Don't Drop Out From Your Exercise Regimen - Simplify It. FACEXER.

      We have to employ a variety of tactics to keep ourselves motivated and inspired to be successful at a fitness routine, don't we?

       Physical Therapist implements one of the principals of neural plasticity “Use it or lose it”, giving stretch bands to the client and advising him/her to keep these stretch bands close by to encourage exercise during daytime.

      It is much more difficult to encourage and monitor exercises for head, face and neck. Based on recearch regarding exercise physiology, we need to perform 4-5 specific exercises with 100-120 repetitions each per day for a minimum 4-6 weeks in order to get actual muscle hypertrophy. Wow! It is a very difficult and complex exercising regimen.

      Research during the past several decades indicates that, depending upon their conditions and the complexity of the regimens required, as many as 40% of patients fail to adhere to treatment recommendations (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1661624/)

(DiMatteo and DiNicola 1982; DiMatteo 1994, 2004a, 2004c; Lin et al 1995; Rizzo and Simons 1997; Dunbar-Jacob et al 2000; Laederach-Hofmann and Bunzel 2000; Haddad et al 2004; Haynes et al 2004).

     Unfortunately, this statement is true regarding preventive exercising regimens too. When preventive or treatment regimens are very complex and/or require lifestyle changes and the modification of existing habits, nonadherence can be as high as 70% (Dishman 1982, 1994; Brownell and Cohen 1995; Katz et al 1998; Chesney 2000; Li et al 2000).

     Knowing that drop out from newly initiated exercise regimens is very problematic, FACEXER team has decided to develop a very simple tool similar to stretch band or small dumbbell - free weight for small muscles above the shoulders -  in order to activate smaller stabilizing muscle groups to control the oral-motor or facial exercises performing at home.      

     FacExer can be used to exercise head and neck muscles while lying down, watching TV etc. Eventually exercise with FacExer are saving  time, spending on exercising, increasing effectiveness of the workout. The added advantage is that caring staff can observe that prescribed exercise regimen has been performed - FacExer is a tangible convenient device.