Physical health is tightly related to our strength, flexibility and mobility, where functional yoga can certainly help. In fact, many people think that exercise and diet has a lot to do with health, which is true but flexibility is often a forgotten aspect of health.

Fit, slim people with great mobility are believed to live longest and be more physically efficient. Free movement is very important to a healthy person, it allows us to take on our daily activities with no pain, and lots of fluidity.

Yoga can improve our joint mobility and muscle flexibility, therefore improving the fluidity of our movement. To feel light, balanced and in control is a gift that we should all take care of. To build and animal-like body that can move, crawl, jump, squat, run, climb, flip, slide and handstand.

Yoga can condition our body to build strength and flexibility in the right muscles and mobility in the right joints. It can enhance our body’s self-awareness and enable us to move freely, which has a tremendous impact on our life quality, health, and well-being.

Flexibility vs Mobility

Flexibility has more to do with how much a muscle can stretch and mobility has to do with muscular strength, flexibility, and balance, but also joint functionality and fluidity, so it is a more complex concept.

There are different types of stretching, passive/static, ballistic/dynamic, PNF, and many more. To improve flexibility, you can do any type of stretching as long as it is consistent, it will improve your flexibility. The standard method is static stretching.

Both flexibility and mobility can be great to a certain extent. However, you should be aware of hypermobility and hyper flexibility, usually occurring in gymnasts which have to access specific positions for specific performances.

Neither one is healthy, hyper, or hypo mobility and flexibility. Not being flexible enough can cause tightness or injury, and weak mobility will reduce your ability to perform functional movement patterns.

• Flexibility is the ability of a muscle to stretch or lengthen during a specific movement. The more a muscle can stretch the more flexible it is. Flexible people can access more postures, and poses that can build greater strength and have a lower incidence of tightness and injuries.

• Mobility is the ability to perform functional movement patterns with a broader range of movement without pain. It depends on muscles around the joint, their strength, flexibility, and balancing characteristics, neuromuscular coordination (intramuscular and intermuscular), and joint strength, fluidity, and mobility.

Think of flexibility more as how deep in a stretching pose you can get, and of mobility as how fluidly and pain-free functional movements you can perform.

Key muscles and joints

There are key muscles that need more flexibility in the average person, so we prevent pain and improve physical movement. Keep in mind these stretching-hungry muscles listed here are the muscles that are tighter in the average human, which can cause pain and movement limitation:

Muscle Group	Specific Muscles
Chest muscles	pectoralis major and minor, tightness causes shoulder thoracic kyphosis
Hip flexor	Iliopsoas muscle, tightness causes lumbar lordosis and lower back pain
Hamstrings and calves	tightness causes lordosis or Achilles tendonitis, knee pain or plantar fascitis
Gluteus and Quadriceps muscles	tightness can cause lower back pain, knee pain and limit squat functionality.
Deltoid muscles	tightness in the shoulder can limit shoulder mobility and cause back and neck pain.

Mobility, which refers to ROM in functional movement depends on the joint. There are joints that need to be stable and ones that need to be mobile, so here Is a list:

Mobile Joints	Stable Joints
Ankles	Foot
Hips	Knee
Thoracic Spine	Low Back
Neck	Scapula
Shoulders	Elbow
Wrists

Mobile joints need to be properly worked out so we improve the range of motion and keep it healthy with proper functional training while stability joints do not need further work in terms of mobility since they need to keep our body stable, and we usually strengthen the surrounding muscles.

Functional Yoga on Posture

Yoga is a great workout for posture improvement since it strengthens the key muscles, improves joint mobility and muscle flexibility. To have a healthy posture means a lot in terms of your physical health, but also in terms of confidence, mood, energy, and digestion.

To ensure proper posture and pain-free, fluid movement the average human needs to work on the flexibility and strength of specific muscles and mobility of specific joints outlined in the section above.

