A Path To Stronger Oral Muscles and a Healthier You
Myofunctional therapy exercises are a transformative approach to improving oral muscle function, posture, strength, range of motion, and breathing patterns.
If you’re dealing with tongue ties, lip ties, or cheek ties also known as tethered oral tissues, these exercises are an essential part of the journey to a healthier, more balanced mouth.
With consistent practice, these exercises strengthen your facial and oral muscles, enhance your breathing, and even benefit the appearance of your facial structure.
Let’s dive into some key exercises and tips on practicing them effectively!
Why Myofunctional Therapy Exercises?
The purpose of myofunctional therapy exercises is to re-educate your muscles for optimal function. By guiding your tongue, lips, and facial muscles into proper positions and movements, these exercises help address underlying issues such as:
- Mouth breathing
- Improper swallowing patterns
- Facial muscle strain
- Poor tongue posture
- Compensations due to tethered tissues
- TMJ
- Headaches
Regular practice helps you restore muscle balance and coordination, which benefits everything from chewing to speech, even down to how you smile in photos.
Passive vs. Active Exercises
There are differences in the types of exercises we can perform. Passive exercise is similar to a massage, where someone else, or your own hand, is giving the muscle input. You don’t think about an action in that muscle at that time, but manipulation of the muscle is taking place.
Active exercise requires that muscle to do the work. You need to think about how to move it
and work on the patterning of the movement.
A good myofunctional therapy exercise program should have a combination of both types of exercises. A layering of getting the muscle warmed up through passive stretches or soft tissue releases. Then requiring the muscles to move in specific ways that involve volitional active movements.
If you’re going to warm up for a jog or a yoga class, the first thought is to stretch. We know in exercise programs if we stretch the muscles first, we will perform the activity better and have less pain after the workout.
Though the oral/facial muscles are smaller than your leg muscles, they too need some stretching before getting the workout in. That workout might be speech or feeding-related depending on your own personal goals, but the warmup of those muscles is necessary regardless of the intended task.
Passive Exercise for a MyoFunctional Therapy Exercise Program
Soft Tissue:
The soft tissues, such as fascia, are integral in recovering good oral facial balance and harmony for speech and feeding tasks. So, what exactly is fascia?
The concept of fascia has ancient roots, but its formal definition and understanding have evolved over centuries. The term “fascia” comes from the Latin word for “band” or “bundle.” Here’s a brief overview of our historical understanding of fascia:
- Ancient Foundations: Ancient Greek and Roman anatomists like Galen (129–c. 216 AD) described connective tissues that resemble what we now call fascia. However, they lacked a modern understanding of its functions and connections.
- Renaissance Anatomy: In the 16th century, anatomists like Andreas Vesalius and Gabriele Falloppio began more detailed studies of human anatomy. They illustrated structures that we would recognize today as fascia, but these tissues were often removed or ignored to better display muscles and organs.
- Modern Definitions: In the 19th and 20th centuries, anatomists began to understand fascia’s role as more than mere “packing tissue.” Henry Gray’s Gray’s Anatomy (1858) provided one of the first modern anatomical texts that discussed fascia in detail.
- Contemporary Understanding: More recently, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, researchers like Dr. Carla Stecco and the Fascia Research Society (founded in 2007) have worked to standardize and expand the definition of fascia, recognizing it as a continuous, dynamic system that impacts movement, pain, and overall health.
Today, fascia is recognized as a crucial structure in musculoskeletal and whole-body health, so if it’s not a muscle or an organ how is it best described?
Fascia
Fascia is a thin layer of connective tissue that surrounds and supports muscles, organs, blood vessels, and nerves throughout the body. Think of it as a web-like network that holds everything together, providing both structure and flexibility. Fascia has three primary layers—superficial, deep, and visceral—each with different roles:
- Superficial Fascia: Lies just beneath the skin and often contains fat cells, helping to cushion and protect muscles and bones.
- Deep Fascia: Surrounds and separates muscles, nerves, and bones, providing structural support and allowing muscles to move smoothly alongside each other.
- Visceral Fascia: Surrounds and supports internal organs, helping to anchor them in place while still allowing for movement.
Fascia is key to healthy movement and stability, but it can become restricted or tight due to oral ties, injury, stress, or repetitive strain, leading to pain and limited mobility. For our purposes we are focusing on superficial and deep fascia within the orofacial structures.
If you’re interested in a deep dive into fascia here is a great documentary to sink your teeth into
Myofascial Release:
Myofascial release (MFR) is a therapeutic technique focused on releasing tension and tightness in the fascia, the connective tissue surrounding muscles and organs.
It involves applying gentle, sustained pressure to areas of tension or “trigger points” within the myofascial tissue, aiming to improve mobility, reduce pain, and restore function.
This technique is applied to the orofacial muscles at the sites of the frenulum located at the upper and lower cheek, upper and lower lip, jaw, and under the tongue.
How Myofascial Release Works
The idea behind MFR is that fascia can become restricted due to ties, stress, injury, and inflammation, leading to muscle tightness, pain, and reduced flexibility.
