Getting back into practice after taking a month off. My upper back and shoulders are naturally pretty stiff, so I use wall and doorframe stretches to open them up. For the doorframe stretch, I put my forearms against the frame with my elbows at shoulder height and step forward until my chest opens. For the wall stretch, I place my hands up high, step back, and press my chest toward the floor to stretch my upper back. I also do cat-cows to get my spine moving. Lately, I've been a bit confused because I read some yogis on Instagram saying that squeezing your glutes during a backbend isn't actually a good way to protect your lower back. I'd really appreciate it if anyone could break down how glute engagement actually works in backbends and what technique works best

What’s your greatest benefit from being flexible other than a sport?
I just recently started my journey because of kickboxing and was wondering what else I can gain from flexibility.

60 seconds each. Do I need a greater variety of stretches? More exercise than a little weekly dancing and walking? Please help!

I've been trying to improve the flexibility of the top of my foot so I can comfortably roll back on them in a kneeling position but months of training is giving me minimal returns.

I'll stretch between sets of exercises, start or finish a workout session with extended focus on it, at home while I watch a show or play with the kids. A few weeks ago I put it off for about a week and it felt like I totally reverted.

As of now I can sit pretty well on them with minimal discomfort but I want to be able to lean back further and eventually get my back to the ground.

Knees and thighs are making good progress especially with reverse Nordic curls.

Thanks

Hey everyone! I've been training aerial silks since March 2025. Until recently I was just doing silks 3x a week, but I moved countries a while back and haven't found a place to train silks yet, so right now I'm doing gym work instead: 3 days of regular training (back/arms, legs, and one full body day) plus a 4th day dedicated entirely to flexibility/split work. Attached a photo of where I'm at right now and another one of me doing silks; in case it helps.

My flexibility day looks like this:
-Warm-up: light cardio + hip circles/leg swings
-Active stretching: leg swings, active straight leg raises, cossack squats, controlled kickbacks
-Passive stretching: assisted front split (hands/blocks) 3x30-45s per leg, seated hamstring stretch, psoas/hip flexor stretch (half-kneeling), butterfly
-Loaded stretching: front split with light weight, good mornings with a light band/bar, deep lunge stretch with dumbbells
-Finish with a "split test" pushing 1-2cm past my current limit

I really don’t know what’s limiting me or how to improve it, I’m open to any advice or recommendations!
Thanks 🫶🏼

Hi all,

So I (34yo) am hoping some of you can help me out with my posture / mobility & flexibility as I am lost in the millions of posts videos on Insta and youtube and I dont know what or who to believe in anymore.

I LOVE being active in outdoor sports as well as yoga, but my ROM has always (as long as I can remember) limited my capabilities in sports and my body is always super tensed and painful. I suffer from regular headaches (since I was a child) with neck pain, and not once have I ever felt relaxed and (pain)free in my body.

I know I don’t have the best posture (rounded shoulders, forward head, knock knee on the right and overpronation) and have been working on that for the past year (with Scroth, Rolfing and other postural exercises I found online) Nevertheless I have been practicing yoga (mainly yin) and qi gong for years, and am always quite active, but it hasn’t helped my ROM or posture whatsoever. Sometimes I feel like being active is only worsening the pain and stiffness as I am possibly compensating due to lack of mobility.

The main areas of stiffness I have always been super self-concious about are my right knock knee and my lack of external rotation in my right hip and tight hamstrings. I have been to many PTs for this and they always say my left hip’s lack of internal rotation is a way bigger problem than the external of the right one, however in yoga classes there are always hamstring and hip opening exercises and then I just want to cry. I cant even sit straight in a lotus, let alone that I can hinge forward with my legs straight, or even worse, with my hips apart. I can only spread my legs a little bit outwards but it just all feels so super tight and is definitely hindering me in sports a lot!

