Fitness for face

In everyday facial expressions, facial muscles are involved unevenly. Some of them are almost constantly tense, others are almost constantly relaxed. Both extremes lead to a loss of elasticity in both the muscles themselves and the skin that supports them. According to Evgeny Golubev, the master trainer of the Kinesi-Profi rehabilitation center, “it is a task for a specialist to determine which of our muscles need to be relaxed and which need to be trained, to individually select a course of massage or gymnastics.”

Yet there are general patterns. Dermatocosmetologist Maria Mironova explains: of the 61 muscles of the face and neck, chewing is the most active – these are the strongest muscles in a person. Mimic ones are responsible for the expression of emotions and are not so actively involved, which is why they lose elasticity with age. Therefore, “unemployed” muscles are useful to train.

Facial exercises improve blood microcirculation, which increases the flow of nutrients to the tissues and the outflow of waste, and this helps to cope with swelling and dull skin color. “Such gymnastics is able to saturate the tissues with oxygen, so that skin care products after it will work much more effectively,” explains cosmetologist Ksenia Samodelkina, head coach of the Salon Cosmetics company, based on the basis of the Moscow Institute of Beauty, the oldest in Russia.

“Facercise” – effect on the face

One of the most effective and at the same time simple methods was proposed by the American cosmetologist Carol Maggio, in the book Aerobics for the Skin and Muscles of the Face, she called her facercise, combining the words face – face – and exercise – exercise. The complex consists of 14 exercises, and its implementation takes about 11 minutes. Starting position: sitting with a straight back, slightly raise your legs so that the muscles of the front surface of the thighs tighten, squeeze the buttocks and pull in the stomach. And then move on to the exercises. Maggio pays special attention to the muscles that support the shape of the mouth.

Pinch your lips, but don’t purse them. The view should be something like you are saying to yourself: “I’m ready for this.” Tighten the corners of your mouth as if you were sucking in two slices of lemon. Do not close your teeth and do not forget to monitor your breathing, it should be even. Lightly press the pads of your index fingers to the corners of your mouth. With light and quick pulsating movements, slightly press on the skin. Continue the exercise until you feel a slight burning sensation at the corners of your mouth. Then close your lips tightly and blow hard to make your lips vibrate.

Facebook Building – Start with Breathing

Another technique was created by the German plastic surgeon Reinhold Benz and called it “face building”. He emphasizes the combination of dynamic and static exercises (as in bodybuilding): some work due to the number of repetitions, others due to the duration of the load. Benz suggests starting gymnastics with breathing exercises and then making sure that breathing is slow and deep. This enriches the tissues with oxygen, improves blood circulation and metabolic processes.

Exhale through your mouth, then inhale vigorously, with a noise through your nose, exhale again through your mouth and repeat the noisy breath through your nose. Exercise should be performed while inhaling, and even better – with a breath hold.

So, inhale and slowly tilt your head back so that you feel tension under your chin. Slowly turn your head to the right and look up over your shoulder. Open your mouth slightly and push your lower jaw forward. Slowly return to the starting position as you exhale. Do three reps on each side.

“Faceforming” – the secret to correcting posture

Even the smallest of our muscles is part of a single harmonious whole, which is our body. Perhaps the most effective, but the most difficult of all the listed methods is based on this – “faceforming”. It was developed by Benita Cantieni – more information can be found in her book Fighting Wrinkles.

She believes that it is necessary to start “working on the face” … with correcting your posture, and then master the basics of meditation: learn to breathe correctly, consciously breathe and focus on a particular part of the body. Cantieni’s posture exercises restore blood circulation and relax the neck muscles.

“Posture disorders lead to spasms of the vessels and muscles of the cervical spine, disorders of venous and lymphatic outflow,” notes Valery Serebrennikov, osteopath of the Telo’s Beauty clinic. “It impairs the metabolic processes in the skin.” In addition, the author of the technique believes, you need to train the muscles … around the ears. Around the auricle in small depressions are energetically active points. Light pressure can be used to activate them. Cantieni suggests doing this stimulation every day for the first three weeks for at least two minutes.

Sit cross-legged on the floor with a pillow underneath you. Try to sit exactly on your sitting bones. Pull up the spine, imagining it as a string of pearls: from the coccyx through the sacrum, thoracic vertebrae, upper back, neck. Imagine that you are attached to the sky by this thread. Loosely move your shoulders back and down a little and relax. Overcome the first reaction to the word “relax” – the urge to go limp and slide down: restorative relaxation is a straight, straight back. Take your time, listen to the feeling of elongation – as if internally negotiate with gravity so that it does not put pressure on you.

If you keep the back of your head straight, relaxed and free, you will feel how the head seems to become lighter. Imagine that she is floating like a ball on a fountain stream – almost weightless and soft. Feel how the spine stretches, how the back of the head becomes light, how the chest straightens, and the shoulders drop freely. More and more relax the muscles of the face, lower jaw. The chin sags slightly, the corners of the mouth relax. There is no tension anywhere up to the forehead … Such a daily practice will gradually align your posture, improve your well-being, mood and even complexion.