As a professional athlete, my job was essentially to follow orders without question. The results were great at the time. I was bigger, stronger, and faster than at any other time in my life. But the realities of chasing a max bench and squat started setting in only after my playing days were done.
I had aches and pains that prevented me from doing the activities that I loved. The only solution? Do what I always did: Train. Hard. This had been the philosophy drilled into my psyche for many years. Hurt? Work through it. Pain? Walk it off. Only the strong survive. **pound chest and grunt**
Well, no. Only the smart survive.
When I finally summed up the courage and ignored the machismo voice in my head, I hesitantly stepped into my first yoga class. It was a Yoga Tune Up® class in Santa Monica. Humbled would be the most politically correct way of describing how I felt after the class finished. Flexibility was a word that obviously never found its way into my vocabulary. (Adipex) It was time to learn.
Importance of Flexibility
While many people focus on strength and cardiovascular exercise when they enter the gym, it is actually flexibility that should be the primary focus as it is the foundation of physical health. With an injured shoulder or hip you can imagine not being able to reach above your head or taking a full stride when walking. The body will protect itself and prevent you from moving into ranges of motion that cause pain. This is a normal and natural protective mechanism since the body is not in perfect health. This is also why health can often times be gauged by how wide your sphere of movement stretches from your body’s center. Your sphere of potential movement starts with flexibility, since tight muscles can inhibit potential movement in much of the same way as an injury.
Improving flexibility will have an instant and drastic impact on athletic performance and decrease your risk of injury. Needless to say, I don’t talk about bench pressing or squatting anymore. Those are just numbers on a piece of paper that once served to inflate ego. Now, when I wake up in the morning, I move. I feel for tight spots and stretch. My Downward Dog looks more like a pointed arrow than a rainbow. I can comfortably reach down and palm the floor with locked legs. I’m a couple of blind spots away from doing a hand stand without the use of a wall. Oh yeah, and I don’t hurt.
Try this YTU pose called Asymmetrical Uttanasana (and for more like it check out the Quick Fix for Hips videos) to access the flexibility you need to forward bend successfully!
Watch our free Quickfix for hips video.
As a flexible person, I love reading this! When I observe my students, I often notice an inverse relationship between flexibility and strength. For example, a flexible ballerina might be able to battement her leg to her face or at a 75-degree angle but struggles to hold it there. In contrast, a more muscular dancer might not be able to lift the leg as high but can hold it solidly at a 90-degree angle. The struggle is real. With that being said …. I rarely stretch my shoulders and now in my 30s I can feel pain and its most likely due to tightness in my shoulder, scapula, and chest.
Interesting to read about the strength vs. flexibility conundrum from someone whose main focus was strength training. I usually tell my classes that building muscle and strength is the key to their health, and is more important to their life and longevity than flexibility — but then again, the demographic I work with is not particularly strong, and few people I come into contact with have genuine restrictions due to their muscle mass. My reasoning is that functional strength enhances flexibility — if you don’t have adequate strength in your legs, say, you won’t be able to get a decent range of movement in your hips, because you simply won’t have the oopmh to get the leg far enough. So there are different ways to look at the issue. The bottom line is — too much of one thing without the other will always leave the body out of balance.
Thanks Luke,
Living in the United States in the 21st century, very few of us need to have brute force strength. However, to maintain good health throughout our life we all need functional strength. As you pointed out; flexibility, mobility, and body awareness are key.
Great blog! As a yoga teacher who primarily works with athletes and CrossFitters fundamentals in flexibility are key and critical for success! Within mobility and proper range of motion loading the tissues is a recipe for disaster! Thanks for sharing your experience, I know it will inspire others!
I am going to send the link to this blog to every athlete, coach, and trainer i know. Maybe hearing come from a pro will finally help sink in that mobility is NOT the last step in their training but the first! It breaks my heart to see middle and high school athletes injured like I was at 18 just because they forgot how to move in their own body. Covered in blind spots and compensation for their dysfunction, they hurt and ache and complain. I hope that coaches and trainers get the memo that they can help prevent these issues WHILE improving their players’ performance!
“Only the smart survive.” Love it. I’ve never thought about it as the sphere of movement around my midline as a baseline for assessing movement capacity but I really like that concept. I’ve always considered myself to be a pretty bendy person…touching toes has never been a problem. Going backwards however, I know I’ve got issues that would probably need a counsellor to help with…my sympathetic nervous system kicks in with just thinking about it! But since most of my athletic and training pursuits pretty much only needs flexibility in the frontal plane, I’m set…or so I thought. In fact, I fully acknowledge that I’ve been playing the ostrich…ignoring important deficiencies in my rotational movement. But awareness is the first key to improvement. I also feel that YTU Therapy Balls do a phenomenal job in helping us get more thorough in our flexibility, where we can address smaller, deeper structures that are all too often missed with ‘old style stretches’. They also also help focus our efforts…no good in stretching already stretched areas. The balls let you know pretty quickly what tissues need more work.
