r/flexibility

I've been stretching my back for a while now trying to get more of a curve in my spine and be able to do a needle.
I don't think I've been stretching correctly because I haven't made much progress and caused a low back injury from stretching incorrectly. Everytime I try a stretch I see online, My spine won't curve the same way and even though its meant for beginners it doesn't look the way it should.
This is generally how my routine goes:
Cat cows
Cobra lower to the ground to focus on upper back
Cobra
Puppy pose against the wall with arms up
Bridge

I haven't done bridge in a while because I'm afraid of it flaring up my injury and I wanted to gain more flexibility before trying it again but nothings worked even when I was practicing bridges.

I provided pictures from my stretching session today and I have my glutes engaged to prevent feeling any pain but I just cant go further, especially in the cobra. I also can't go very high withour my arms and legs supporting me.
Can anyone help me figure out what I can do? I don't think its an anatomy issue since I feel like I can go deeper, I'm just getting stuck

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

[supprimé]

2 Months of Almost Daily 13 Minute Splits Exercises any tips and am I close or not, (this is right after stretching btw)

I’m taking my front lever to the extreme.
If you need help with anything related to front lever or calisthenics in general, feel free to ask 🙌🏻

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 🫶🏼

What type of warm-ups/exercises to incorporate in preparation to deepen this position for my other leg so I can perform the handstand variation of the Dwi Pada Sirsasana?

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.

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

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

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

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