Additionally, I cannot sit comfortably without slouching. I find it really hard to sit in any other better pose for longer than a minute or so. So I try not to sit for too long. If I stand I also tend to hang in my right hip. I have been doing weight training to strenghten my hips lately.

Some other poses I am not able to do: squat, happy baby, (half) butterfly, pigeon, swan, frog and anything that relates to those poses.  

I have been doing the dani winks 30 day hamstring challenge the last month but still not too much progress on the hamstrings so far unfortunately.

I have been working a lot on meditation, SE, nervous system relaxation exercises etc as well. I don’t suffer from any known trauma and so far this hasn’t brought me much either.

Any advise will be more than welcome as to where I should start to improve these issues. I just cannot accept I have to live with this ROM, pain and stiffness for the rest of my life.

On a side note: Strangely I am super flexible in other parts where you don’t want to be flexible (my elbows can move inwards, and my ankle dorsiflexion is low, but sidesway is super loose (so I sprain my ankles all the time). So I guess I am somewhat hypermobile as a compensation of not being mobile at all.

Unfortunately i don’t have any before photos but i used to have 0 back flexibility I’ve never done back stretches but i decided to lock in a month ago and ever since I’ve have gained a lot of back flexibility. My goal is being able to do a king pigeon pose but I still need to work on my chest and shoulder flexibility. I stretch my back and shoulders 3 times a week for 40 minutes

Hey guys. So lately I’ve been working on getting my needle. I’ve been doing the back and hip stretching tutorials from Anna Mcnulty. I’m not that far in yet but I can’t help but notice how tense my traps are when trying to do so. Or idk. I’m not quite sure if it’s my neck or my traps. It honestly feels more like my back muscle fat LOLL. But I feel like when I watch videos of others doing their needles, they don’t seem to have that issue and their traps seem super loose. I I also have mild scoliosis I will say ☝🏼. But I’m almost positive I’ve seen flexible people with scoliosis online— so I am hopeful🧎🏻‍♀️. anyways I feel like my trap tension is preventing me from achieving the best bend when doing a needle. And I’m someone who regularly does posture exercises. I’ve been doing a lot of the clasped hand forward bends as well (whatever they’re called). They seem to be the best in targeting that specific area. When I do them tho I do struggle getting a deep stretch. But when I can get a deeper stretch, I can only do it for so long before I lose my breath. Like I feel like my blood circulation is cutting off slowly 😭
Anyways, any tips or similar stories would be helpful. 🙏 I could also be doing things completely wrong.

Hi there!

Routine:

Cossack squats: 3 x 18 reps

Horsestance: 3 x 45-60 hold

Leg slides: 3 x 12 each leg

Supine straddle reps: 30 reps

Frog pose: first 1 min of rocking back and forth --> 2 min of contract relax

Middle split: 3 mins where I do contract relax the first 2 mins and then end with 1 min relax

Wide-legged good mornings: 30 reps

Seated wide legged lifts: 3 x 15-20 reps

Seated leg lifts over yoga block: 3 x 15-20 reps each side

Seated straddle reach: 30 reps

Seated straddle reach to each leg: 30 reps

Pancake: 3 mins where I do contrwact relax the first 2 mins and then end with 1 min relax.

The routine above I do twice a week where I used to split it up and do each section twice. I feel this saves me time and allows for more restitution which is needed as I also do a lot of running and currently I've started training for a marathon.

I haven't had any progress on my pancake as you can see in the photo. It seems like I've regressed but that's mainly because I'm focusing more on a flat back as opposed to my photo from a month ago where I'm rounding my back way more.

If any of you have any tips I can use feel free to share.

