisturizer in the beginning of exercising, remember that friction helps to challenge the muscles and creams reduce this friction. Moisturizing may help until the skin can handle the manipulation of the facial exercises.

It’s important to note if you start facial exercises with a fairly “firm face”, you may want to be sure the touch you use and the amount of pressure you apply to the face when performing the exercises is lighter than firmer. We’ve noticed that those of us with firmer faces, under that age of 30 for example, do best to keep this light touch with the facial exercises so one can control the amount of build one achieves from the very beginning. Furthermore, using a moisturizer when doing the facial exercises may be more beneficial to these select few, as it will help to keep the resistance less rather than more which may be just right for this type.

You should always apply cream with upward strokes when NOT performing the CFF™ facial exercises. The “special” way of doing the CFF™ program, which is sliding in a downward stroke across the skin, is ONLY for the facial exercises. The muscles of the face are most often connected directly into the skin, so when you perform the Neck Firmer, for example, in the CFF™ program, you are contracting all of the muscles, making the skin “taut” and immobile. You are therefore sliding “over” the skin. When applying only cream, your facial muscles are lax and this is the difference. You must have a contracted muscle when sliding over the skin in order to create the resistance that is needed for building muscle fiber and firming the face and neck. You cannot stretch the skin when it is taut from the contracted muscles underneath. Otherwise, you should continue to use upward strokes when applying cream.

It’s so much fun to look younger as you grow older! Enjoy!