How Exercise Is Wrecking Your Skin

‘Jogger’s face’ has always been our way to justify steering clear of marathon running — but could yoga and spin prove equally age-accelerating?

- Eugenie Kelly

In my body-beautiful-obsessed neighbourhood, rife with boutique studios, there’s one workout everyone’s especially fixated on right now. Heated vinyasa yoga. And I get it. The moving meditation aspect is bliss, the 30-degree plus temperature adds an extra intensity, and as for my newly chiselled chaturanga arms … sorry, but you just don’t get that kind of shredding from a plain old push-up.

Yet something has definitely happened to my skin. And it’s not good. Pigmentation patches. Pronounced jowls. And a crepiness on my forearms and lower legs that, despite regular dunks in vats of shea butter, still looks dry. A sweat-fest, whether it be in a heated yoga studio, a heart-pumping spin class or running-outdoors in summer, was once thought to be the ultimate detox. But dermatologists and facialists are now speculating that the heat associated with these workouts could prove just as damaging as UV exposure. As for the conclusive scientific evidence backing all of this up … well, apart from an oftquoted study by Seoul National College University of Medicine a few years back, the data doesn’t exist. But that’s not to say experts don’t see a link.