So the average human, in order to improve his/her posture and physical health, ROM of functional movement and joint health should consider:

Evidence-Based Benefits of Yoga on Flexibility, Mobility & Athletic Performance

In the sections below there is a broader explanation and study interpretation of how yoga can affect our physical health, and improve functional movement patterns, flexibility, and mobility. Here are a couple of specific effects that yoga may provide, to enhance this aspect of physical health:

• Improves Functional Movement Screen Results
• Improved the Ability to Perform Compound Movements
• Improved Mobility and Joint Fluidity
• May Reduce Osteoarthritic Pain and Improve Mobility
• Hatha Yoga as Effective Stretching Strengthening Exercises
• Improves Self-Reported Occupational Performance and Balance in Patients with Chronic Brain Injury
• Increases Specific Muscle Flexibility and Static (Isometric) Strength
• Great Tool to Prevent Injury and Help in Rehabilitation
• Increases Full Body Awareness and Core Strength
• In Basketball Players, it may Increase Speed Endurance, Vertical Jump, Free Throw Score, Tactical Execution and Three-Point Shots
• Improves Spinal Mobility and Hamstring Flexibility
• Improves Range of Motion (ROM) in FMS (Functional Movement Screen)
• Improves Eyes-Closed Balance
• Improves Hip and Shoulder Mobility

Overall, yoga training had a positive effect on physical health and was shown to even improve the symptoms and performance of people with osteoarthritis or brain injury.

Yoga Studies: Flexibility, Mobility, and Balance

Since flexibility, strength, balance, and mobility are of such high importance to one’s physical health, here is some research that shows some evidence-based benefits or effects of yoga on these abilities.

It is widely known that the most important activities for these abilities are:

• Flexibility: Stretching, accessing postures that lengthen our muscles
• Mobility: Functional Movement Patterns (ex. Squat) in which we access deeper points of the pose
• Strengthening: Repetitive or Isometric muscle contractions, with progression over time.

Yoga on Flexibility and Elasticity

Since yoga does involve lots of stretching, here are a couple of studies that show yoga’s effect on muscle flexibility in different populations, including elderly men and women, college students, people with osteoarthritis, athletes, and more.

10-week bi-weekly yoga practice was shown to improve flexibility and balance in 14 young college students that incorporated yoga training. Measures of Range of motion in joint angles were improved for:

• RFL, Right foot lunge dorsiflexion
• DD, Downward-facing dog, knee and hip extension, and shoulder flexion
• C, Chair-pose, knee flexion (1)

Yoga on Mobility and Functional Movement

The ability to move freely and access deeper stages of poses and asanas is related to the physical aspect of health. The ability to perform correct movement patterns, flex, rotate, and extend more can improve athletic performance.

An example of functional movement exercise would be squat, shoulder press, overhead squat, hurdle step, in-line lunge and shoulder mobility. Exercise that involve full body compound movements, that include pushing, squatting, twisting, pending and pulling can be significantly improved through yoga.

Yoga and Athletic Performance

As important aspects of physical health, mobility and flexibility can help a lot in athletic performance, here is a couple of studies that highlight yoga’s effect on sports performance.

As a complementary or additional practice, yoga can be great for an athlete’s body. It can increase static muscle strength, and improve joint mobility and specific muscle flexibility. Even just a 30-minute biweekly yoga practice was found to positively affect athletes’ bodies, hold the potential for injury prevention, and increase core stability, flexibility and relaxation. (11)

Best Yoga Poses for Flexibility

There are different methods of stretching for flexibility. From PNF methods to dynamic and static stretching. Yoga uses both, depending on which style you practice. From more passive styles like Yin, you will experience more relaxation and static stretching, from styles like Vinyasa Flow and Iyengar yoga you will do a bit more dynamic stretching. Both are great for flexibility.

Yoga Pose	Muscles Stretched
Downward Dog	calves, hamstrings, and glutes
Reclined Hand to Big Toe Pose	hamstrings and calves
Cobra Pose	abdominal muscles
Extended Side Angle Pose	side torso, abdominal obliques, and hip flexors
Wide Stance Forward Bend	hip adductors
Reclining Bound Angle Pose	hip adductors and pelvic muscles
Bow Pose	front shoulders and chest muscles
Lord of the Dance Pose	chest, shoulder, and biceps muscles
Crescent Lunge	hip flexors and quadriceps
Eye of the Needle Pose	gluteus maximus and medius
Standing forward Bend	hamstrings and calves

Best Yoga Poses for Mobility

Performing compound movements that involve bigger muscle groups and movement around the mobile joints, such as shoulders and hips can improve joint fluidity and whole-body mobility, so here are some of the best compound yoga poses for this purpose:

Yoga Pose	Specific Mobility
Cow Pose	works thoracic and lumbar spine mobility
Cobra Pose	works thoracic and lumbar spine mobility
Upward Bow	works thoracic and lumbar spine mobility
Extended Triangle Pose	works hip and thoracic spine mobility
Malasana Squat	works your hip mobility
Childs Pose	works shoulder mobility
Bow Pose	works shoulder and spine mobility
Cow Face Pose	works hip and shoulder mobility