The combination of strength and stability and flexibility that we can achieve through Yoga Tune Up is really remarkable. It’s amazing how these techniques can take someone from a place of too much strength, and bring him to a place where stability and flexibility are in balance with strength. Hats off to you for recognizing that there was another option to the “pound chest and grunt” mentality and finding your way to where you are now! As someone who’s primary focus is yoga, the opposite is true – too much flexibility is the danger, and not enough strength and stability. I really hope that I can take what I’m learning through YTU and apply it not only to my own practice, but also to help students who come to my class recognize how important it is to strike a balance between the flexibility and the strength.
Enjoyed reading the male point of view. Never too old, or modest, to know there are many ways to take care of ourselves and stay healthy.
Today we speak a lot about muscles, fascia, and stretching. To stretch or not to stretch that is the question! I am not a scientist and I do not work in labolatory to decide if stretching of muscles, ligaments, tendosn or fascia is helpful or not. However there is one thing that we shoul remember about during our exercises or even regular life. BALANC. The most important is to find balance in between. In the case of our body that would be in between strength and flexibility.
Most of us have felt the way Luke has after life as an athlete I think the interesting thing is that no one ever talked to me about flexibility or mobility during my athletic career. Looking back now I wonder if those things had been addressed would I have been able to avoid the knee and shoulder surgeries that are common place is sports.
Having had 2 different competitive/semi-professional sports careers in my lifetime, I can only emphasis the benefits in recover, sports performance and injury prevention from a regular stretch routine. I only wish I had known about ball rolling back then!
I played a lot of sports when I was a teenager and never really gave much thought to stretching. Then I went to college and never gave much thought to training! A few years later, my body started to hurt, I was getting older and couldn’t get away with what I could when I was a few years younger. I found that with stretching, it needs to be a daily routine. Stretching requires patience and I think also that you have to accept that there is only so far you will be able to stretch with tearing into ligaments and tendons – and that limit may be totally different from one person to another. I love the comment above, too much of a good thing is not a good thing. That said I’m someone who needs to stretch every day, and every day I start with a hamstring opening and thoracic opening sequence. When I don’t stretch, my body lets me know it. I hurt. The wonderful thing is that we can do something about it. And it doesn’t have to take long at all.
Great article Luke! I love reading the male point of view and wish more heavy lifters would make the connection between strength and flexibility! Thanks for sharing.
Awesome! I had a similar experience, training too hard and too often without stretching properly. My first yoga class was very humbling !! I could feel the good it did for my body and now Yoga is the Yin to the Yang in my life. Thank you for sharing!
Hi Luke! That’s one of my visions is to help people continue to do the things they love until they die. i recently was certified 200hr yoga teacher, but I am currently expanding my training with Yoga Tune Up® in Santa Monica because I have been injured 3 times in the past three years doing my favorite activities: exercising, obstacle course races, even yoga! I’m so excited to continue my practice. I’ll just have to commute from San Diego to take a real Yoga Tune Up® class! Thanks for re-iterating the importance of flexibility in your athletic endeavors, and mentioning that you don’t hurt while doing them! I’m working on it!
Thank you for this post. I couldn’t agree more. As an athlete, I find when I concentrate on my flexibility and agility I am also stronger and faster. If I neglect my flexibility, my muscles are tight, I lose some range of motion and speed as well. When teaching or coaching my student athletes, I am sure to incorporate a dynamic warmup with stretching and foam rolling before each practice or training session.
You’re so right when you talk about training smarter. That’s the whole point of this Yoga Tune Up journey- for me at least. We all have body blind spots and we all have our path. As a professional dancer and yoga teacher, I am learning to stretch less (or at least no longer glorify the ability to hyper-stretch) and to find ways of building strength to support my movement patterns. It doesn’t mean though, that I’m completely taking stretch out of my teaching. I work with a lot of very tight, over-trained bodies, and now (after my level 1 training) I am able to help them learn the power of stretch without imposing my own movement modality’s emphasis on over-stretching.
Yes, I agree, flexibility is the root of strength. I tell my massage patients constantly that if we are not balanced, we are going to injure ourselves. People don’t understand the opposite of tightness is weakness. What happens to a weak muscle or joint? OUCH! We are out of commission for a while. One reason I love YTU is because it really makes you target muscles, not poses.
What an awesome article explaining the importance of flexibility (not hyper-flexibility!) in athletes, and anyone with a body. Sharing with my gym rat friends – thanks 🙂
I just finished the Embodied Anatomy workshop with Trina Altman and she had some great demonstrations and lecture points about the need for strength and flexibility. The gist was, like most things, too much of anything is not a good thing, The hyper flexible need to build strength to prevent injury just as the hyper strong are likely to need to build flexibility to prevent injury.
