Can Anyone Become Flexible & 11 Best Hacks to Get You Started

Flexibility training often gets a bad rap. Most people think of it as boring or only for gymnasts or dancers. Flexibility, the ability of our muscles and joints to lengthen and move freely, can positively impact nearly every aspect of our physical health and performance. For example, have you ever felt stiff getting out of bed or after sitting for too long? Improving your flexibility can help alleviate these issues so you can move quickly and confidently. This article will help you improve flexibility and mobility, proving that anyone, regardless of starting point, can feel more agile and confident in their body.

To help you on your journey, Pliability's mobility app is a valuable tool to have in your corner. The app offers targeted flexibility exercises and protocols to improve flexibility, mobility, and recovery so you can feel, move, and perform better.

Can Anyone Become Flexible?

When people see a flexible person in a pretzel-like pose, they often think, “I can't even touch your toes,” or assume the person had to have been “born flexible.” A common yourth is that flexibility is a natural trait limited to specific individuals. While some people are more flexible than others, everyone can be as flexible as they want to be as long as they're willing to work at it. 

‍Flexibility is a skill; like any skill, it takes practice to improve. “We need flexibility to do simple, daily tasks, like getting out of a car, picking up something from the floor, reaching over our heads,” Swan explains. “What happens as we get older is we end up in jobs that keep us stationary, which means our muscles get stiff and the joint mobility range lessons. Flexibility comes with staying active and continuing to stretch.” 

If You're Naturally Flexible, Then You Don't Need to Stretch

There are naturally flexible people out there, but even they get less flexible than their whole, pretzel-esque potential when they don't keep up with their stretching routine. 

According to Swan, it's essential for everyone, no matter how flexible you are, to consistently do dynamic stretches before a workout and static stretches after to keep muscles:

• Warm
• Happy
• Bendy
• Injury-free

It could be consistency, dedication, practice, and commitment.

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11 Tips to Get More Flexible, Even When You Think You Can't

If you’re looking to become more flexible in your body, here are 11 tips that can make it easier than you ever thought possible:

1. Pay Attention to Your Body

The first step to boosting your flexibility is noticing which areas of your body move quickly and which don’t, says Ellen Barrett, a women’s wellness expert, group exercise instructor and yoga teacher in Connecticut. “Lots of people are so disconnected from their bodies that they don’t realize their own lack of flexibility,” she says. 

Which areas need your attention? She says that tightness is most common in the neck and shoulders, along with the hamstrings, because of how much sitting we do, so assess those spaces first.

2. Maintain Good Posture

One of the best ways to improve your flexibility is by focusing on improving your posture, says 

Barrettt. Any time you do any movement where your head is in front of your body and your shoulders are rounded forward, think:

• Driving
• Sitting
• Texting
• Working on the computer 

Your muscles are in an unnatural position that can cause tightness. You can correct it by simply sitting up straighter, says Barrett. “Your ears need to stack over your shoulders, and your shoulders need to stack over your hips,” she says.

3. Stretch and Strengthen

When it comes to boosting flexibility, most people think of stretching, but Barrett says strength and flexibility take equal billing when it comes to enhanced mobility. “Flexibility and strength need to be symmetrical to each other,” she says. 

“It’s like yin and yang. Strong muscles are a liability if they are not flexible.” Her favorite workouts that improve flexibility and strength include barre, Pilates, yoga, and dance.

4. Comfortable Stretching for Effective Flexibility Training

If you stretch, find a position to sit and comfortably watch TV. If your muscles work hard to hold you up or keep you balanced while you open those hamstrings, your body can remain strained and inflexible. If things are going to open up, your brain needs to believe everything is safe and easygoing, so put yourself in a position where you'd be happy sitting and watching TV for a while. 

Take a runner's lunge, for example. If you're having a tough time balancing with your hands on the ground, or it's hard for me to sit on your back heel, find another way. Just sit down on the ground, with your left heel tucked in like I'm sitting cross-legged, and extend your right leg straight. Lean back with your hands behind you. Get comfortable. 

5. Try Moving Around Gently

If you hang out at the end of your range of motion, you can risk micro-tearing your connective tissue. Instead, focus on active or dynamic stretching to become more flexible. Let's use the modified runner's lunge example again, where you sit down with one heel tucked in and one leg straight forward:

• Start by leaning back
• Take a moment and get used to things here
• Try walking your hands to the right and leaning into them, bringing a forearm down to the ground. 
• Do the same thing on the left side. 
• Keep a slight bend in your knee and stay relaxed in your leg, so as you roll from right to left, your leg can roll around, too. Your knee will face straight up, to the right, sometimes to the left. 
• Let your body move naturally and do its own thing. 
• If you find a good spot to linger and breathe, that's your spot. Linger and breathe as long as you like.