By targeting these specific areas, MFR helps restore the tissue’s flexibility and “release” the tightness, allowing muscles to function more freely.
This benefits those planning a surgical release of the frena as the “released” areas allow the surgeon to visualize better and obtain a more complete release of the frenulum.
After the surgical release of a frenulum, myofascial release in that area will continue to allow the muscles to function more freely and harmoniously for speech and feeding tasks.
Myofascial Release Techniques
There are several approaches to myofascial release, often performed by a trained therapist or self-applied. It is helpful to have a therapist train you so that you better understand how to identify the area to target, and how much pressure is needed.
It is not intended to leave you sore with a bruise the next day!
Here are some common techniques:
- Direct Myofascial Release: A therapist applies sustained, deep pressure to the fascia, stretching and releasing it over time. This approach is precise and targets specific tension points.
- Indirect Myofascial Release: This gentler approach involves placing light pressure on the fascia and waiting for it to relax. The practitioner may hold the position for a few minutes, allowing the fascia to naturally “melt” and release tension gradually.
- Self-Myofascial Release (SMR): Using foam rollers, massage balls, or specialized tools, people can target areas of tension on their own. Rolling over tight areas can help relieve pain and improve flexibility.
Myofascial vs. Myofunctional
These terms may seem very similar! It can be confusing to learn new terminology when embarking on a health journey.
To summarize, myofunctional therapy exercises have components of passive and active exercises of which myofascial would be a passive exercise.
Next, let’s take a look at active exercises.
Active Exercises for a Myofunctional Exercise Program
When an oral muscle has been restricted in movement due to a frenulum being tied the result is a muscle that does not reach its full potential. The range of a muscle, the strength of a muscle and the ability to rapidly alternate patterns are reduced.
Speech and feeding tasks require range of motion, strength, and rapidly alternating movements.
Arguments against myofunctional therapy take the position that there is not a lot of strength required for speech and feeding tasks and that all you need to do is practice the task and your muscles will learn.
They will point to studies that showed the brain did not light up in the same areas when practicing an oral motor exercise vs producing a given speech sound on imaging scans.
The flaw in this study is believing that we indeed need to light up the brain on imaging in the same exact way during an exercise.
Exercise vs. Action specific
Let’s break this down a bit. For one, the brain also will not light up the same on a person utilizing a compensatory pattern of speech production vs a person utilizing the correct manner of placement. Often adults dealing with tethered oral tissues have a multitude of compensatory patterns.
Their speech therapists had no issues at all teaching that incorrectly under the guise of no need to use myofunctional techniques. Did they care about imaging scans here? Nope!
Secondly, let’s use the analogy of physical therapy. If you were going to PT to work on recovering your walking and running skills due to an injury, you would not simply be told to walk.
In fact, if you were just told to walk, you surely would leave this PT practice and find another.
If you were going to learn to walk steadily again, you would start with stretching, and strength-building exercises, and the PT would range your leg in different planes to give the muscle input as to how they wanted it to perform.
None of those exercises would light up the brain on imaging scans in the same way as walking would. Yet here we all are in PT clinics across the country, stretching, ranging, and strength-building our muscles back to task-dependent levels.
Myofunctional therapy exercises are just as necessary to develop oral skills, as whole-body exercises are to develop movement skills.
Active Exercises
There are many exercises to be found on YouTube channels, Instagram reels, and Facebook posts. The best advice is to seek a speech therapist trained in myofunctional therapy exercises to develop a targeted plan for you.
You can locate a therapist by state here: https://www.tonguetielife.com/
One or more of these listed exercises may not be the correct movement for what your oral muscles require.
Frequency, how many times a day, how many reps is very person-specific and should never cause you strain or pain that lasts after the input ends.
The examples used here for frequency are in beginner levels and would be built upon and added to as progress is noted.
Tongue-based Myofunctional Therapy Exercises
Tongue exercises should always be performed inside the oral cavity. Tongue ranges that pull your tongue outside of your mouth, such as touching your nose and chin with your tongue tip, are not as helpful as those that stay within the oral cavity.
Using a mirror can help you check your form. Look to ensure your jaw stays still and isn’t compensating for your tongue’s movement.
Exercise 1: Tongue Clicks/Pops
Description: Tongue clicks/pops are a simple exercise designed to strengthen the muscles of your tongue and improve its positioning at rest as that of up in the palate.
- Instructions: Suck as much of your tongue surface against the roof of your mouth (right behind your front teeth and all the way to the back molars).
- Reps: Hold for 1 second and pop it down repeat 10 times.
- Tip: Try to create as much suction as you can and widen your jaw for an extra stretch.
Exercise 2: Tongue Click Hold
Description: Tongue hold is designed to teach your tongue how to stay up at rest into the palate
- Instructions: Now start to click again but this time hold the tongue up in that suction and don’t pop down.
- Reps: Hold for 10 seconds and repeat 10 times.
- Tip: Practice this exercise with the jaw stable at a steady open wide position
Exercise 3: Alternating Raise and Lower of Tongue Tip
Description: This exercise works on alternating movements, control, and strength building for speech and feeding tasks.
