Finger position Exercise 1

[Fred]

Dear Forum,

I have been doing Exercise 4 (muscles at the front of the neck) one year and Exercise 5 (scalp muscles) for much longer than that.

Recently I started doing Excercise 1. I really enjoy it, as described by Tom, exercising this when I wake up in bed. It also seems to smooth out the area around the eyes.

I have one question though, which is about how important the position of the fingers is. Being 38 years old I noticed something that is beginning to look like a wrinkle (not Christmas) on the sides of the eyes. My question is, would it negatively alter the efficiency of this delicate exercise if you reposition the index finger a bit up on the sides of the eyes, for extra resistance here and also to mitigate formation of crows feet.

I tried to show what I mean it in this image I attached, if you imagine the middle fingers here representing the position of my index finger.

I hope this is somewhat clear!

Fredrik

Excercise-1.png (19.7 KiB) Viewed 6738 times

[Tom Hagerty]

Fred, I'm glad brought up the subject of finger placement in the exercise for the muscles around the eyes. I do the exercise with different finger placements almost every time. Usually I use three fingers but sometimes I use only two fingers when I place them at the sides of my eyes.

Fingers completely at the side of the eyes

Even fingers in this position.jpg (6.74 KiB) Viewed 6727 times

In my description of this exercise on the DVD I suggested just one way of optimum finger place. I should have said there are multiple ways to place the fingers and that varying the positions is good practice. But you determined this for yourself without my input.

I think that once the orbicularis occuli (orbital) muscles and the palbebral (eyelid) muscles are toned up they will naturally become relaxed when not contracted. Facial muscles that are not in good shape tend to stay partially contracted all the time. This can lead to crow's feet and horizontal lines between the eyebrows. You'll find that when your facial muscles are toned up they will stay relaxed unless you want to want to show the myriad forms of facial expression. But the whole range of facial expression is best served by muscles that are not in a continuous state of contraction.

Frontalis muscle always contracted

Bush.jpg (12.36 KiB) Viewed 6727 times

[S711]

Hello. I was wondering: is opening the mouth in an O shape while doing this exercise a bad idea?
Thanks

[Nonie]

Hello. I was wondering: is opening the mouth in an O shape while doing this exercise a bad idea?
Thanks

Color me confused. Why would you do that? As far as I know, the exercises in this program are done while keeping the rest of the face relaxed. I find that helps keep focus on the area being exercised. So I am at a loss on why you would want to change an exercise that seems to work well just as it is.

[S711]

Hi Nonie!

In my mind I thought that the fingers were meant to very very VERY gently pull the skin (pulling appears like a strong move,, to create a small strecth perhaps is a better description). This to create resistance and make the under eye lid work "more". Opening the mouth creates this "resistance" Sorry, I am Italian, I can't explain it better

I thought that opening the mouth could be a possible variation of the exercise, like there are variations for the placing of the fingers like Tom explains in some post (somewhere in the forum) linking back to the video in Spanish.

I have dark circles and because I am missing nothing, I also have sunken eyes and a visible vein connecting the end of the dark (sunken) circle to the outer corner of the eyebrow.
A bit is genetics and my skin is very thin and clear. I hope that I can improve it a little bit with lots of patience.

[Nonie]

Hi Nonie!

In my mind I thought that the fingers were meant to very very VERY gently pull the skin (pulling appears like a strong move,, to create a small strecth perhaps is a better description). This to create resistance and make the under eye lid work "more". Opening the mouth creates this "resistance" Sorry, I am Italian, I can't explain it better

Thank you for coming back to answer.

When I do that exercise, I do not pull at all. I simply hold the skin firmly in place and I do feel a sufficient resistance when I close my eyes. When you close your eyes, the lower lid muscle contracts in a diagonally upward direction toward the inner corner of the eye where the muscle is anchored. It is this movement that works against the resistant of the gentle hold. You do not need to pull down or out at all. The image below shows you how contraction of the orbicularis muscle pulls everything toward the muscle's anchor point at inner corner of the eye (3).


Source: https://tinyurl.com/yxlf8w94

You can see from the pull notated as (1), that Tom's recommended finger placements--and as you mentioned, there are more than one but all in the general area from where the muscle pulls during contraction--provide resistance exactly where it is needed. So the exercise does not need any modification, in my humble opinion.

I can tell you from experience that pulling under the eyes and then working your eyes against that resistance is not a good thing to do. I used to do a program that encouraged pulling down on that delicate skin around the eye. I found the exercise scary the first time I saw it and was afraid to do it. Scary because in15 years of doing another program, I had never seen anything so aggressive. I only went ahead and did it after being ill-advised that it was safe and essential if one was to have beautiful eyes like the author of the program did. The result of following that advice was my eyes went from never having sag or lines in 35+ years of living, to developing under eye lines when not smiling and bulges when smiling in a very short time (probably from loss of elasticity due to that unnecessary stretch). I changed to another program that has a finger placement like Tom's for this exercise with no pulling, and in time, my eyes improved. So my belief is your finger placement with no pull is the only resistance you need for that exercise.

thought that opening the mouth could be a possible variation of the exercise, like there are variations for the placing of the fingers like Tom explains in some post (somewhere in the forum) linking back to the video in Spanish.

I do not think opening the mouth would help this exercise's target area at all. The muscles involved in opening your mouth are far below the eye muscles. To be specific, the muscle that opens your mouth is the lateral pterygoid shown here:


Source: https://web.duke.edu/anatomy/Lab25/Lab25.html

I have dark circles and because I am missing nothing, I also have sunken eyes and a visible vein connecting the end of the dark (sunken) circle to the outer corner of the eyebrow.
A bit is genetics and my skin is very thin and clear. I hope that I can improve it a little bit with lots of patience.

I do believe face exercises can help by thickening the skin so that blood vessels do not show through (which is usually one reason people have dark circles) and also the thickening helps reduce the sunken look. One time when someone asked about tear troughs in another forum, I found some before and after images to show evidence that natural methods can fix the problem:

http://www.essentialdayspa.com/forum/vi ... ?tid=49226

And here are some discussions in this forum on that topic:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=170&p=429

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=118&p=227

[S711]

Hello Nonie,
thank you, THANK YOU so much!!!!

Sally

[Nonie]

Hello Nonie,
thank you, THANK YOU so much!!!!

Sally

You are very welcome.