How To Become Flexible

So I'm going to talk to you a little bit about how to become flexible. Now, to become flexible, you need to increase your range of movement around the joints. Basically, you have got tendons which connect bones to muscles and you make them longer.

If they are longer, you become more flexible, so you need to stretch. Now, stretching means different things for different people. If you are already very, very flexible or bendy, you might have to do some quite advanced yoga moves to become even more flexible.

If you are really tight and not flexible at all, even sitting down and standing up can be a stretch. I've had clients who were with that stretching itself. So, you need to access what kind of level you are.

Now, for most of you, that won't be hard enough and some advanced yoga moves will be too hard, so I will show you some middle approached type of yoga stretches. We have two options, more static stretches or we have dynamic stretches. Dynamic stretches are really good if you are very sporty or you are about to do a lot of sports, therefore you need lots of ballistic movements, for example.

Now, this is a very common stretch for footballers, sprinters, athletes who powerfully move out. So, what it does is raises your heartbeat but also loosens up your hamstrings which is much more realistic and appropriate than just going like that. If you do this when you are cold, you could actually break something or tear something.

The other type of stretching, which most of us know, is static stretching. This is when you go down to a stretch so it hurts a little bit and you hold it. Now, for most of you, you should hold for about a minute, you can hold for longer, you can hold less, but usually a minute is enough to evoke some kind of change and make our tendons grow longer.

So, very straight forward, we will do a standing fourfold in yoga but for most of us, it's just a bending over stretch. Bending over, legs are straight, and then hanging, never bounce, that's old school, not good for you, just hang, and this stretches a little bit of your lower back, your hamstrings and also the tendons around the calf. Another version of that would be to do it on the floor.

So, you sit down legs flat against the floor, really important. Very calmly, very slowly, move forward. If you can touch your toes, you are not so bad, if you are nowhere near your toes, you really should work on your flexibility.

Once you get as far as you can just hold, hold for a while. It will be quite painful. So what you will have to do is breathe, stay calm, kind of realize it's not going to kill you, it's just a little bit of pain.

Hold for thirty seconds minimum, I recommend a minute and relax. Do two or three sets per area, you want to stretch, it's a good way to move forward. And there are some tips on how to become more flexible. .