Having overly large breasts can not only be uncomfortable, but they can also cause other health issues such as neck, shoulder, and back pain. Some women also report that having large breasts can cause rashes, numbness when bras don’t fit properly, and headaches.
When it comes to exercise, large breasts can cause an inability to exercise or a lack of desire to perform workouts due to discomfort or embarrassment. Larger breasts can also cause shortness of breath, leading to a loss of desire to train. This isn’t just in your mind; the weight of the excess tissue can constrict the natural movement of the diaphragm.
Breast reduction surgery isn’t an option for everyone. It may be that you’re looking for non-surgical solutions or that you’re feeling certain that if your breasts were just a bit smaller, it would make a big difference in your overall health and confidence.
While you’re planning your exercise journey to help reduce your breast size, you can, at the same time, find clothing options to help minimize a large chest so that you can look and feel your absolute best. Read more on 5 Flattering Ways to Minimize a Large Chest.
The Structure of The Breast
Before understanding how exercise can work to reduce breast size, it’s important to know the structure of the breast, what parts can be altered by exercise, and which parts of the breast anatomy will not be altered with exercise. Breasts are made up of fat and breast tissue, nerves, veins, arteries, and connective tissue. The main chest muscle is found between the breast and the ribs in the chest wall.
For most women, the breasts are almost entirely fatty, with a few areas of dense tissue (breast tissue) scattered throughout the breasts. This means that exercises that promote overall fat loss can be extremely effective in reducing breast size. Women can also experience the lifting of sagging breasts by working the chest muscles that are found between the fatty breast tissue and the ribs. Here are 3 Simple Exercises To Lift Sagging Breasts.
Changes To The Breasts After Menopause
As breast tissue decreases during menopause, breast density also decreases. Breast density is defined by the breast tissue as opposed to fatty tissue. Before menopause, the breasts have more breast tissue than fat. After menopause, the breasts typically have more fat than breast tissue. This is important to understand because it significantly affects the exercise strategy.
Five exercises you can do to reduce breast size.
1. Target the Fatty Breast Tissue With Aerobic Exercise
Controlling body fat is the first step to reducing the size of the breasts. I wrote a comprehensive article on eliminating flabby arms and highlighted some similar strategies. Just as in the arms, body fat itself is not firm to begin with, so the more of it we have in our breasts, the heavier it will be. Combine that with the loss of skin elasticity as we age, and that heaviness can be not only uncomfortable but downright painful.
Because there is no exercise to spot reduce body fat, our focus must be on an overall fat-loss strategy. Certain aerobic activities that involve running and jumping can cause quite a bit of discomfort, so here are some perfect alternative, low-impact cardio exercises to reduce breast size by losing all-around body fat.
- Stair climbing
- Incline walking on a treadmill
- Cycling
- Power walking
- Swimming
Once you’ve started to consider the types of cardio that are low impact, similar to the list above, you may come up with some ideas of your own for getting that heart rate up and burning calories, which leads to reducing fat composition.
2. Pushups
The pushup is an exercise you can (and should) do every day, no matter your fitness goals. The pushup is one of the best whole-body bodyweight exercises you can do. For the purposes of reducing breast size, the pushup also targets those pectoral (pec) muscles in a very deliberate way.
If a standard pushup (from your toes) is too challenging, you can always modify the movement by dropping to your knees instead. This will decrease the amount of resistance needed for both holding your weight up as you decline and pushing your weight back up.
If you’re a beginner, starting from your knees will also allow you to do more repetitions, challenging the pec muscles even more. As you become stronger, make it your goal to modify the pushup back to your toes to make the movement as challenging as possible.
How to do a pushup:
- Get down on all fours, placing your hands slightly wider than your shoulders.
- Straighten your arms and legs.
- Lower your body until your chest nearly touches the floor.
- Pause, then push yourself back up.
- Repeat.
3. Leg Raises
Let raises can help reduce the appearance of large breasts by toning the abdominal muscles and preventing the sagging of the breasts. This exercise is also ideal for large breasts as it allows you to be in a comfortable position with no additional stress or strain.
How to do leg raises:
- Lie on your back, legs straight together.
- Keep your legs straight and lift them all the way up to the ceiling until your butt comes off the floor.
- Slowly lower your legs back down until they’re just above the floor. Hold for a moment.
- Raise your legs back up.
- Repeat.
4. Dumbbell Front Raise
The front raise primarily strengthens the shoulder muscles but also works the upper chest. In addition to doing cardio for fat loss, the dumbbell front raise can help you build strength in your shoulders, improve posture, and create definition in the front and sides of your shoulders. Exercises with dumbbells make so many options as you can easily lower or raise the amount of weight you’re using.
How to do a dumbbell front raise:
- Stand with your feet about shoulder-width apart.
- Let your arms hang in front of you with the dumbbells in front of the thighs (palms facing the thighs).
- Your back is straight; your feet are planted flat on the floor.
- Engage your abdominal muscles.
- Lift the weights upward while inhaling. Your arms are extended, palms facing down, with a slight bend in the elbows to reduce the stress on the joints.
- Pause briefly when your arms are horizontal to the floor.
- Lower the dumbbells to the starting position (at the thighs) with a slow and controlled motion.
- Repeat.
5. Dumbbell Side Raise
I love adding the dumbbell side raise, also known as a lateral raise, to complement the dumbbell front raise. They make a perfect pair, as you can easily alternate between the two. You can decide whether to alternate between doing 1 front raise and one side raise, then continue to 8-10 reps, or you can simply do a set of 8-10 front raises followed by 8-10 side raises. Side raises work the muscles in your upper back as well as a big group of muscles in your shoulders. As with the front raises, the side raise will tremendously help posture.
How to do a dumbbell side raise:
- Stand tall with a dumbbell in each hand.
- Arms are at your sides, palms facing in.
- Position feet roughly hip-distance apart.
- Raise your arms simultaneously, just a couple of inches out to each side, and pause.
- Lift the dumbbells up and out to each side, keeping your arms almost completely straight, stopping when your elbows reach shoulder height and your body is forming a “T” shape.
- Pause and hold for a second at the top of the movement
- Lower the weights slowly, bringing your arms back to your sides.
- Repeat.
Of course, there are many exercises you can do that will offer cardio for burning calories, then strength training (which also burns calories) that will condition, tighten, and lift the muscles in the chest wall, shoulders, and back. All these areas will help change the size and appearance of the breasts. As an additional measure, you can also focus on abdominal (core) exercises, which will change the condition and strengthen the upper abs. This, too, will provide a lift and improve the appearance of the breasts.
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