Can I Exercise After Botox?

One of the key benefits to non-surgical aesthetic treatments is minimal recovery time, which means you can pop in for a treatment and resume normal day-to-day activities shortly after. However, many practitioners advise taking a brief rest from exercising just so you can allow your body to adjust after a treatment. Here’s a handy guide to how quickly you can expect to be back on the treadmill post-aesthetic treatment.

Exercising after cosmetic treatments - the dos and don'ts

Botox– wait at least 24 hours

Generally, practitioners recommend waiting at least 24 hours before exercising after Botox. Exercise increases blood circulation in your body, sending it whooshing around your heart, muscles and skin (hence why you get a flushed, red face after a run). Long-term, of course, this has huge health benefits, but in the very short-term, exercising post-Botox can reduce the effects of the treatment. This is because the increase in blood circulation means your blood might flush some of the botulinum away from the injection site and it could migrate to a different part of your face.

If you do exercise every day, you can still fit in a workout pre-treatment, but do not go straight from the gym. Exercise can heighten your blood pressure, temporarily, which can increase swelling in the injection site.

Fillers – wait at least 24 hours

The general rule of thumb is that you should avoid strenuous exercise for at least 24 hours after dermal fillers - whether that’s lip fillers, liquid rhinoplasty, tear trough fillers or any other type.

Fillers can cause some temporary bruising, meaning you may find it uncomfortable to exercise for at least a week, depending on where you’ve had the injections. Some doctors also advise you to abstain from exercising for at least a week due to the risk of infection. Although the needle used to administer the filler is, in fact, tiny, when compared to a bacteria, the channels they create in your skin are HUGE. And sweat is the perfect way to wash that bacteria into those channels!

You should also take a break from yoga until you are healed – this is because yoga positions can increase the blood flow to the face, which can increase swelling and bruising.

Skin peels – wait 2-3 days

While it’s possible to do some very gentle exercise 24-hours post-treatment, the recommendation is to avoid anything strenuous that makes you sweat heavily for 2-3 days (depending on how you are healing) after a chemical peel.

Sweating excessively can irritate the skin or cause blistering and possible long-term scarring due to the sweat being unable to escape through the top layer of dead skin. If in doubt, wait until you have stopped peeling before doing any sweaty workouts.

Fat reduction treatments – case-by-case

There are many fat reduction treatments on the market, such as EMSculpt and CoolSculpting, and each of them works in different ways. Generally, exercise is largely encouraged post-treatment so that clients see the full effect. Unless, of course, you have had fat-dissolving injections - in which this case, you should follow the advice above for fillers and anti-wrinkle injections.

Although there is very little downtime post-fat-reduction treatment, your practitioner will give you advice on when it is safe to exercise depending on how you are healing. Make a note to ask about what exercises are recommended and when you are safe to do them during your initial consultation.

You can find more information about exercising after treatments - as well as more dos and don’ts in our Glowday treatment guides. Don't forget to see the new practitioners, near you, who have joined Glowday, you might find a new treatment you fancy trying too!