Flexibility training is vitally important for overall health and well being. A more flexible muscle is a stronger muscle. Most people, including athletes, have some kind of muscular imbalance somewhere in the body and so some form of corrective stretching should be employed to correct the imbalance. The more mobile your joints are, the more you can work your muscles through a greater range of motion, which improves movement quality. With improved movement quality you also typically improve your aesthetics, since greater movement burns more calories and allows more definition of your muscles. Not to mention how great good posture looks on someone, if it is a postural imbalance that is being corrected. Going beyond the aesthetic , flexibility training also helps to reduce the risk of injuries since some muscle strains are the result of tightness. It could take as little as a few weeks to correct an imbalance. Severe imbalances may take months.

When there is an important area of the body that is incredibly tight, we may need to perform some isolated stretches in order to bring that part of the body into alignment with the rest of the body. Once we’ve improved the range of motion there we can then integrate those muscles better with the body as a whole. As neuromuscular therapist, fitness professional educator and sports trainer Paul Chek has stated, “Isolate, then integrate.”

If, however, that part of the body that lacks flexibility, is really not very tight, then more integrative stretching may work best such as certain yoga postures done actively or statically. The level of flexibility and the type of stretching will be determined during the Engaged Fitness assessment process.

But one of the most important results of flexibility training, particularly yoga, is the body awareness. It is during flexibility training where you will realize what your joint and, thus movement, limitations are. You will feel whether certain body segments don’t integrate well with others and you may even realize the cause of recurring physical discomfort or pain. In short, if you pay attention to your body’s limitations, you will detect muscular imbalances yourself.

Flexibility training, particularly yoga, also provides a great release of tension both physical and emotional/mental, hence the mind-body connection. This can actually be a rather profound experience for many people, because of the awareness it provides of the interactions between the mind and the body. What really links the two is conscious breathing. Deeper and more mindful breathing is what allows us to become more aware of our biological and mental rhythms. It is quite meditative and it has been shown that deep breathing can actually burn 10 calories a minute. A fitness routine need not be manically driven with many different exercise routines or tons of aerobic training. Intentionally stopping and bringing awareness to one’s activities can produce amazing results. Consider eating. It’s been shown that eating while watching television actually burns less calories than eating while simply paying attention to the basic activity of eating. It’s ultimately about getting present to this basic activity of daily living, as well as to structured exercise.

It should be noted that Yoga is not just flexibility training. It can be a very functional form of strength training and it typically requires a great deal of core strength and stability. That will be clearly demonstrated in some of the postures performed here such as crow pose.

When done correctly the postural benefits are experienced immediately. The Importance of Posture article in the "Online Articles" section of this site provides a very good example of how critical good posture is for awareness, response and speed. Posture is the position from which movement begins and ends. The better your posture, the better your movements. Looking better, feeling better and performing better are very much interlinked and one certainly experiences this in practices like yoga, because of the necessary interaction between the conscious mind and the body. You will not have that kind of experience on a treadmill while starring into a glaring television or blasting the ipod. Sensory bombardment only serves to turn the mind off and it keeps you unaware of your place in these moments of physical activity. You are basically “checked out.” Just like eating and watching television isn’t a good idea (due to it’s effect on metabolism and digestion), neither is exercising and watching television. Part of the point of exercise should be to get you present to what you are doing, which makes you a more responsible and conscious participant.