Facial Massage, Facialbuilding/Exercises and Stopping Headaches in their Tracks

Last night I was massaging my face with a level of aggression that I had recently shown an uninitiated FlexEffecting friend and she started laughing. I think it was nervous laughter. The kind that goes with "I thought you weren't supposed to even touch your face." Granted she's known me for a while, as well about FlexEffect, and has put in her..."HELP ME" Call. She sees me, and knows intuitively there is nothing to be worried about.

As most know, I was raised in the world of FlexEffect. I never worry about handling my face. It's absolutely normal to me.

Something else occurred to me just the other evening. HEADACHES! I wonder if any chronic headache sufferers, especially those that suffer tension headaches, ever give a thought to the false notion that massage of the face is bad? The reason I ask, and perhaps this is what has aided my own education, is that I have suffered SEVERE tension headaches in my life. They can be blinding... They can last for hours. You will do just about anything to relieve the pain. And I do! I massage with such an aggressive hand that would most certainly frighten anyone that believes that the face is like wet tissue, waiting to tear at any moment... Or that such pressure would ruin the face, and cause some sort of obvious aging in a few short days or even minutes.

I have literally sat in a dark room for well over an hour just massaging my face as deeply as possible.

It actually wasn't until we were in the middle of rewriting the latest FlexEffect Book that I had one doozy of a headache. It was about 1 in the morning. The house was silent. It was like a construction site within my skull. The pounding was unbearable. I sat up and started with ScalpFlex... and then a massage with all the strength and pressure I could muster... the forehead, the eyes, my cheeks, jaw, neck (front and back), chest, as much of my shoulders as I could reach. As the pain started to flow away, it occurred to me. NO WONDER! How could I fear massage. It has already saved me from excruciating pain without ever causing one bit of negative result with regard to my appearance. And I wonder, those of you afraid to touch your face... Are you also lucky enough to hardly ever suffer a serious headache? Perhaps you haven't had any other mind numbing causes to try it. NOW I'm jealous!

I recommend talking to the Headache sufferers in your life. See what they have to say.

Flex ON!

What is SPOT TRAINING…?

What is SPOT TRAINING…? And what is FlexEffect's position on it?

The most basic example of Spot Training is doing hundreds of sit ups, in hopes that your Buddha belly will simply go away. We already know from years of repetitive information that you simply WILL not develop a six pack without a proper diet and increasing muscle mass throughout the body, therefore burning fat and exposing those muscles. It’s the TARGET TRAINING of the abs that will SCULPT that six-pack NOT expose it.

Now, from a FlexEffect point of view what does this mean? To quote one of our trainers, Sean, “As you know by now, a sagging jaw line isn’t just caused by the muscles of the jaw line sagging; but it can be by the cheek muscles sagging on top of those, or the masseter, or the mouth and chin muscles losing tone. So, if a person begins working only the jaw line muscles, they are not (necessarily) going to improve the appearance of the jaw line, because the muscles connected to it are still sagging.” It is for that reason that FlexEffect offers a complete and rounded program for the entire face. Generally, we recommend that an individual work the whole face as a NEWBIE. This is done in the same way a personal trainer will offer a new client a complete body workout. Our reasoning is the same, so you don’t create an imbalance in the face. Although, you may have a SPOT of concern on your face, it takes a balanced approach to help smooth things out. The main issue of concern is that a person not choose an area that is bothersome and work it with disregard as to how that area will really be affected. This is where a person just works the SPOT of concern, not necessarily the muscles that will TARGET the area of concern. That is the “no, no” that is heavily preached against by FlexEffect.

However, there is no reason as you can not learn your facial structures and how you personally respond to a workout that you can’t add TARGET TRAINING to your facial program. Isn’t that the very thing you would do in a gym? Surely, after six months to a year of doing the basic training that you were assigned in a gym and learned, you would change things up. Right? In fact, if you were to compete in a body building competition, you would be judged in large part on the symmetry of your body; symmetry created through the knowledge of how exercises hit each muscle, how the growth of that muscle will impact general appearance, and how you apply that knowledge. The brilliant component here is that if you over build you can easily take some time off and get your face exactly to where you like in a rather speedy time frame. Alternatively, as with any area of the body, you might also have an area of the face that takes its sweet time building. This is really where persistence is of importance, as well as working with a trainer to help you hit those muscles in a fashion conducive to your needs.

If you already own a FlexEffect Book you will note in the back of the book a section called TARGET AREAS. You are given a list of general areas of concern, and a list of FE exercises that target those areas. Unless you feel solid in your comprehension of how to apply these exercises to your individual needs, make sure you pop in to FlexEffect’s Private Workshop. You can post cropped pictures if you like, and ask for guidance from one of our online trainers how to address your needs.