I’ve never been a gym rat by any means but without question I have added more muscle in the 3 years I’ve been practicing yoga than at any other time in my life.
Luke I really enjoyed your article as I had a similar experience to yourself. There seems to be an aversion especially in certain circles to “taking care of your business” as Dr. Kelly Starrett would say. I followed a similar path as you did when feeling pain as I was advised by my peers “just work through it” or “man up” etc.
I’m glad I found mobility work and YTU as it’s gradually undoing some of the harm I caused myself by not including that as part of my life-style and training. It’s allowed my to continue training and improved my positioning. At the end of the article it seems like you may now have a bit of a negative view towards strength training. I hope you haven’t neglected it completely because properly approached with and pair with an intelligent mobility program I feel getting stronger is one of the best things someone can do for themselves.
I have been practicing yoga for over 15 years, athletic as a kid and adult and most recently crossfit for the last 5 years. Since i started training, i have watched how lack of flexibility among my fellow athletes has not only led to injury, but has also limited athletic performance. I have long stressed the importance of stretching and mobility and i’m happy to see tune up as a response to this need.
Is it improving flexibility, or improving the body’s ability when challenged to achieve a great range of motion without risk of tissue damage? Just like strength and everything else fitness related, flexibility has its’ place, but in my opinion you shouldn’t overlook the other aspects and focus solely on one thing.
Great post! Thank you for your openness, three cheers to you for being a convert to stretching.
Thank you for your post. This is something I am trying to get my brother to do, stretch/yoga. I am going to fwd this post to him. It’s true that stretching and flexibility increases and improves a workout tremendously. Even if a person can’t get their ‘typical’ cardio or weight lifting routine in that day, the benefits of an at home stretch or yoga sequence will be just as beneficial.
Thanks for this post…stretching is so important for athletes and so underestimated. I always tell clients that flexible trees don’t break… So to be strong you have to flexible as well.
This is so true about the need for flexibility when you are more athletic. Before I started practicing yoga, I used to lift weights and my shoulders got super tight. That made my access to certain yoga poses harder. Thank goodness I have increased my flexibility through yoga. I like this pose a lot as it’s a great stretch for the muscles in the side of the leg, the lats, the QL, the hamstrings, and lumbar extensors.
The last sentence of your post says it all! Who knew so much pain and discomfort was avoidable. Whether a first-class athlete or a rookie in the world of exercise and coordinated movement, there is so much to learn. Certainly hindsight is 20/20, but I can’t imagine the kind of career longevity all kinds of serious (and not-so-serious) athletes could have had in their careers if they had incorporated yoga and fully informed stretching as part of their conditioning, no different than windsprints or lifting.
Thank you for this honest reflection Luke! I work with a ton of athletes (predominantly men) and they should all read your post. You are totally right, improving flexibility will impact on athletic performance and decrease your risk of injury. For that reason alone I truly believe that all athletes should have a separate coach that offers some sort of stretching/yoga/YTU program to augment traditional strength and conditioning programs. They way I like to connect it all is to say that power comes from speed and speed comes from flexibility.
Love this! So great to see a convert to flexibility. What makes this so good is he is coming from strength. When you’ve gone one it’s great to add the other since the body needs BOTH. I’m on the flexibility side and realize I need more strength. So I stay with Yoga Tune Up® because it does both.
This was really interesting to read. I played tennis competitively throughout middle school and more significantly in high school. I had many coaches through my tennis club and at school. Reflecting back on that time, with the knowledge I have now, I am shocked at the little emphasis that was placed on proper stretching.
Tennis left me with chronic shin splints and extremely tight hamstrings. I learned today that my hamstrings are tight because the fascia around my hamstring is tight. I am glad that I am growing more mindful of my areas of tightness. I appreciate that this article brings to light and really emphasizes the importance of flexibility.
I love going to the gym and building strength but I always look to my yoga practice to keep me balance and feeling loose. When I neglect yoga and focus on hitting the gym my muscles feel tight and heavy for days. As this article brings to light, it is good to remember to stretch and encourage flexibility and good range of motion.
I participated in organized sports in high school, but never became a serious athlete or even paid attention to what type of physical activities worked to keep my body feeling healthy and fit. At that point my goal was to be thin, so I was doing over two hours of cardio a day with minimal strength training and barely any stretching. I achieved what I refer to as skinny fat. Yes i was slim, but I had no tone and no flexibility. As I got older, I started yoga classes, but still was lacking any real type of strength training so my body, although I was flexible and skinny, still really lacked that athletic look I had wanted to achieve.. I started working with a trainer a few years ago to build more muscle and stopped doing as much yoga. I looked too muscular for my build instead of achieving the athletic look I wanted and also lost a lot of the flexibility I had once had when i was regularly practicing. I also felt sore most of the time. Through trial and error, I came to realize how important balance is in regards to achieving my fitness goals. I am no longer focused on getting that athletic look but with keeping my body feeling good. With the right balance of strength and flexibility I’ve managed to achieve not only a more toned physical appearance, but my body feels great!
