Living an active lifestyle often means smaller breasts. Physical activity reduces body fat, and women don’t get to choose which areas lose fat. The belly and the breasts are both affected equally by fat reduction. Breasts are largely comprised of fatty tissue and lowered fat levels means smaller breasts. Many female athletes turn to breast augmentation to increase cup size and create a full, shapely breast appearance.
Breast augmentation is a highly effective option for increasing the breast size of female athletes. However, an active lifestyle does create a few complications for successful breast augmentation surgery. Choose a breast surgeon that has worked extensively with active patients and that knows how to successfully navigate the challenges of low body fat, high activity levels, and frequently used pectoral muscles in breast augmentation.
Breast Implant Size and Athletes
Ask any woman with large breasts and she’ll tell you that exercise isn’t always easy. A recent study found a direct correlation between breast size and activity levels. The larger a woman’s breasts were, the less likely she was to exercise. This is understandable. Breasts can make exercise difficult, especially high movement exercises like running.
If exercise and an active lifestyle are important to you, we’ll need to choose breast implant size carefully. You’ll want implants that are large enough to make an impact, but not so large that they interfere with your favorite sports and activities. We find that small to moderately sized implants provide feminine and attractive curves for our patients with an athletic build.
Another breast implant size consideration is coverage. To create the naturally looking breast augmentation results he’s known for, Dr. Sajjadian uses natural breast tissue to cover breast implants. Your natural tissues help to ensure that your implants feel natural once inside of the breast. These tissues also cover the implant, blurring the lines between natural breast and implant.
When there is little natural breast tissue, it can be difficult to cover a larger size implant. Techniques like fat grafting and submuscular placement can help to camouflage and hide implants on patients with less natural breast tissue.
Over or Under the Pectoral Muscle?
The pectoral muscles are frequently used in sports and athletic activities, in everything from running to weight lifting. The pectoral muscle also plays an important role in breast augmentation. Each breast implant is placed either over or under the pectoral muscle. Each placement option offers benefits that we’ll discuss in depth during your consultation. For athletes, Dr. Sajjadian often recommends that breast implants be placed over the pectoral muscle, in a type of implant placement called sub glandular placement.
Placing the breast implant over the chest muscle reduces downtime and allows many patients to return to physical activity and exercise sooner. Additionally, an implant placed under the pectoral muscle may distort when the chest muscles are flexed.
How Quickly Can I Return to Exercise After Breast Augmentation?
The recovery process is one of the most difficult parts of breast augmentation for many of our patients. Sitting around and waiting to recover is a challenge for those with an active lifestyle. Recovery progresses quickly after breast augmentation, and you’ll be back to running, lifting, hiking, and swimming soon. Give your body time to heal, and skip the gym until you’ve received the all-clear from Dr. Sajjadian.
Lifting, straining, and vigorous exercise should be avoided throughout the recovery process. Most patients can return to work in about two weeks. Exercise takes longer. Plan on skipping out on strenuous exercises for at least six weeks after surgery. You need time to heal after breast augmentation.
A lack of body fat means a lack of breasts for many of our athletic patients. Keep the muscle tone and create feminine, full breasts with breast augmentation surgery. Call our Newport Beach plastic surgery office at (949)-515-0550 to schedule your breast surgery consultation with Dr. Sajjadian.