Joseph Pilates, the founder of the Pilates physical fitness system once said, “If your spine is stiff at 30, you are old. If it is flexible at 60, you are young.”

He couldn’t have said it better. However, when you’re young, you’re healthier, stronger and your body is less sensitive. As age creeps up on you, you’ll lose muscle mass and your body is more sensitive to pain.

Since many people do not engage in resistance training to retard the muscle loss, the muscle fibers in the body start decreasing. They are then replaced by collagen which will get stiffer with time and reduce one’s mobility.

The best way to remedy this problematic situation is with regular stretching. There are a multitude of benefits that can be accrued just by stretching for about 15 to 20 minutes a day. Let’s look at some of the benefits: Continue reading →

If you’ve read the book titled ‘Stretching’ that was written by Bob Anderson back in 1975, you’d have noticed a very important quote in it. Bob wrote, ‘If you stretch correctly and regularly, you’ll find that every movement you make becomes easier.’

All these years later and his quote still holds true because human anatomy hasn’t changed much. The more flexible you are, the easier your movements will be.

This is especially important when you lose the vim and vigor of youth and you’re in your senior years where even reaching for the remote seems like a feat of Olympic proportions.

Even though stretching and flexibility is of paramount importance regardless of age, most people barely give it any thought. For those that do give flexibility training some thought, there are still a lot of common mistakes made and misconceptions held that don’t carry any weight. Continue reading →