- Instructions: Hold your mouth open comfortably and lift your tongue tip up to touch the ridge behind your top teeth. Hold for one second and then lower to the gum ridge behind your lower bottom teeth.
- Reps: Repeat 10 times.
- Tip: Move slowly and precise, you can pick up speed as your range improves.
Exercise 4: Tongue up – Open and Close Jaw
Description: This exercise works on alternating movements, range of motion, and strength.
- Instructions: Place tongue tip behind top teeth on the gum ridge. Hold it there don’t let it lose contact. Open and close your jaw so your teeth touch and then open wide apart all the while anchoring your tongue to the spot.
- Reps: Repeat 10x
- Tip: Move slowly, it’s not a race. Open as wide as you can and don’t slide or jut your jaw forward as you open and close.
Exercise 5: Tongue Tip To Back Bottom Molar
Description: This exercise works on alternating movements, range of motion, and strength.
- Instructions: Alternately touch the left then right back molar with your tongue tip with your mouth slightly open.
- Reps: Repeat 10x
- Tips: Move slowly and don’t let your jaw swing with your tongue. If needed hold your hand on your jaw to stabilize it.
Exercise 6: Tongue Bowl
Description: This is a dynamic movement where the middle of the tongue dips while the lateral edges fold up. This is a motion during feeding to control the food bolus and for vowels such as “AH” where the mid-blade is pulled downward.
- Instructions: open a bit with your tongue resting in the bottom of your mouth. Place your index finger onto the middle of the tongue and press down gently. While pressing down try to activate the lateral edges to fold upward.
- Reps: Repeat 10x
- Tips: Once you can master the movement remove the tactile prompt of your finger and create the movement independently.
Exercise 7: Tongue Drop
Description: This exercise targets the posterior tongue and its ability to drop and push down toward the throat. A dynamic movement which is utilized when swallowing.
- Instruction: Anchor the tip of your tongue against the bottom teeth. Next focus on the very back of your tongue and pull it downward as if you’re pulling it down your throat.
- Reps: Repeat 10x
- Tips: Keep the jaw still and the mouth slightly open. As you look in the mirror you should see the back of the tongue disappear as it is pulled down. Don’t hunch the tongue forward.
Lip Based Myofunctional Therapy Exercises:
Use a mirror to help keep precision in your movements.
Exercise 1: Pucker and Smile
Description: This exercise targets alternating movements and range of motion for supporting speech tasks and improving smiles.
- Instructions: With teeth gently closed, not clenched, begin to alternate the lips into a smile and then a pucker.
- Reps: Repeat 10x
- Tips: move slowly and precisely trying with each rep to smile wider and push the pucker further out. Do not let the jaw rock or swing with the lip movement.
Exercise 2: Tongue depressor hold
Description: This exercise targets lip closure and strengthening to improve closed mouth posture.
- Instructions: Using a craft stick-type tongue depressor – any size is fine – lay it lengthwise across your bottom lip then gently close the top lip to hold it. Do not use your teeth.
- Reps: Hold in place for 15 seconds repeat 5x
- Tips: Once this becomes easy add weight to the end of your tongue depressor by taping a penny to each end. You’ve made a mini dumbbell for your lips. Build up to 7 pennies as your lips become stronger.
Exercise 3: Sponge Toothette Squeeze
Description: This exercise targets lip rounding and strengthening along with range of motion.
- Instructions: Use a pink or blue Toothette that you can find at the local drugstore. (or use this link to amazon: oral swabs) Gently hold the teeth together do not clench and place the Toothette between your lips pressing up against the front teeth. Now hold it there while you circle your lips around it and squeeze it. This will squish the sponge. Hold for one second and release.
- Reps: Repeat 10x
- Tips: Move slowly and do not let your jaw jut forward as you attempt to squeeze. Increase how hard you squeeze on each rep.
These 10 tongue and lip-based exercises provide you with a good foundation of what active exercises are and some tips on how to complete them.
This is not an all-inclusive list and a trained myofunctional speech therapist should be consulted to help you to determine the best exercises for your needs.
Making Myofunctional Therapy Exercises Part of Your Daily Routine
These exercises are effective when practiced regularly, ideally 1-2x a day. Setting aside five minutes each morning and evening can make a substantial difference in your progress. If you have time to brush your teeth you have time to do oral exercises!
Remember, every small step contributes to a larger change, and with consistency, you’ll see improvements in your speech, breathing, swallowing, and overall oral function.
Final Thoughts on Myofunctional Therapy Exercise
Myofunctional therapy exercises may seem small and unnecessary, but their impact on oral health and facial structure is remarkable.
They not only strengthen the muscles but also set up your body for improved function. Keep in mind that it’s normal to feel subtle soreness as you start out – that’s a sign of your muscles building strength. But pain is never what we want so keep input gentle.
Have you tried any myofunctional therapy exercises? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!
With a little time, dedication, and consistency, these exercises will become second nature leaving you with stronger, more balanced muscles and a noticeable improvement in your smile and facial harmony.
For more information on tethered oral tissues please check out our other blog articles at
Lynn’s Tied Together Hub /https://lynnstiedtogetherhub.com/blog/