Will exercising pectoral muscles post under the muscle silicone breast implants cause the implants to shrink?

You can see here what we advise our patients in regards to delaying exercise after breast augmentation:Physical Activity/Exercise: Avoid heavy lifting and strenuous activity for six weeks. You may, however, do normal activities at any time if they cause no pain or discomfort. Let your body tell you what you can or cannot do. Aerobic exercise will raise your blood pressure, which could cause late bleeding and harm your result.  Once you begin exercising again, start gently and let your body tell you what it can tolerate. Don’t rush!! It may require the full 6 weeks before you can do any upper body work-outs, yoga, etc.Since you have had well over six weeks in allowing your procedure to heal, you should not have any problem in exercising. However, if you are feeling pain and discomfort it would be a good idea to have another follow-up exam with your surgeon to ensure that the implants have settled properly into place and that healing has progressed properly. Best of luck to you!

Working out your chest muscles will NOT make your implants shrink. Your likely sore after working out with your chest because you have not been doing it for the past 18 months. This far out you have a well formed capsule around the implants and they will not move or "shrink". As one other surgeon mentioned, you may be building more muscle mass over them making their appearance slightly different or if you have lost a significant amount of weight from being back in the gym this may lead to your breast tissue overlying the implants to shrink.

Exercising will not make your implants shrink, and pain is common after restarting exercise. Start light and slow and build up to full exercise. If you are concerned you should go and see your surgeon to get checked. Regards, Dr Steve Merten, Sydney, Australia

Exercise absolutely will not cause breast implants to shrink. The only two things that can change your post-op surgical result would be a possible change from the milk of pregnancy and significant (10% or more) weight change. After pregnancy your breasts might stay the same size, get bigger, or smaller, and or droopier. What happens can change from pregnancy to pregnancy. I have a couple of triple crown body builders in my practice who went back into full training as early as 8 weeks after surgery. They report, and I have found, that any discomfort they had after workouts were consistent with the normal post-workout discomfort that you'd feel even if you didn't have implants. If you are concerned, have your surgeon recheck you. Hope this information was reassuring. For more information on this and similar topics, I recommend a plastic surgery Q&A book like "The Scoop on Breasts: A Plastic Surgeon Busts the Myths."

Implants will not shrink because you exercise or lift weights.  Their appearance may change as your weight or muscle mass increases or decreases but they don't shrink themselves. Visit with your plastic surgeon for more in depth answers. Best wishes.