If you’ve ever watched a gymnast effortlessly sink into splits, or seen a prostrate yogi arch their back forward until they feet land inexplicably on either side of their head, then you’ve witnessed a painful truth: Flexibility is not distributed equally.
That’s not to say rigidity is a life sentence — just because you can’t touch your toes today doesn’t mean you never will. There are indeed reasons behind the huge variation in suppleness, but they are (at least to some degree) under our control.
What Is Flexibility?
In a nutshell, flexibility is about range of motion — the ability of joints, muscles and connective tissues to perform the full scope of their natural movements smoothly, without pain. To do that, they must be able to contract and, perhaps more importantly, lengthen on command.
Often a lack of flexibility boils down to stiffness or tension in the muscles. And tension, as physical therapist Phil Page writes, “is usually inversely related to length.” That is, the shorter the muscle fibers, the higher the tension, the less flexible the body.
