The President’s Physical Fitness Challenged lied to us about what flexibility is, now it’s time to undo the damage.
Remember Physical Education? Every year you would have to perform a specific series of tasks and be ranked against your classmates according to your “fitness level”. The lone “flexibility” test in the battery of body weight challenges is the sit and reach. In case you don’t know what the test entails, you sit with your feet against a board with your legs extended and measure how you can reach past your toes you can reach your fingertips. Because of this test, the vast majority of people think that flexibility is reached when those toes are within grasp.
What a ridiculous notion!!! After teaching yoga and fitness for over twenty years, I can tell you that EVERYONE is flexible in at least one area of their body. The last time I checked there were many more areas to the body than just the calves and hamstrings. Repeat a falsehood enough times and people start believing it. I now have to explain to people at least once a day that their flexibility (or lack thereof) is demonstrated by the ability to reach their fingertips to their feet. Want to see something interesting?
This is Gabriella, she is a senior faculty member for High Energy Fusion Yoga. She can touch her feet to her head balanced on her chin and her hands, but she cannot forward fold with great ease or impressive skill. In the sit and reach test she would be considered “inflexible”. Do you think she is inflexible?
We need to change the narrative. Flexibility is the sum of nature and nurture. Your tendons, ligaments, joint shape, joint depth, muscular tolerance to stretch, training, where you you live, and even the ambient temperature will affect how your body moves on any given day.
Someone who can sit in full lotus, (eh-hem me), may never touch their feet to their head in a backbend. But, I can step on the back of my arm. Sooooo, am I flexible?
A well structured fusion yoga class allows students to explore their own body’s natural flexibility and develop areas that structure or lifestyle have hindered. This takes strength straining, endurance training, and repetition. It also takes a healthy amount of letting certain poses go.
Why should you develop your body’s range of motion? Because if you don’t use it, you will lose it. If you only reach for your toes, you will never develop the ability to arch backwards. If you only nurture your flexible directions, you will become unbalanced and most likely experience pain and muscle weakness. At our studio, we focus on the whole person, not just one set of muscles. Want to self test for other flexibility directions? Try these:
Hips- Sit in a chair crossing an ankle to your knee. Is your knee level with your ankle? If so, you have very good external rotation. Not so much? You should incorporate more outer hip stretches.
Hips- Kneel on the ground with your knees together and feet apart. Can you sit down to the ground between your feet? Yes? You have good internal hip rotation. No? You may have tight quadriceps, or limited internal rotation.
Hips-Place your hands on the back of a chair and bow forward do that your chest is level to the floor. Lift your leg up and back. Is your leg in a straight line with your hip? If so, you have strong gluteal muscles and hamstrings. You also have good hip flexor mobility on the side of the leg that is lifted. Can’t lift your leg into a straight line with your hip? Lifestyle may be the culprit! Sitting all day and lack of exercise make for tight hip flexors and weak gluteal muscles.
Shoulders- Raise your arms overhead. Without shrugging your shoulders and keeping your elbows straight can your touch your thumbs together? Yes? Then wheel pose may be in your future. No? You may have weakness/tightness in your trapezius.
Shoulders-Give yourself a hug. Stack one elbow on top of the other. Bring the backs of your hands to touch and then the palms. Can you maintain the position of your elbows? This is a sign that you have good flexibility in the outer shoulder. Do your elbows pop apart? You need some outside shoulder TLC
THESE ARE FIVE TESTS AND WE ONLY GOT TO HIPS AND SHOULDERS. See why yoga is so important? Using your muscles and developing strength and movement in multiple directions is the path to flexibility. So take the President’s Physical Fitness Challenge for what is is, useless.