Can I Do Yoga If I'm Not Flexible? An Honest Answer

The short answer is yes, definitely. You don't have to be flexible to enjoy yoga. In fact, if you're not flexible, you should include yoga in your weekly routine to stop you becoming more stiff and preventing injury from sports.

Yoga builds flexibility gradually over time; it does not require it as a starting point. Saying you are too stiff for yoga is like saying you are too dirty for a bath. Flexibility is a result of practice, not a prerequisite for it.

The Biggest Myth in Yoga

When people discover I'm a yoga teacher their response is: "I can't do yoga, I'm not flexible enough." It is, without question, the number one reason people give for not having tried yoga. And it is, without question, the worst reason.

Flexibility is not the entry requirement for yoga. It is one of the outcomes.

The biggest myth in yoga is that you have to be able to touch your toes. If that were true, I'd have never become a yoga teacher because when I first qualified my fingers were still hanging 10 inches above the floor!

If you start practicing yoga aged 53 just as I did, of course you're not going to touch your toes straight away, but you may in time (if it's really that important to you).

Why Do I Feel Stiff?

There are many reasons why people feel stiff: they work at a desk; too much time sitting (driving, watching tv); stress; age; lack of exercise or overtraining in one particular sport.

Some of my clients have become stiff through working too hard in a high pressure job causing them to hold unnecessary muscle tension; some from juggling too many things in life leaving them stressed and exhausted; some from significant injury; some from not moving enough and others from overdoing a single sporting pursuit causing muscle imbalances (notably training for a half or full marathon; a passion for tennis or too much football); and others from the mistaken belief that older age makes us automatically stiff (if you think you're stiff, you'll be stiff).

I teach all those people. Yoga helps them. I'm also living proof that yoga delivers benefits in all those scenarios.

Here's the good news: I have been teaching yoga in Cambridge for many years, and I can tell you this with absolute certainty: the stiffest person in the room often gets the most out of the practice. Why? Because they have the most to gain. They notice the changes. They feel the difference. They become more confident.

What Is Yoga Really About?

Which brings me to the question, well if yoga isn't about being flexible enough to touch your toes, what is it? Yoga is a deeply mindful practice of improving your wellbeing; regulating your nervous system; giving yourself time and space to breathe fully and move compassionately. At a physical level it develops both strength and flexibility; at an emotional level it promotes a deep sense of being centred and calm; and at a psychological level it promotes self learning and personal growth.

Here's a secret: touching your toes is not the point of yoga, but learning something about yourself on the way there definitely is. When you uncover that secret, you'll just keep coming back for more.

The Science of Flexibility

So here's some science for those of you who like the facts. Flexibility is not one thing. It is a combination of things, some of which we can change and some we can't.

The four things are:

1. Your soft tissue: muscles, fascia, tendons, and ligaments
2. Your bone structure
3. Your nervous system tolerance
4. Your lifestyle

Everyone's body is different. Your soft tissues, your bone structure, your history of movement (or non-movement), your current injuries, your genetics, your belief system, your breath pattern — all of these affect your flexibility. Comparing your hamstrings to the person on the next mat is like comparing your handwriting to someone else's. It is uniquely yours. But hamstring length, just like handwriting, can change if you practice making it different.

Muscles

A relaxed muscle is long. A contracted muscle is short. Progressively, over time, a muscle can become longer by you stretching it. Muscles are highly adaptive to training. If you keep lifting heavy weights, muscles contract and get shorter and bulkier. Similarly if you keep stretching muscles, they get longer. Inside the muscle are lots of muscle fibres (called myofibrils) each one has a contractile element (called a sarcomere). When you contract a muscle it's the sarcomere that gets shorter, and when you rest a muscle the sarcomere gets longer. But here's the amazing thing: when you keep lengthening a muscle over time, the body creates new sarcomeres laying them end to end so the muscle fibre actually becomes longer.

Fascia

I'm currently studying a year long course on anatomy that looks exclusively at fascia. It's become a huge growth area in the world of movement over the past 15 years and scientists are uncovering new insights all the time. Fascia is everywhere in your body, in muscles, around muscles, just under the skin, deep around the organs. It has different consistency and is highly intelligent with over 250 million nerve endings. After an operation it is thickened fascia that creates the scar tissue that becomes stiff. Fascia release exercises can help loosen areas that have been damaged by injury. Fascia responds very well to gentle touch and slow held postures. In yoga, fascia is primarily trained to release through a style of practice called Yin — a style of class with gradual, floor based shapes lasting for several minutes each.

