Flexible: That will bend without breaking, pliable, pliant, easily lead, manageable, adaptable, versatile, supple, and complaisant.
- The Concise Oxford Dictionary.
Flexibility is determined by how much movement is allowed by your tendons, ligaments and muscles around your joints. Flexibility plays a major factor in a variety of sports; these include gymnastics, ice skating, diving, and field evens such as high jump and hurdles. Flexibility can be classed in two groups; Dynamic or active flexibility and Static or passive flexibility. .
Dynamic: The capability to use your muscles in a wide range of movement. The capability to use your muscles quickly and without any opposition from muscles whilst the desired movement if being performed. .
Eg: Throwing a basketball with out shoulder and arm restrictions.
.
Static: The capacity to move your joints through a large range of movements. .
Eg: Doing the splits. .
Factor which affect flexibility are:.
The type of joint, the length of resisting muscles, the length of resisting joint capsules and ligaments, age, gender, body build, previous injuries, previous training, muscle and joint temperature.
Flexibility like all other fitness components has its advantages when exercising. Flexibility is a critical part in sports such as gymnastics, ice-skating and diving and it's very hard to be good at these sports without outstanding flexibility. .
In general life flexibility helps maintain good posture and helps out with such simple things as bending down to tie our shoelaces or throwing notes across the classroom.
Lack of flexibility can cause problems tears, strains and other associated muscle conditions can often be aggravated by tight muscles linked with poor flexibility. Tight muscles can often put strain on bones and joints often causing pain and medical disorders. .
Stretching your muscles can greatly improve your flexibility. Yoga, Pilates and body balance classes are all aimed at improving your core muscles and increasing flexibility.