I was a junior olympian and college athlete in the same boat, and it wasn’t until a marathon (or rather not taking a break from training the two days afterward) that I realized I was more than just a high impact, grit your teeth and perform kind of athlete. I had an overuse injury in my knee that put me out of action for over six months. I couldnt do anything, even walking was ill advised. I had to relearn how to be an athlete and respect my body. Wow thats news lol. I found that stretching (or lazy stretching) was the key to my downfall, and started with the minimum amount of fitness and maximum allowed stretching. My it band, back muscles, calves and hips felt like they were being ripped to shreds regardless of how gentle I was, but more and more I was able to work back into mobility and strength. I cant imagine what my training or life in general would FEEL like if I wasnt spending more time stretching than I do on my training.
I love the statement “health can often times be gauged by how wide your sphere of movement reaches from your body’s center.” It’s a great visual that is both poetic and practical!
As far as this flexibility vs. strength conversation, of course they are both crucial, and each person will have their own needs. It’s obvious through the replies here that a wide spectrum of hypomobile to hypermobile is represented – it’s a great sampling! Each type, and each person, based on past and current use, will need to focus on a different combination of both. But we all do need both in the end.
Ultimately, I think it’s useful to break “flexibility” down a bit more. In this context, separating it into: optimal range of motion (optimal for said person); muscle/fascial length; and muscle/fascial suppleness. Healthy ROM relies on both strength, and soft tissue length & suppleness. Everyone needs more/less of one or the other to reach their “optimal” ROMs. Long or short tissue is not synonymous with healthy or unhealthy tissues. Muscles/fascia can be long, yet restricted, “locked long,” as well as “locked short.” And a person may have an agonist that is locked short, while it’s antagonist is locked long. Often before muscles can fully benefit from stretching or strengthening, the fascial restrictions first need to be released. Myofascial release reduces adhesions, hydrates the tissues and increases “slide and glide” so we can contract or lengthen more effectively. Supple and pliable tissues are the goal here. (This is where the Yoga Tune Up® Therapy Balls are so awesome! )
This is totally right…I can’t imagine my practice without combining flexibility and strength….they both make my body happy!
This is a great article that makes yoga, and especially Yoga Tune Up, accessible to those who are in a professional sport. Although yoga is slowly infiltrating these arenas, it is still a relatively new concept for many. Often times, it’s a scary and unknown practice, especially when the notion of push through the pain, walk it off that Luke described has been engrained into their minds. I try to find a way to relate the two with my guys (&gals) that Gwen Lawrence taught me. Imagining your body as a bow Arrow: If you are super strong bow, the string won’t be pliable enough to pull back to allow the arrow to sore. If the string were so flexible, when pulled back, there would be no transfer of power from the strength. Finding that balance of strength flexibility is where the win happens, where the power transfers through the body at maximum capacity allowing follow through.
This article and the ensuing thread are very thought provoking. I’m almost a “senior” by age myself, and have a lifetime of exercise practices to reflect upon. I have to agree that as with all aspects of life, balance is my objective. I want to be strong AND flexible, but, even more, I seek wholeness. When I just pursued strong I suffered lower back pain. When I moved to yoga, after gaining some flexibility I began to pursue strong. But all along the way, I was integrating other wisdom, learning to breathe, manage stress, choose my fuel thoughtfully, capture my thought processes, focus on my relationships. For me it’s all about growing up with, as Jill teases, with the “end of days” in mind.
As a rock climber, I can totally relate to this. My yoga practice has been extremely important for rock climbing. Being flexible allows me to reach the moves I used to not be able to with my 5’1 physique. More over, since I can do different moves, I can build strength in area that classical yoga poses can’t. Rock climbing and yoga go hand in hand and keep me safe on the ropes.
It easy for every person who is involved in a physical discipline to lose flexibility in order to be stronger or faster. This is the most important lesson that most of the people learn just after they face an injury or a lack of movility in the regular things to do in their life. Looking a balance between strenght and flexibility is important to be healthy.
I just got home from my first CrossFit class. I was amazed by the mental strength in the room, the determination of the athletes. I was less amazed by the movement faults I was seeing all over the room.
I agree with the title of this article, but I want to add that to be strong you need to be Organized and Stabilized.
I found out for myself that this is just as true in yoga as it is in CrossFit. For that matter, it’s just as true when you’re gardening, or driving, or painting.
I’m currently in Teacher Training, and I have been inspired by what Todd Lavictoire said today (I’m paraphrasing slightly I hope he agrees with my interpretation: What is your intention in the pose? To help you live better in your body?
By my experience, asana for the sake of the asana has led me to injury and frustration.
