Why is flexibility important for our assessment?

In my previous blogs, I have put together thoughts on fitness assessment and the key parameters of a fitness assessment.

In case you missed it, you can go through them quickly on: 

Train like Virat Kohli to become like Virat Kohli https://medium.com/burncal-fit/get-your-fitness-assessment-done-today-ac4addb61652

Revealing parameters of BurnCal Fitness Assessment and why it is important for you https://link.medium.com/czgAT7Syadb

Why is strength important for our assessment?https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/fitness-assessment-why-strength-important-our-assessment-chetan-reddy/

Why is endurance important for our assessment? https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/why-endurance-important-our-assessment-chetan-reddy/

In this article, we will get into more details about why Flexibility (Parameter 3) is important for assessment. 

How many times have you tried doing an asana correctly and felt like it's too hard for you to stretch fully and left demotivated? Also how many times while doing bodyweight exercises you felt like your muscles are too stiff?

Flexibility is very important in BurnCal's Fitness Assessment. Along with so many other reasons it also plays a very key role in understanding your limitations related to the range of motion (ROM). But why is ROM critical? Simple. 

Bad flexibility = Bad ROM = Less effective workouts = Increased muscle soreness = Potential injuries

Okay, let me stop scaring you. Let's get going with a detailed understanding of this parameter.

1) What is flexibility?

Flexibility by definition means the ability to flex your muscles freely through a certain range of motion with no pain. It is also a form of training that is very important for our overall fitness levels. While many think it is most useful if you do more yoga, that is not true. It is in fact important for any kind of activity such as running, strength training, day-to-day functions and in fact Zumba too! Yes. If you are into dancing or Zumba, flexibility also plays a major role there.

2) What are the advantages of flexibility?

As I mentioned, it is very important to have a flexible body for your overall fitness levels. There are certain advantages which I’d like to mention to help you find better reasons to do flexibility training.

1. Cardio activities such as running, cycling, swimming can be performed extremely better
2. Increased muscle coordination causing your exercise efficiency to go up especially when you are weight training
3. Improved muscle recovery post workouts because of the free flow of the blood to each and every muscle
4. Avoid injuries that are primarily caused because of the bad posture
5. Leaner looks

3) How can you improve your flexibility?

Stretching is the best way to increase flexibility. Including stretching exercises in your weekly routines is the best way to go about it. However, just like fitness, this takes enough consistency and time to call yourself “flexible”. If you are someone into mostly strength training, an alternate way of including stretching into your routine is by doing dynamic stretching as a part of your warm-up and static stretching as a part of your cool-down routine.

4) How would you know if your flexibility is getting better?

This is where the actual challenge is.

While it is easy to do random stretching exercises based on the general content available over the internet, it is very important for you to choose the right set of exercises that would help you improve your flexibility over a period of time.

For exercises like toe reach, it becomes easier to track if you are doing better by just reaching the toes post your consistent efforts. However, the right efforts needed in order to reach your toes aren’t that simple.

That is where BurnCal Fitness Assessment comes into play. We strongly believe that the best way to know if you are getting better is to know where exactly you stand today. Because then it is easy to integrate exercises and plans that would ensure we travel this journey in a very trackable manner.

If you feel you want to know your flexibility today, take your first step. Sign up for the assessment at https://www.burncal.fit/assessment