When you embark on an intensive workout programme that is primarily aimed at bulking up and building muscle, you might notice an appearance of small purple or red lines appearing on across your body.

Don’t worry, this is perfectly normal! These lines are known as stretch marks, and no it’s not just women who are prone to them.

Men and women are each susceptible to stretch marks, also known as striae, and they appear when the skin rapidly expands and the layer of dermis is damaged causing small lines to appear, after time these will fade in to a silver/white coloured mark and eventually may become barely visible.

However, in some cases these can cause body confidence people, and this has led to almost 30% of all customers purchasing anti-stretch mark products being male!

When you are working out, the area that you are focused on is likely to expand much more in proportion to the rest of your body, so it is easy to see why stretch marks are common in bodybuilders as they will be rapidly expanding their muscle mass.

Preventing Stretch Marks

Stretch marks can occur anywhere on the body where the skin has been stretched. In bodybuilders the most likely areas will be the upper arms, stomach, thighs and shoulders. It can be quite tricky working to prevent stretch marks occurring as a bodybuilder or athlete, but maintaining a skin care routine that involves moisturising and exfoliating the skin with products that include Vitamins E and A will help keep the skin in top condition.

It is recommended that you look at the firmness and the elasticity of your skin before you look to start a workout routine that might rapidly increase your muscles and weight, as this can help you to decrease the chance of stretch marks appearing on your skin.

Treating Stretch Marks

In a lot of cases, stretch marks are not overly noticeable and will fade over time becoming less visible. Although for many men they feel the stretch marks that have come have appeared through aspiring to bulk up, improve their body and increase muscle and that the stretch marks are unsightly leading to them becoming a significant body confidence issue.

For those looking for how they can treat their stretch marks there are a few products that claim to significantly reduce the appearance on the skin, these include Palmers Cocoa Butter, Bio Oil and Dermaoil, which work to firm up the skin and improve its elasticity. It is worth noting that stretch marks are easiest to treat when they first appear and are in their purple/red stage, if they are left to develop into the white/silver stage these will have become much more permanent and will be difficult to remove.

Laser treatment is a great way to look at permanently removing stretch marks that have been caused through bodybuilding, it effectively works to rejuvenate and repair the damaged skin and can visibly remove stretch marks, The Laser Treatment Clinic based in Harley Street in London is one of London’s leading skin care specialists treating hundreds of patients stretch marks.