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Flexibility - what it is and how we can improve it

What does flexibility mean? It can refer to events, such as having ‘flexibility in modifying the date’, a willingness to change or compromise ‘they showed flexibility in adapting the rules’, and it refers to physical movements ‘the quality of bending easily’.

Flexibility is an important component of physical fitness and we benefit from the positive effects it has on our body.  It improves many areas, mobility, posture, muscle co-ordination, and reduces the risk of injuries.

Physical flexibility is the range of motion we can effectively move our joints or group of joints unrestricted and without pain.  By keeping our muscles flexible, strong and healthy, we maintain a range of motion in our joints.  If we don’t improve our flexibility our muscles will shorten and become tight. 

When someone says they’re flexible, we tend to think of the ability to reach down and touch our toes, but the definition of flexibility doesn’t just relate to being able to do a single movement.

Each joint or group of muscles in our body have a different degree of flexibility, some areas may be very tight, meaning that our muscles feel short and restricted, whilst others my feel loose and so we can lengthen and move those muscles more freely. 

To improve your flexibility you do not need to do lots of stretching or high level exercise.  Gentle exercise increases your flexibility over time, helping reduce the risk of injuries, reducing pain, encouraging a positive state of mind and greater strength.  The aim is to lengthen the muscles throughout your body, improving overall flexibility. 

There are different types of stretching exercises.

Static stretching – you move into a position that lengthens a target muscle and hold the position for 15-60 seconds.  For example, placing your foot behind you to stretch out your calf muscle.

Dynamic stretching – you move in and out of position to lengthen a particular muscle without anything more than a brief pause in any one position.  This involves moving through a joint’s full range of motion.  Various movements we do in our Bonsai Chi warm up do this, for example, moving our arms continuously forwards and backwards to their full reach so stretching our arm muscles and working our shoulder joint.

Passive stretching – involves using something to add applied force in the stretch.  For example, you may grab your toes to increase the stretch in the back of your leg, or place your foot against a wall for leverage.

Active stretching – generally speaking an active stretch does not involve applied force, and can include a brief relaxation before performing again.  For example, the reaching up movement we do in our Bonsai Chi warm up.  This requires us reaching up high but doesn’t involve any pull, push, hold or brace.  We pause ever so slightly when completed so increasing the range of stretch before relaxing our arm back down.

Stretching exercises often improve more than one muscle at a time, so by performing a step forward, you’re strengthening the muscles in your legs and your hip joint.

Below are some considerations and exercise suggestions that you can build into your daily life, which will help improve and maintain good flexibility.

Exercises

1 – This exercise will gently flex your body.  Stand up straight, keep your head up which will encourage good alignment with your spine.   Don’t over-twist, you don’t want your knees to alter position too much, create the twist from your waist.  As with all exercises listen to your body, don’t force it.  You’ll find that you’ll increase the twist the more often you do the exercise.

2 - This exercise will flex various parts of your body.  By moving your hands as if you were pushing water away you’ll gently flex your wrists.  As you step forward ensure both feet are flat on the floor, shoulder width apart, back straight (don’t lean into it).  The punch will flex your hands and fingers, gently curl them into a fist and release afterwards.

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