Bones

So muscles and fascia can be trained to change. What can't change is your bone structure. If your pelvis is narrow and your hip socket is deep — like mine — your hip poses won't be as mobile as someone with a broader pelvis and shallower hip socket. You may judge yourself as being less flexible, but you're not: you're built differently to them. If you have arthritis in a hip joint that has formed little bone nodules — like me — you may go less deep in some of the standing poses as bone on bone always creates a hard stop. You may judge yourself less flexible but you're not, you're just built differently. And you're practicing in your own body, nobody else's.

What can improve is your joint strength and mobility of the joints. This is because joints are made of two or more bones coming together but they are connected by ligaments, surrounded by fascia and bathed in synovial fluid. Working with a Kinstretch trainer on controlled articulation rotations (CARs) can improve the strength and quality of soft tissues surrounding the joints which makes joints feel freer and stronger.

The Nervous System

The more I teach and practice, the more I am sure that the nervous system has the most impact on our ability to stretch. You will often hear me say in a yin class: "the body moves at the pace of trust." That's because your brain is designed to keep you safe. If it thinks something will injure you, it employs a restraint known as a governor on your movements, stopping you well within your current range. This is why the breath is so important in yoga: it calms and relaxes the nervous system so that we can move safely and slower into further range.

When I teach you, I teach the whole person in front of me, not the pose. I create a safe space that starts with helping you to be fully present and then we lengthen and deepen our breath so we can relax into learning. There is never any pressure to perform — it's always only practice.

Your Lifestyle

Your lifestyle will also determine how flexible you are on a daily basis. Your body responds to the things you ask it to do habitually. Even with a weekly yoga class, we spend much more of our lives at work, doing chores, driving, maybe gardening or other hobbies, relaxing in front of the TV. All those things will be teaching your body to adopt a posture that makes them easy. Over time that's the way our bodies become.

People with a regular yoga practice build the awareness to notice how they sit, stand and hold themselves in everyday situations and become more mindful about those being choices. They learn how to move mindfully and harmoniously.

One of my favourite quotes is from TKV Desikachar, an early yoga teacher from India:

"Our yoga practice should be more intelligent than our daily bad habits."

How Yoga Builds Flexibility (Safely)

Yoga does not force flexibility. It invites it. Here is how:

Sustained Holds

Unlike dynamic stretching, yoga holds poses for multiple breaths. This gives your muscles time to relax and lengthen. Your nervous system, which is the real gatekeeper of flexibility, learns that it is safe to let go a little more.

Breathwork

When you breathe deeply and slowly, your nervous system shifts from sympathetic (fight or flight) to parasympathetic (rest and digest). In this calmer state, your muscles release tension more readily. This is why yoga stretches feel deeper than regular stretches — the breath is doing half the work.

Progressive Overload

Over weeks and months, you gently ask a little more of your body. Not by forcing, but by letting go. You show up consistently. The changes are incremental, but they are real and they are lasting. Most of my students notice significant improvements within 4 weeks of regular practice.

Warmth

Yoga sequences are designed to warm the body before asking it to stretch deeply. We do not start with the deepest pose. We build to it. Warm muscles stretch more safely and effectively than cold ones.

Where to Start If You Are Not Flexible

My honest advice: don't do nothing. Here is how I can best help you:

• Come to Gentle Yoga for Back Care. This is my slowest, most accessible class. If you are stiff and nervous, this is a beautiful place to start. View Gentle Yoga for Back Care
• Consider a private session. If the idea of a group class feels intimidating, a bespoke private lesson allows us to work entirely at your pace, with your body, on your terms.
• Do not compare yourself to anyone. Not to the person on the next mat. Not to the people on Instagram. Not to a younger version of yourself. Compare yourself only to how you felt before you started.
• Give it time. Your body did not get stiff overnight, and it will not become flexible overnight. But it will change. I have seen it in every single student.

So if you have been putting off yoga because you are not flexible, this is your sign to stop waiting.

Come just as you are. You're already good enough.