Another quote that has inspired me and frame this in another way, from Kelly Starrett on the BulletProof Executive podcast: “Stop thinking about exercise as exercise. Think about it as a way of teaching being a skilled human. And as a side effect of being a skilled human, you’ll become fitter; as a side effect of being a skilled human you’ll become stronger. And think about this as an intellectual exercise.”
I love this as a mission. And I am so excited about moving into teaching as an intellectual exercise rather than instructing a sequence by rote.
I totally agree with you Luke, not only do I understand what you re saying but I’ve seen the transformation first hand. Ive watched my boyfriend, an x golden glove fighter and mixed martial artist go from having to walk down the stairs backwards in the morning because he could barely move, (getting cortisone injections into his spinal column, etc.) to being mostly pain free, and more flexible than I am!
After watching his example (doing Bikram yoga 5 days a week) I am following right behind him. After 20 plus years of Bootcamp style training, kickboxing and plyometrics I am rehabilitating myself and am no longer thinking about knee surgery and things like that. That being said every “body” is different and strengths and weaknesses vary depending on individual histories.
Thank you for this post. I find that it’s extremely helpful to find a balanced practice with long-term goals. What’s gonna help us kick ass at 80 or 90? That’s a balance of strength and flexibility. It’s also improving our breathing, mindfulness, diet etc. In your story, you’re absolutely right! You absolutely needed to find that balance and allow your body to become more flexibility. No matter what side of the strength/flexibility scale you’re on, definitely move toward balance mindfully with solid goals.
Well said. I hope for more people to have the same revelation. It seems that injuries are like a trophy sometimes: I worked *that* hard – rather than “I worked in a way that was unhealthy for my body, or incomplete.” So glad you found the right path for your body and can set an example for other professional athletes who may be ailing.
And, of course, the opposite is true, as well (as Elizabeth W. also points out): Want to be flexible? You need to be strong. I came to yoga from a dance background, and so had more than ample flexibility, but zero upper body strength. And I had my share of attendant injuries. Yoga’s strengthening components have helped me stabilize excessively mobile areas in my body. What was that bit again about the union of opposites?
A lot of people turn to yoga after developing injuries at other active sports. I on the other hand am not one who was injured elsewhere. Yoga helps build strength and flexibility. There is a lot of isometric work involved in holding poses and the flow sequences involve concentric muscle contractions. No, you arent pressing weights, but in many poses you are ”lifting” different amounts of your bodyweight. Its ”organic weight lifting”!
Luke says regarding Agility: The ability to transmit force (strength) through an optimal range of motion (flexibility) as quickly as possible (quickness/agility).
Kristen says: agility is the determinant of longevity.
You opened my eyes so much with those two sentences and I want to thank you for that. I will follow the suggestions thruout this blog and in the article to enhance my own and my students’ practice. Always keep a balance.
I love the title of this article, because it speaks directly to so many people nowadays who have the wrong idea of what being fit is. People have become more focused on their appearance, building the six packs and firming everything up, but they forget how essential stretching and taking care of your body is. Being strong enough to lift something without being able to reach for it in the first place isn’t going to help us. In the end, flexibility is what prevents us from losing our range of movement in different areas of the body, and what keeps us strong.
Thanks for being an ‘out of the closet’ ex pro athlete who is now proud of his more flexible and in tune body, and isn’t afraid to boost about it! Eventually one has to face what years of literal wear and tear on the body has done to it, whether it be from professional sports or sitting at a computer day after day. Not only are you physically more flexible, but I’m also impressed with the psychological flexibility it took for you to make the transition from a strong “pro” body to a strong “flow” body. Improved flexibility also touches on many other factors such as greater joint range of motion, increased breath and lung capacity, enhanced fluidity in dynamic movement, and more ease in everyday activities, all valuable assets of spending more time on your mat and with your YTU balls, and less with a set (or 20) of dumbbells.
I’m in agreement with Elizabeth W. Encouraged by my early yoga teachers to indulge in my propensity for flexibility (without any mention of stability), I ended up with multiple injuries and a body that was that lax and weak in some areas and overly tight in others. It took months of work with an excellent physical therapist to lay the foundation for the stability that was necessary to reduce pain I’d lived with for years. I’m know a firm believer in the axiom “Proximal stability supports distal mobility”.
I work with MMA fighters and the resistance to stretch and work on flexibility is strong but they are starting to come around. The toll their training does on their body especially on low back hips and shoulders keeps them bound up and unable to segmentalize. This is a great start to free up the lower portion of the body, hamstrings and hips and lateral flexion/extension.
