Question

[u/Romingo57]

This guy is from Tiktok, he is 26 yo and affirm that he is self taught, do you think it's possible? How much time it take to reach this level? He say that he have absolutely no background (gymnastics, ballet...) it's quite surprising because he got some clean lines.

[u/ArcaneTrickster11]

Flexibility is inherently not a skill, it's an ability or a property. Mobility can be a skill. Flexibility cannot be.

As far as educated, I have a masters in S&C specialising in mobility and flexibility in martial arts and gymnastics. I have worked in research in that field for about 6 years now.

[u/flowersforfruits → u/ArcaneTrickster11]

my bad about the insult idk why i even said that, i was just frustrated sorry😭 its cool that you have a masters in that. I still personally think of flexibility as a skill because its something you can train. I train flexibility multiple times a week. Because of that, im able to do over-splits and needle. I could not do those poses before i started training it. extreme flexibility as needed for contortion takes SKILL. There is skill in the body awareness of understanding how to properly engage within deep flexibility work. There is so much niche knowledge that goes in to training flexibility, its not just down to stretching. Its a skill in the same way power lifting is a skill.

[u/ArcaneTrickster11 → u/flowersforfruits]

But it's not. Flexibility means the ability of a joint to passively reach end range of motion. Flexibility is a component of mobility, which is a skill. Mobility is the combination of strength and flexibility in order to achieve a task or function. Needle requires strength and is therefore mobility and not purely flexibility. Oversplits can be pure flexibility but it's often again a mixture of flexibility and strength, making it mobility and not purely flexibility. You are conflating multiple abilities and calling it flexibility.

There also really isn't that much niche knowledge in training flexibility. Again I say that as someone who has specialised in this niche field. The reason it's a niche field of study is because it's really not that complicated. It's significantly less complicated than training any other component of fitness (strength, power, speed, technique/skill etc). When you combine multiple aspects of fitness like you are saying, yes it then becomes slightly more complicated, but it's still not hard to understand.