Overview: Training age, the number of years someone has trained consistently, tracks strength, work capacity, and movement quality. Recent clinical research suggests it may track something else as well: measurable structural changes in skin. This article examines what controlled studies actually show about resistance and aerobic training's effect on skin elasticity, dermal thickness, and collagen-related gene expression, and why the mechanism behind these changes matters more than the headline result.
The study that changed the conversation
In 2023, researchers at Ritsumeikan University published a 16-week controlled trial in Scientific Reports comparing resistance training against aerobic training in 61 previously sedentary women. Both training groups showed significant improvements in skin elasticity and upper dermal structure, measured using suction-based elastometry and ultrasound echogenicity. The resistance training group showed something additional: measurably increased dermal thickness, a result the aerobic group did not produce.
The researchers did not stop at the surface measurements. They took blood plasma from participants before and after the intervention and applied it to cultured human dermal fibroblasts in the lab. The plasma collected after training triggered increased expression of genes responsible for building the dermal extracellular matrix, including COL1A2 and COL3A1, the genes that encode type I and type III collagen, along with genes for decorin and versican, two proteoglycans that help the dermis retain structural integrity. In the resistance training group specifically, researchers identified increased expression of biglycan, a proteoglycan previously shown to decline with both age and sun exposure, and linked it directly to the increase in dermal thickness observed in that group.
This tells us something distinct from what supplement and skincare research usually shows. The effect was not applied topically or ingested. It was generated systemically, by the training itself, and then demonstrated to have a direct biological effect on skin cells in a controlled lab setting.
Why training produces this effect
A separate 2024 narrative review in JMIR Dermatology consolidated the current understanding of how exercise affects skin function more broadly. Regular training increases blood flow to the skin, which improves nutrient and oxygen delivery to the dermis. It also interacts with the hormonal systems that regulate collagen production. The review notes that declining levels of certain hormones with age correspond with reduced collagen synthesis and reduced skin elasticity, and that training-related hormonal effects appear to work against that decline, independent of any topical intervention.
The original 2023 study adds a specific mechanistic detail worth understanding: aerobic exercise has separately been shown to stimulate mitochondrial biogenesis in skin fibroblasts and increase dermal collagen content through IL-15, a signalling molecule released by working muscle during exercise. In other words, muscle tissue under training load appears to send a chemical signal that reaches skin cells and prompts a structural response. Training doesn't just build the muscle underneath the skin. It appears to change how the skin itself is built.
What this means for training age specifically
None of this research claims a single session produces visible change. The Ritsumeikan trial ran for 16 consecutive weeks, and the researchers were explicit that consistent training over time, not sporadic activity, produced the measured effect. This lines up with a separate long-term case study published in a peer-reviewed journal that tracked dermal collagen and elastic fibre organisation in the same individual over a ten-year interval, documenting the kind of gradual structural change in skin that occurs across a training lifetime, not a training block.
This is worth sitting with for anyone who has trained consistently for years. The research suggests that discipline in the gym may be doing more than building the physique visible in the mirror. It may be shaping the structural integrity of the tissue covering it, provided the training stays consistent long enough for the underlying biology to respond.
Where the evidence stops
This research does not establish that training alone prevents skin aging, nor does it suggest training replaces any other input into skin health, including nutrition, sleep, and sun protection, all of which carry their own separate and well-established evidence base. What the research does establish, with reasonable clinical rigour, is that structured resistance and aerobic training produce measurable, biologically explained changes in skin elasticity and dermal structure over time. That is a meaningfully different claim to how skin is typically discussed in a training context, where it rarely comes up at all.
References
- Nishikori, S. et al. "Resistance training rejuvenates aging skin by reducing circulating inflammatory factors and enhancing dermal extracellular matrices." Scientific Reports, 2023.
- "The Potential of Exercise on Lifestyle and Skin Function: Narrative Review." JMIR Dermatology, 2024.
- "Assessment of Extracellular Matrix Fibrous Elements in Male Dermal Aging: A Ten-Year Follow-Up Preliminary Case Study." Peer-reviewed case study on dermal collagen and elastic fibre changes over a decade.
Dermogains products are cosmetic skincare formulations only. Nothing in this article constitutes a claim that any Dermogains product treats, cures, or prevents any medical or skin condition, or replicates the systemic effects of exercise described in the cited research.