I also agree with the word agility rather than flexibility. Flexibility has become a buzz word and the things I see in big yoga magazines are quite intense these days. While of course it was fun to tie myself up in a pretzel at a point in my yogic career, I no longer long for that sensation. In fact, I long for truthful sensation. Sensation where I can feel the limits of my structural body and obey them. As many other commenters before, I was also the uber flexible person in class that was always asked to demo and twist and moph etc. It is a strange feeling to be praised as a puddle of joints on the floor, and I see it happen all the time as a teacher. I now find myself trying to pull those yogi’s back into their bones. My ideas of beauty have changed and a pose so stereotypically deemed as “easy” like Tadasana is now my “OwwwwwAhhhh!!” pose, because when done correctly, it is WORK. We all come to yoga for different reasons, for some, more flexibility is important, for others, stability and strength. The real challenge lies in the balance of the two.
I think this is a really interesting post. As a lifelong athlete, I just recently found yoga (5.5yrs ago). My main focus is now increasing my range of motion, which, as you mention, is a combination of both strength and flexibility. For the first 2 years I did yoga, I made leaps and bounds in bettering my flexibility in my hips and hamstrings (where I am extremely tight after years of running). However, the last few years I have made zero progress in improving my flexibility. I’m wondering if this limitation in range of motion is a result of the joint itself (bone on bone) rather than a limitation of the elasticity of the muscles involved in opening the hip. Could it be possible that when growing up running my pelvis fused together in a way that actually inhibits full range of motion in the hip due to the way the femur is placed in the pelvic ball and socket joint? If this were a purely muscular limit I would think I’d see continued improvement (obviously very slowly, but still improving). Is it possible that, even if I continue to do yoga for the next 20 years, I will never be more open in the hips? Any thoughts you can share would be greatly appreciated.
I wish I was told “only the smart survive” when I was dancing professionally in ballet/contemporary because I was training and working in the exact same way as yourself , just doing what I was told to do-like a little ballerina soldier. I also felt my body was at it’s best physical strength and performance level. Turned out from just doing whatever they asked to get the desire performance took a toll on my body and by the time I discovered that I had to give up my dream career. It was only after that I discovered and became aware of the imbalances within my body, for me it was I had all this flexibility but no strength to support it. Yoga and Yoga Tune Up has also helped me learn that I don’t have to give up one for the other…you need both!
We not only need strength and flexibility but we should include endurance. I do need to be strong in order to fend off a tiger and agility to out maneuver him but if in a chase, I will need my endurance to run away (not that I can beat a tiger, am more agile and can out run one in the first place.)
Flexibility and strength are like Yin and Yang in Chinese philosophy. Each needs and enhances the other. Too much emphasis of flexibility can also leads to injury, just like that with building strength. Another element is balancing the muscle on either side of your body, so that we do not overuse one side and underuse the other. I hope we all have the skills of awareness and the wisdom to balance ourselves in this multifacet life!.
Reading your words makes me feel as if I could have written them myself. Your story of the old-school Machismo attitudes towards traditional sports training (baseball, football, hockey, basketball, etc) is exactly the place where I come from.
I’ve learned to train my old-school attitude towards training into accepting that flexibility is another skill set, just like speed, power, endurance, and so on are. However, with maturity I’ve learned to focus my attention on different skill sets, as opposed to the ones I so dearly desired when I was a “young pup.”
In a nutshell, Yoga Tune-up and traditional Yoga classes have awaken a new dimension in the way I approach my personal physical training. Learning the benefits of being flexible and understanding how to improve my own flexibility has been a very refreshing discovery in my life.
Everyday, I enjoy the benefits of this new found flexibility.
Really enjoyed reading your blog ( and responses) as everyone says yoga is all about balance. It requires strength and flexibility in a healthy balance. Physically and mentally 🙂
This is a very important lesson that needs to be more advertised to the masses, as Luke pointed out often times the “machismo” of needing to be built like Arnold in the 70’s is what’s driving many men to the gym and their measure of success is the weight on the bar not whether or not they can touch their toes. This attitude obviously does not lend itself to longevity and eventually the body breaks down due to repetitive stress as a result of poor movement techniques and lack of flexibility. Thanks for this great article Luke and the Hip therapy link will come in handy when I show the benefits of YTU at the gym.
This is a very simple yet effective way to release the hip and to teach it to athletes of all levels. Even those with chronic lower back pain can gradually ease into a deeper stretch and find their blind spots to target the problematic muscle fibers. 🙂
so true. I always try to do my best at stretching when training, but sometimes I see how it can be an area of the training or practice that is neglected. As my fitness coach say: training doesn’t finish until you have your post workout meal and shower. this including obviously a good amount of time in proper stretching. Prevent injuries, recover faster and the body just feel better! thank you for this post!
Hey Luke, I resonate a lot with this post! My deadlifting and squating dramatically improved when I started being able to open my hips and get fuller ranges of motion. I think every strength and conditioning program needs to be paired with a mobility/yoga practice! Thanks!