6. Remember to breathe deeply

It might not be apparent initially, but if you want more flexibility, focus more on your breath than your muscles. Breathing can put your mind at ease and create the right conditions for your muscles to release tension. Breathe deeply enough that every inhale lifts you a little from wherever you are, and every exhale eases you back to wherever your body feels like going. 

When your body is relaxed, every breath can move you. If your breath isn't moving you, try scanning through your body and see where you might be holding tension or working harder than needed. Let the stress go, and breathe deep. After all, as we mentioned, flexibility begins in the mind.

7. Avoid extreme positions

Bending over backward to put your head in your behind isn't likely to help you with much. A healthy body balance:

• Stability and mobility
• Strength and flexibility

Hyper-mobility in joints is a common affliction of yogis and performance artists (think ballerinas and Cirque du Soleil artists). It can lead to reduced athletic capability and sometimes chronic pain. Instead, you want to reach your middle point, where your body works at its best: a nice balance between stability and mobility.

8. Drop the goals, get into you

The problem with visible goals is there's a lot of temptation to force our way into them rather than finding our way there peacefully. We might reach the goal, but the outcome isn't so good or healthy. 

‍Let's try again in the runner's lunge example: ‍

Rather than just aiming to touch your toes or get your head to your knee every time, forget the goal. There's so much more to you than just a pose. You can take many more directions than just going straight ahead. 

‍So explore: 

Move gently in every imaginable direction all around a forward fold. See what you find. It will be different every day, and you'll get to know more and more of you. It should be fun, not frustrating.

9. Move More Rather Than Pose More

Take a standing forward bend as an example. Relax and move rather than trying to get deeper into the bend. Put a little bend on your knees, and sway gently side to side. If you are looking for more flexibility, the key is moving more. Widen your stance so your body is more stable and ready to move. 

You might lean so far off to the right that your left leg lengthens, and the foot might even leave the ground! Same thing on the other side. Your focus should be on moving quickly and comfortably around where you are. If you do this technique across the board, you can become more flexible and mobile simultaneously.

10. Sit on the Floor 

How often do you sit on the floor? Probably not very often, but this “outside-the-box” exercise can help you challenge yourself because sitting on the floor is a stretch for the hips, back, knees, and ankles, says Barrett. “Sitting on furniture is not a stretch, as that range of motion is so small and we do it all of the time in modern life,” she says. “Sitting on the floor requires a bigger range of motion, and even getting down to the floor stretches us.” You can sit on the floor in a variety of positions, too. She recommends sitting cross-legged, with your legs straight out, your knees splayed out in a “butterfly” shape, or even kneeling. 

Sit as you did when you were a child. “If you think about it, kids can sit on the floor all day and be comfortable,” says Barrett. “What happens to us adults?” Aim for about 15 minutes in any comfortable position for a whole-body health boost, she says. You can do it anytime, from work hours to after dinner. “I tell your clients to watch television or take a phone call on their yoga mats,” she says.

11. Spend a Few Minutes Each Day Stretching 

The best part of flexibility training is that you don’t have to spend hours on it to see improvement. Martinez says you’ve just got to use your time and make it work with your life. For him, that means stretching every morning while his coffee is brewing. “It’s a short routine that consists of six stretching poses,” he says. “This routine boosts your mood and improves your circulation, flexibility and mindset for the day in such a short amount of time.” 

He suggests that if you’re more of a night owl than an early bird, try stretching during your lunch break at work or before you go to bed. Ready to put some of these tips into practice? The key to flexibility, just like anything worth achieving in life, is consistency, says Austin Martinez, the director of education for StretchLab. This wellness company offers assisted stretch sessions nationwide. “Make a plan, form it as a habit and stick to it.” We feel more flexible already.

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Improve Your Flexibility with Our Mobility App Today | Get 7 Days for Free on Any Platform

Pliability offers a fresh take on yoga tailored for performance-oriented individuals and athletes. Our app features a vast library of high-quality videos designed to improve flexibility, aid recovery, reduce pain, and enhance range of motion. 

Pliability provides daily-updated custom mobility programs for those interested in optimizing their health and fitness. It also includes a unique body-scanning feature to pinpoint mobility issues. If you're feeling limited by pain or the ability to move, Pliability aims to complement your fitness routine and help you move better. 

Sign up today for 7 days absolutely for free on:

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To improve flexibility, aid recovery, reduce pain, and enhance range of motion with our mobility app.

Related Reading

• Strength and Flexibility Training
• How to Become Flexible if You Are Very Stiff
• Flexibility Exercises for Beginners
• Flexibility Exercises at Home
• Back Stretches for Flexibility
• How Many Days Per Week Can You Perform Flexibility Exercises?
• Types of Flexibility Exercises
• Why Is It Important for Athletes to Be Flexible
• Benefits of Flexibility
• Flexibility Sports Examples
• Flexibility Workout Plan
• How Can Flexibility Training Reduce the Risk of Back Pain?
• How Frequently Should Flexibility Exercises Be Performed for Best Results?
• Flexibility Exercises for Kids