Can Yoga make you flexible?

Yes, many people find Yoga too stiff to practice, but is Yoga actually so difficult or flexibility thing is just a matter of excuse, let's find out the answer for this. So, how often should you practice to get a flexible body.

The honest answer to this is that it depends upon the type of body and differs as per your structure of the body. For some people it starts showing results very fast whereas some need to keep following the yoga routine patiently for a good amount of time to get the results. But sooner or later, it works on your body and you feel so light and fresh. Flexibility can be easily be described as both yoga’s blessing and its curse. On the blessing side, increased flexibility is an enormous benefit: it promotes the range of motion and joint health that help prevent back pain, repetitive-use damage, and sports injuries. But, yoga is a lot more than flexibility. In fact, people that come to yoga with a lot of flexibility must be careful not to rush into advanced poses just because they can. Often, they need to work on their strengths to compliment all that bendiness, build support muscles, and make sure that they are practising safe alignment.

Flexibility is not a prerequisite; it’s actually an outcome. The one who improves their flexibility safely over time wins.

Yoga is different from “just” stretching by virtue of its emphasis on safe form and the duration and variety of stretches that address both major muscle groups and deep-seated stealth muscles you might not even know you have.

 The yoga difference can be described with three As: alignment, attention, and awareness:

Alignment is the precise way that each pose is done to maximise its benefits and minimise the risk of injury. This may include using props to support tight areas as they begin to open up. Practising with the insight of alignment helps ensure that you aren’t compromising one area of the body in an attempt to focus on another area. 

Awareness basically means that you remain completely focused on the present moment throughout your practice. Often the physicality of yoga asana practice is enough to keep us anchored in the now. We also learn to use the breath to return to the body in the present again and again. Awareness is one of yoga’s greatest tools because it takes us out of our monkey mind and allows us to reset, reducing stress and anxiety.

Attention means something that you are not zoning out or just going through the motions but rather feeling each pose to the fullest. This helps cultivate the body awareness to distinguish between the discomfort that may arise in using your body in a new way and the pain that is the body’s signal to back off.

How Long Does it Take to Become More Flexible?

Yoga shows results but gradually, one should be patient enough and keep doing the routine yoga. As with all of yoga’s benefits, positive results come over time with consistent practice of a wide variety of postures. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll see improvement, but it does not happen all the time. It depends on where you begin and what other things you do.  The frequency of practicing yoga, the kind of yoga you do, your own unique physique, and so many other things also come into play. 

We can tell you this: Do yoga regularly and you will improve your flexibility. If you never start, you’ll never get results.