Great post Luke,
I’m finding more and more everyday that you just have to mix it up, you can’t always be doing one type of exercise or train too much in any linear pattern. I used to only practice hot yoga, the same 26 postures and that was it. Down the road I started having neck and lower back pain. Now i take into account my weaknesses and try to incorporate exercise and daily life activities that will help strengthen and lengthen every part of my body, even though at times it can be very humbling.
So often I see this in dance fitness as well…..lots of moves but not a lot of stretching time and mobility work. Everyone has imbalances and needs to listen to their body. Proper Stretching…,and breathing have made a big difference with my classes. Thank you for this reminder for us all to facilitate with what we do!
This is so true!!! keep a good balace healthy body is not just strength and cardio exercices, and peaople so often pay so litlte attention and time to stretch after practicing sports. Combine flexibility and strenght will protect us from injuries.
I am fairly lucky in that I have always been fairly flexible. While I feel it has helped me pick up many different sports and modalities easily, I’m wondering if being too flexible has caused some of my injuries. Is that possible?
I love to hear stories of athletes, especially men, that have found that flexibility has helped their performance. A strong long muscle is much healthier than a short tight muscle, athletes are now educated that by “re-habing” their bodies, they are able to be strong in their sport, and smart! Yoga Tune Up Balls are a great therapy tool to bring suppleness to our muscles!
Thanks for your story!
I go by the idea that a tight muscle is a weak muscle. When I first started doing scorpion pose I realized much later that I could do the pose because my muscles were tight. It took me quite a while to realize that flexibility would make the pose work with awareness and therefore the proper balance between the two (strength and flexibility) was and is the place I want to be. And now much later, the humbling aspect of yoga has taught me to go even deeper into the lessons of yoga and life.
This post made me “laugh out loud.” I thought I was such an amazing athlete myself (swimming, running) when I walked into my first yoga class only to be very humbled! My muscles were strong but tight! I think this is an important point for all athletes and yogis. Now I have been doing yoga for five years and I hardly ever swim or run for exercise (although I walk a lot) and very rarely lift weights (although I hold my own body weight in many poses!). I think it important to explore both strength and flexibility and the relationship between strength and flexibility.
I just went running for the first time in years. Due to imbalances created by running without balancing it with strength and flexibility training, I continuously injured myself to the point of no longer being able to run. During today’s run two amazing thoughts came into my head:
(1) I was running for me, not needing to look at my watch or care about how long I went for.
(2) My body was pain free, and I was focusing on how my body moved, enjoying the fullness of movement and breath. I no longer cared to push myself to a place of imbalance and pain. Instead, I found myself fascinated by my body and the sensations I felt, and feeling that running could actually be a way to connect to myself and my structure, instead of a way of punishing myself.
The other amazing thing I realized. YTU has helped me to improve my body structure in both strength and flexibility, and I truly credit this modality with with the freedom I felt today.
Well said. Now only if I could find the optimal combination of flexibility, strength and power. Feels like everytime I turn up the flexibility I lose strength and when I turn up the strength I lose flexibility 🙁
It’s so wonderful to hear how an athlete discovered the benefits of yoga. Yes, weight training was big for me too in the 80s and I still believe that you need strong bones and muscles for a healthy body, but discovering that our own body weight can do all that and more for us is so powerful. Yoga humbles many of us; it is often regarded as not a great workout by many of my gym brat friends, but once they try it and notice how tight their body is from the pounding on the treadmill or the excessive weight training, they are hooked and realize that yoga is much more than a workout. I’ve encouraged so many people to take a yoga class. Yoga has helped my 86 year old mother-in-law deal with pain from knee and hip surgery. It has also helped my 21 year old daughter and 20 year old niece develop a love for exercise and their bodies. I love when yoga becomes a part of someone I love life.
It is so nice to hear men breaking the mold and trying yoga out. I know a lot of people think it is not really athletic or good exercise but hello?!?! Have you seen Yogi’s bodies?!? Not to mention, not just the abs but the peace of mind we all seem to share, and oh yeah the incredible flexibility! I believe that if everyone did yoga there would be a lot less crime and anger everywhere in the world. Stretching alone just makes the body breathe, all the muscles and bones slowly open and become happier as does the mind. In my two years of practice I have become a much happier person, off of anti-depressants and sleeping pills ( I used to have terrible insomnia) I also think it helps with the CNS, anxiety, and I could go on and on about the benefits, It is so inspiring to hear about other peoples journeys to find yoga, because I always try and introduce people and they are intimidated because they think they are not flexible or won’t look good in spandex, but if more people were aware of all the benefits, it would be growing even more rapidly in popularity than it already is!
Want to be flexible? You need to be strong.
I feel like this term ‘flexible’ gets thrown around so much in yoga and often in tandem with the image of bendy, bound creature in a yoga pose to the point that people associate the concept of flexibility with loose joints. A loose joint is as unbalanced and problematic as a tight joint and is the same in terms of range of movement in so much that it does not have a good range of movement that the owner is in control of…. which effectively isn’t a useful range of movement.
