Quick and Easy Exercises to Tighten Double Chin and Loose Neck Skin

If you’re frustrated about having a double chin or you want to try to tighten looser skin around your jaw and neck, OR you want to slow those things happening in the first place then there are a few exercises that I’m about to share that will help.

I do them most days at home to keep these areas as toned as possible in my fifties – and they’re quick and easy to do as well. 

I’m Clare Johnston, and if you’re new to my website I’m a journalist on a mission to help you and me age well, look and feel good for longer. I do that here, as well as on YouTube and on podcast platforms. 

And if I’ve learned anything it’s that topical home treatments will only do so much for your skin and to make a real difference we also have to look at making improvements from within by building our muscle which in turn has been proven in studies to increase dermal thickness. 

And remember loss of bone as we age is also contributing to sagging skin and jowls so by strengthening muscles it causes them to pull harder on our bones to help support their density.  

When it comes to our necks, they are particularly susceptible to sagging precisely because they don’t typically get much exercise so we’re about to change that. 

Exercise as part of a skin strength routine

I started exercising the muscles in my face and neck last year not long after I stepped up my wider strength building regimen because I wanted to tone and build my muscles head to toe. 

And another big advantage of exercising and strengthening the muscles in our necks and faces is that we improve blood flow boosting the supply of nutrients to our cells which increases production of collagen and elastin.  

Alongside doing these exercises around four times a week, I also use red light to help energize my skin cells, a facial roller to get blood flowing to my skin and I use a ZIIP microcurrent device every other day because it contracts and relaxes facial muscles which really helps with toning. 

Below you’ll find a link to my full skincare routine which covers the devices I use along with when I use them. 

For the exercises I’m about to run through I do two when I sit in front of my red light panel every other morning, I do a third as part of my home workout 4 days a week and I do the fourth in front of the TV most nights. 

Exercise 1: Air Kissing!

So let’s start with the exercises I do in front of my red light panel.  And you can watch my do each of these exercises in the video at the bottom of this page.

First is an air kissing movement I learned from facial massage coach Claire McLean when she did a facelift massage and exercise tutorial on my channel. And this one you’re going to feel working the muscles under your chin. 

With this exercise I am tilting my head back slightly and just pushing out my bottom lip in an upward motion to feel a very satisfying stretch right under my chin, and you can really feel this exercise working.  

I do two sets of 20 of these with a minute in between. 

Exercise 2: The Grimace!

The second one I do in front of my red light panel means you have to pull a funny face. I picked this one up along with one of the other exercises I’m going to share from a Dr Berg video.  

If you’ve not heard of Dr Berg he’s a chiropractor and hugely popular educator with no less than 13 million YouTube followers. And I decided to try out a couple of his recommended face and neck exercises and they’ve been a great addition to my routine. 

So for the first one, you have to pull both sides of your mouth into a downward grimace which I repeat around 10 times for 2 sets.  

This one’s a little bit awkward to do and it took me a bit of practice to work both sides equally because my right side was easier to pull down than my left. 

And it does make you look very silly but you can really see and feel the muscles working on either side of your neck and up through the jaw as well so it’s an important one. 

Exercise 3: The Chin Curl

The next one I picked up from Dr Berg is especially helpful because it not only exercises your chin but it strengthens the front and back of your neck. 

And I often get tense muscles around my neck and shoulders due to poor posture when I’m sitting at my laptop and this exercise has been helpful in strengthening those muscles and reducing the headaches I’ve been getting from that neck tension. 

So I do this exercise as part of my overall strength training workout. And I lie on my back on a bench to do it but you could do this by dangling your head off the side of your bed. 

And you are literally just pulling your head up from a tilted back position and draw it up to your chest in a neck curl and repeat that movement. I started with 10 reps and now do about 15 of those curls for two sets with a rest in between. 

And this is a great one to do not just to tackle a double chin, but you’re going to get a lot of benefit from strengthening your neck too, so this, along with the kissing motion is my favorite exercise. 

Exercise 4: A Jaw Trainer

Finally, to maintain the muscle in my jaw, and this also helps maintain a toned jawline, I use a very cheap low-resistance jaw exerciser made from silicone which I bought on Amazon.  

Now the story around this is a little more complicated because I have spoken in the past on the channel about struggling with TMJ pain which is pain in my jaw joint that I feel just in front of my ear. And for a while this was giving me a lot of intermittent pain and a doctor had told me I would probably require surgery. 

But a couple of years back I was sent an Oralift device to review on the channel as an aesthetic tool. It looks a bit like a mouth guard and sits on top of your lower teeth and you have to wear it for periods of time keeping your top teeth away from the device so you are creating an open space in your mouth.  

And the idea is you use it for a couple of months and then take a few months off and it’s not designed to treat jaw pain it is intended to retrain your facial muscles by changing the position of your jaw with the idea being that it should have a lifting effect on your skin.  

But the unintended consequence for me was that it really helped with the TMJ pain. 

So I continue to use the Oralift on and off, but in between times I also cautiously use a jaw exerciser when I’m watching TV at night.

I use one that has a low resistance and now I just do 3 sets of about 30 reps and 90 seconds apart just to gently work and strengthen the muscles which also helps keep my jawline in check.  

Now if you have TMJ problems you have to be very careful because just suddenly using a jaw exerciser or any other device could do more harm than good.  

The best idea is of course to talk to a doctor or a dentist about any pain or other joint issues you’re experiencing because what helped me may not necessarily help you so it’s important to get professional advice.. 

But, for me, strengthening my jaw muscles has brought multiple benefits, including reducing the clicking in my jaw, so it’s become an important part of my routine. 

How much difference can exercises make?

Now for those with already very visible signs of sagging around the chin and neck are these exercises going to make as big a difference as cosmetic surgery?  

No and neither are exercises going to completely stop the effects of aging on your skin but you can slow the effects down and you can make visible improvements too.  

It goes without saying that nutrition is another huge factor in bone, muscle and skin health and making sure you’re eating enough protein to help build muscle.