Photo Credit: Courtesy of Kate Demko

Yoga and pilates can help to sculpt muscles, running can improve cardiovascular health. While you are working out, all the muscles of your body are getting to work except for your facial muscles. We keep the majority of the tension in our neck and head, which leads to more wrinkles, headaches, TMJs and migraines. Don’t you feel amazing after a body massage, relieving all the tension from sore muscles? Imagine how would you feel getting the same for your face.

Face massages and exercises will transform not only your skin, but your mood and overall health we typically neglect to work out the very muscles people see the most — our faces. Just like the rest of your body, the more than 57 muscles in your face and neck are also in need of exercise to stay toned and fit. A facial workout at Face Fit Bar can help you strengthen muscles, drain fluids, and define your jawline and prominent cheekbones.

Face Workout Benefits

Strengthening exercises for the facial muscles help to tone, energize and lift. Just like how you can build a flat stomach, you can also sculpt your cheekbones. By stimulating our facial muscles in a face workout we are bringing fresh blood and oxygen to our skin, feeding it with nutrients while stimulating collagen production naturally and delivering more oxygen to the cells. It’s almost like a plasma facial but in a natural way. When cells don’t get enough oxygen they go into hypoxia, meaning they are dying. Any type of stimulation is essential for cells’ nourishment and regeneration.

Facial exercises also are an excellent form of lymphatic drainage. Do you ever feel like your face is starting to go South? Well, it’s not just gravity, it’s also those stubborn fluids. Imagine putting a 20lbs bag pack on a first grader? Their shoulders go down. Same with our muscles. When we carry so much fluid, our muscles become heavier and they pull down our face, leaving us puffy and not thrilled.

You would be surprised to find out that face fitness can also help with the appearance of thick scars and dehydration of dull-looking skin. Another popular reason to take up facial exercise is the ‘this is your magic pill for TMJ, Jaw Clinching, and anxiety.’

Types of Facial Exercise

There are many facial exercise modalities you can experiment with to get different results.

Gua sha: The gua sha technique has an extremely long and sacred history in Chinese medicine and was used to both prevent and treat disease. Gua sha tools help to encourage lymphatic drainage and sculpting.

Face rollers: If you want something a bit lower-lift, start with a roller. Similar to a gua sha, face rollers have lighter pressure and still give you similar benefits.

Face yoga: This technique includes various exercises, using your muscles and tongue to strengthen specific muscles. You will feel sore in your face after doing it. But it’s a very pleasant experience as you can actually feel incredible tightness in y

Face fitness: I would compare it to cardio in the gym. It is a complex face massage performed on yourself that will give you the effect of a Reconstructive Facial.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Kate Demko

Introducing The Face Fitness Class

When you go to the gym or a yoga class, you work out all the muscles in your body minus your face. When, in fact, your facial muscles have memory and can be just as tight and relaxed as your body muscles. This being the case, it was necessary that the Face Fitness Masterclass began.

The masterclass is available to all, including men. Skin is skin and we all age. The stereotype that only women should take care of their skin is so last year. And to note, men carry way more tension in their faces. The group class is now available in Miami, New York and online. As the class begins to grow, it will begin to expand to multiple locations.

The class starts at $55 per hour and offers a ton of value, including:

• Learning result-driven techniques
• Listening in on 10 years of education knowledge shared by the experts
• In-person demonstrations of the ancient Gua Sha scul[ting and Lymphatic Drainage techniques
• In-person demonstrations of the modern Face Fitness Face Yoga exercises for a defined jaw and double chin reduction
• Class finishing with a love meditation and a cold Herbal Essence Cooling eye compress
• A gift box with tools from the workshop

The History of Facial Fitness

Facial gymnastics is not a new concept. The idea of ”face culture” was embodied by German surgeon Reinhold Berz in the early 20th century. The idea came to him when he saw the contrast between the beautiful trained body of a 40-year-old ballerina and her already sluggish face. The origins of face yoga are dating back to the 1970s and 1980s. Face Yoga instructor, Koko Hayashi, demonstrates facial exercises. In the Ming Dynasty between 1368 and 1644, the procedure was scientifically computed into major medical records. Although the period of the practice of Gua Sha is assumed to be much older, its first computed record dates back to about 700 years ago during the era of the Ming Dynasty.

Seems like facial exercises have been there for centuries, but there are so many different techniques and uncertainties. Especially with the rise of social media, everyone is deemed to be an expert. Unfortunately, about 90% of the techniques you can see on social media are absolutely not correct and can cause more skin conditions or even trauma. For example, most of the Gua Sha demos show you the same techniques used for the body as for the face, while holding the tool at a 90-degree angle and scraping muscles while creating micro-tears and damage to facial tissues. Gua Sha is a healing tool that is meant to be held flat to the skin using mild to medium pressure and slow speed. Jade for instance reduces inflammation and has a lot of soothing and cooling benefits. If used correctly it can even help certain organs of the body except for the skin. So scraping the skin with an angle takes away the true meaning of Gua Sha. The main idea here is to reduce swelling and drain the fluids, sculpt and define. Believe me, you don’t need to scrape your skin to reduce tension.

The same goes for Instagram Face Massages. If done incorrectly it can stretch the skin or spread the fluids around to create migraines and congestion, and sometimes even can lead to more serious issues. Every time you do a massage you have to make sure to open up Lymphatic channels and drain fluids. This is where Face Fitness Group Classes come into play!

If you are a professional in the industry and the Facial Fitness class isn’t at the level you are looking for, don’t worry, Face Fitness Trainer Certifications for licensed estheticians in the United States and internationally are now being offered. To learn more about both opportunities, consult with celebrity esthetician and owner of Face Fit Bar, Lana Mar today.