I am in the hyper-mobile camp and became a performing contortionist through which (contrary to popular belief) required strength training so that I could get on stage and take my own joints through a range of movement that was fascinating to a spectator. So really it brings up the question of ‘what is this flexibility that is the holy grail in yoga?’….. being able to be pushed, pulled and ‘adjusted’ into any position, being able to collapse to a depth that looks like you have exceeded the normal range of movement, or simply exploiting those joints that can and will bend with ease?
To my understanding flexibility requires stability, and stability requires strength.
And strength requires mobility. And therein lies the challenge.
I am right in the same boat as Elizabeth. Being a hyper mobile person, my work in Yoga has been not to get more flexible, but to find my midline, my center, and to create strength, stability, and integrity in my body. Alignment based yoga has helped me to map my body better and understand where my limbs are in space so I can better keep myself together. Yoga should really be about balance. The trouble with most yoga class cues is they are generalized. When I would “take my shoulders back” I would also flatten my thoracic curve, and I would “tuck my tail bone” I would flatten my lumbar curve, when I would “forward fold and put my belly on my thighs” I would do it passively not actively, and create tiny hamstring tears. Yoga has to be smart, and it has to be tailored to the needs of unique bodies, which is why everyone needs to be self responsible and educated about their own body! This is also why Yoga Tune Up is so great!
Luke, you raise a valid point here, there is often a false dichotomy drawn between strength and flexibility. I have witnessed those who focused too much on building strength gains alone, and present with huge shoulders and beach muscles for yoga classes and be unable to think of being able to touch their toes because their traps are the size of footballs. Jill has some absolutely fantastic hip openers in this video! Thanks for sharing.
Good post. I tend to lead towards what Hawley P. is saying just above me about the combination of flexibility and strength moving toward a space where we find balance in our physical traits in turn “center’ if you will. Health and well being of the physical body is seen through the myriad of conditions we exercise to make the homeostatic whole. But I’d agree with the post that flexibility is often over looked and or ignored by many people, especially with the “chiseled” physique often displayed to exemplify over all health on the cover of so many magazine covers. We all see through a different lens, but the lens that mainstream media presents to us is often very skewed towards the condition of strength-seen to be healthy.
i teach a seniors yoga class & i’ve been teaching the same group for 3 1/2 years. Last week, as they were moving through their Sun Salutations (modified!) I looked around the room and saw 15 older bodies beautifully, and carefully, folded forward in Uttanasana. There were some full folds, some bent knees, some hands on blocks – all variations for various ailments – even one chair fold. But what struck me was that 3 years ago, this same group of 70 and 80 year olds balked at the idea of reaching for their toes, even in theory. Now, they were stronger, more flexible, and most important, more confident. Flexibility is not only a signifier of health, but a happier way to live in your own skin.
Thank you for your perspective. It is always wonderful to hear what brought an individual to yoga.
I however believe that flexibility it just as important as strength, not one over the other. It is about balance. Each one of us is either more flexible or stronger. Through yoga we may work to find the optimal balance.
One great connection here is the individual proprioceptions; being aware of where one’s body blind spots exist is the point of departure for creating healthy strategy plans (for some it may be focusing on strength traininig and for others is flexibility or perhaps even a cobination).
Yup! Absolutely right! Power is another word for agility. At least in my book. The ability to transmit force (strength) through an optimal range of motion (flexibility) as quickly as possible (quickness/agility). Kristen, you are definitely right about agility being the determinant of longevity.
I always find it interesting to hear the stories of how people came to find yoga as a part of their life. I actually experienced an increase in my strength over the initial few months of practice. It was empowering to match my inner strength with my outer strength. The one thing that kept popping out at me while reading your blog, was a lack of emphasis on AGILITY rather than flexibility. It is the ability to be agile in our movements that we carry us gracefully into older age.
Hey Elizabeth,
You are absolutely right. True health/performance comes from the optimal combination of flexibility, strength and power. Each individual will have different weaknesses they need to work on that will ultimately impact the other two. That being said, this post was much longer and touched on that, but both YTU and myself though it best to separate the long post into two or three shorter ones so it’s easier to digest. Hope the next one you see will touch on what you just mentioned! Thanks for your feedback!
I actually think this post is not complete. Yes, you were a stiff guy who suffered from your inflexibility. But I was the opposite. Years of extreme yogi-ness left me in constant pain–sound familiar? I turned to strength training to cure my aching body. I am now proud to wake up every morning knowing how much I can bench and squat!
Truthfully, both of us are on the right track. As Jill ( and Kelly Starrett) emphasizes, we want to have healthy tissues and move in a healthy way. For some that means getting more flexible. For others it means picking up some weights and getting stronger.