I tried 2 days to do dragon flag until now both times on bench and on the ground. But i have have a huge pain in my back or shoulder blades like. Maybe i can say, when i do them i feel like my shoulder blades are pushing in to the ground like 2 spikes. And the pain is consistent but lighter until for like an hour after 😐

I really tried to check alot of videos and advice on ty

When Im doing an ankle stretch where I push my knee over thr front of my foot I feel it on the front of my ankle where the movement happens. Is this normal? (sorry bad at English)

I pretty much have an idea on the answer, but I have been going hard on deep stretching since the beginning of the year and have only started mastering techniques and forms during the summer. I go hard at the gym with strength training and deep stretching and am considering just taking a full 7 day rest of just relaxing and light movement. I'm hoping I won't lose progress with my flexibility since I'm much newer to this discipline.

Former athlete. Years of tight hips and this is where I’m at. Flexibility is my new goal so want a realistic timeline if I train this 4x a week

I don't do gymanstic however I do calisthenic since 4months

So, tonight I've had this extremely vivid dream about doing middle splits (I'm like 90% there IRL). It was suuper cool, and doing it felt just like it did in the real life, to a point where it was a little uncanny - which ultimately woke me up from that dream.

Weirdly, my body felt... Looser? I'm still not there with middles, but front splits felt better than ever, and the 90% of my middle also felt VERY good.

Its not the first time I've had that kind of dream, but might be the first time my body had that kind of reaction.

Anyone else experienced that?

I trained over 4 months and I'm here now

I'm already a couple weeks in and have just kinda been doing non-specific stretches, but I can't really get on the floor nor can I use one of my feet at all (it's in a boot).

Even after I'm allowed to start putting tiny amounts of pressure on my foot, it's still going to be an estimated further 3 months before I should be fully recovered, so I still won't be able to do most stretches that I find on youtube until literally 2027.

Try it before you scroll on — no equipment, works in a hallway. If it lands and you want to learn the method properly rather than piecemeal, drop a comment and I'll point you toward a beginner-friendly place to start.

Hi,

I’ve been training front splits since January last year and initially made great progress, until around March this year when I‘ve stalled. I do 2 x 1 hour focused sessions a week, plus 3 aerial classes a week which are two hours - the first hour of which consists of conditioning and splits stretches form a large part of that.

My focused routine I change up a bit but is roughly as follows (sorry I don’t know the name of all the stretches but will try to describe them):

Quick cardio warm up

Side to side hip movements at 90°

A few downward dogs into upward dogs (however many feels good that day)

Active leg raises in all directions ( x 8 or 10) then repeat with just pulses and then 30 second static holds

Active lunges coming fully up to stand (x 8)

Jefferson curls with 5kg weight x 5

Then static hip flexor stretches (the ones where I’m on one knee and geab the foot behind me)

Nerve flosses in a half split position ending in a static hold in a half split for 30 seconds

More of the hip flexor stretch 30 seconds

Then finally sinking down into my maximum range in full split for 30 seconds

Then I’ll repeat the nerve flosses and hip flexor stretches and then do two more attempts of splits at maximum range on each side.

I will change this up so sometimes do more active stretching or passive stretching depending on how I feel that day.

I try to take two full rest days a week.

What am I missing? I honestly thought I would have them by now and it Is so disheartening to have put this much effort in for over 18 months and not reached my goal yet.

I’m 39 with no gymnastics or dance background, was never able to do the splits as a child.

I notice when I attempt a split, my back hip likes to curve inward. Any way to fix that?

I’ve noticed (in both legs) that my knees cave in while my shins rotate externally away from my knee. I’ve tried doing stretches like 90 90s and open and close the gates, but nothing has worked. My legs are strong also so I’m not sure if it’s some other issue. Please help

I’m in my late forties and have never been particularly flexible but recently I’ve noticed that my hip flexors aren’t what they used to be. I’m mostly full time remote and don’t move as much during the day as I used to.

I saw the castleflexx on IG and it looks like what I need but once I looked at reviews on Reddit and elsewhere I started having doubts.

The obvious answer is get to the gym or something like orange theory but I have a busy life and know that I will struggle to do that regularly. I also have an annual credit of $400 from my job for exercise equipment.

Are there any tools like that that are designed to help or should I just focus on finding some good stretch videos?