Best Exercises To Firm And Lift Your Breasts + Everyday Habits That Cause Sagging Breasts
The breasts are predominately a fatty tissue located directly over top of the pectoral muscles. One of the best ways to lift your breasts is to strengthen the muscles underneath your breasts as they help to support them. When these muscles are weak, they allow the breast tissue to sag. But if you develop these muscles, your breasts will get a nice lift.
The following exercises won’t turn A cups into Bs or beyond. But they can help you to build up your upper body muscles and improve the appearance of your breasts without having a surgery.
1. Chest Squeeze with a Medicine Ball
The chest squeeze is a great way to warm up the chest before other exercises, or you can do it at the end of your chest work when your muscles are tired. This exercise works the chest and shoulder muscles.
- Sit up straight on a chair and make sure that your back is straight and your stomach is tensed.
- Hold a medicine ball at chest level and squeeze the ball to contract the chest.
- While squeezing the ball, slowly straighten the arms, taking the ball straight out in front of you until the arms are straight.
- Keep a steady pressure on the ball throughout the movement.
- Bring the ball back towards the chest and repeat for 1-3 sets of 10 reps.
2. Push-up
Push up is a great exercise for firming your chest, and as an added bonus it will also strengthen your back and core muscles (for more exercises for your core see my post about the best exercises for getting a flat tummy). You can do it at home without any special equipment. For an easier variation you can place your knees on the ground.
Lie on your stomach and place hands on the ground next to your arm pits and push yourself up so your elbows are slightly bent. Make sure you keep your stomach tensed and slowly lower your chest to the ground then push yourself back up again. Repeat as many times as you can.
3. The T-Plank
The T plank (also known as the front plank) not only tightens your belly, it strengthens your chest, arms, back, glutes and legs too. It can also help you get a bigger, rounder, firmer butt. It builds strength in these areas with body weight rather than equipment (you can add weights for extra challenge), making it a great, no-excuses-tolerated exercise.
1. Hold your body up in a pushup position, with your legs wider than hip width for more stability.
2. Lift your right arm, holding the weight up, and open your body all the way to the right making a “T” shape with your body. Remain in that position for 10 seconds.
3. Return to your starting position and do the same on left side. That’s one rep. Do 5-10 reps.
If you find this exercise too difficult to hold for more than a second or two, put your knee or knees on the ground. As you gain strength, holding the pose for longer periods of time should become much easier.
How to Make It Harder
- Lift top leg 6 inches off bottom leg, so top leg is hovering in the air.
- Use five to 10-pound weights as handles.
4. Bench Press
Bench pressing is a great exercise that can help your breasts appear to be slightly lifted due to the strengthening of the pectoral muscles that are located behind the fatty tissue of the breasts and help to support the breast tissue. When these muscles are weak they allow to breast tissue to sag. You can replace the bench with a Swiss ball.
1. Lie face up on a bench, Swiss ball or on the floor with your arms straight, a dumbbell in each hand.
2. Lower the dumbbells until they’re close to the sides of your chest.
3. Press them back up to the starting position. That’s one rep. Do 10 reps.
5. Dumbbell fly
Dumbbell flys are one of the best exercises for firming your chest.
1. Lie face-up on a flat bench or on the floor with your knees bent.
2. Hold a pair of dumbbells above your shoulders with your elbows slightly bent. Keeping the slight bend in your elbows, lower the weights until your elbows are in line with your chest.
3. Keep the same bend in your elbows as you press the weights back up. Perform 10 reps.
6. Applying Pressure
One of the simplest exercises to plump up your breasts is by applying pressure with your chest muscles and targeting your pectoral muscles which help to support your breasts.
1. In order to do this exercise, face towards the wall while standing tall against it.
2. Now lean on the wall with your hands and put as much pressure with your hands as you can as if trying to move the wall.
3. Keep on applying pressure by pushing it for 10 seconds at a stretch.
4. Then release, relax, shake your hands and get on with it again. Repeat this 10 times.
7. Standing Chest Fly
While this exercise mainly works on your shoulders, there are some benefits for your chest muscles as well.
1. Stand or sit upright, with tummy tight and bend your elbows while holding the dumbbells.
2. Press your palms together. Hold for two seconds and release. Repeat 10-15 times.
In addition to doing these exercises you also need to avoid 5 everyday habits that cause sagging breasts.
Everyday Habits That Cause Sagging Breasts (Breast Ptosis)
We all know that with age our breasts become a little less perky. Unfortunately, breast tissue ages two to three years faster compared to the rest of the body, as revealed by a recent study published in the journal Genome Biology. While there isn’t much you can do about the genetic factors, there are still steps you can take to keep your breasts from sagging prematurely.
By avoiding some everyday habits, you can do your part in keeping breasts young-looking for as long as possible.
1. Wearing a bra that doesn’t fit
This habit is more common that one would think. Most bras are made of flexible materials, and over time with normal wear, they will eventually stretch out. But the bra’s primary purpose is to give support.
Wearing an ill-fitting bra can contribute to breast sagging as the more your breast bounce around, the more stressed breast skin and collagen become. You need to figure out what your bra size is, so that the cups adequately hold your breasts.
About 80% of women are wearing a bra that is not their perfect fit, so make sure you get measured, which can be easily done in a lingerie shop.
2. Smoking
Smoking makes the skin lose its natural elasticity, which causes the breasts to drop. It reduces the amount of collagen in the skin and worsens the blood circulation. This makes the skin become weaker and age faster.
Smoking causes a lot of other health issues and you can see for yourself what happens to your lungs if you smoke only 60 cigarettes. If you are a smoker, then I have 5 natural ways to help you quit smoking – they are all scientifically proven.
3. Crash dieting
Having a balanced diet is very important to the health of your breasts. Yo-yo dieting that makes you lose vast amounts of weight quickly, only to put it back on later, puts a strain on your skin tissue.
Repeatedly losing and gaining weight has been shown to make your breasts drop. The skin tissue stretches to accommodate the weight gain, but it can’t indefinitely snap back into place when the weight comes back off again. So try to maintain a steady weight or a proper nutrition in a healthy, sustainable way.
If you want to lose weight, you can read my 9 secrets on how to lose weight without diet and 12 simple tweaks for weight loss and you can also read my ultimate guide on how to lose weight and get rid of your belly in my e-book Blast Your Belly Fat.
4. Not protecting yourself from the sun
Breasts, and cleavage in particular, can get burnt easily and they absorb their share of the sun’s UV rays. This can damage the skin, make it wrinkle and age prematurely.
Protect yourself from the sun and don’t over-expose your skin. Also, sunscreens are not the magic solution and I have written before about the potential chemical dangers that lure in some sunscreens, especially the high-factor ones.
4. Not exercising and adopting bad posture
It’s important to exercise and keep your chest muscles strong. However, some back-and-forth repetitive motions (like in running) can make your breasts go saggy, as they breakdown breast collagen. Make sure you support your breasts during a high-impact exercise session and pay attention to your posture throughout the day.
Walk straight and make your breasts stand up proudly. You can easily improve your posture by doing the following exercises to improve your posture and you can also do these exercises to firm and lift your breasts.
You may also be interested to read my article about the surprising reasons why breasts are getting larger.
Here are more exercises that you can do at home to tone your whole body (including images):
1. Get a Flat Tummy at Home with These 8 Simple Exercises
2. Simple Exercises to Get Rid of Jiggly Arms
3. Top 13 Exercises to Strengthen Your Back and Reduce Back Pain
4. 10 Exercises to Tone Your Legs and Butt At Home (With Illustrations)