How to become more flexible?

by Ella
(England)

I am 12 years old and love dancing. However I really want to become more flexible but it just seems to never work. I try my hardest and get really frustrated.

My Answer

Flexible muscles and joints really help in executing your dance stances and movements that bring out the beauty and elegance of your dancing.

To become more flexible is not that difficult. Do more stretching exercises which promote flexibility in your muscles, joints and your entire body.

I would recommend you this stretch routine which shows you how to stretch all your major muscle groups or just a few particular muscle groups.

One good way of enhancing your dancing is to stretch before and after each dance routine. This is the most effective way to counter the stiffness and rigidness you might have in your muscles and joints.

I would also like to highlight here that you shouldn't stretch without doing some kind of warm up first. With warm up, your muscles are warm and blood is in there due to increased circulation that increases your muscle temperature.

Hence, when you warm up and then stretch, you'll enjoy a greater gain in flexibility and reduce your risk of injury.

It's also best to warm up all your muscle groups by warming up your entire body as opposed to just warm up the area you want to stretch.

What are the warm up exercises you can do? Well, basically, just lighter and slower versions of walking, running, jogging or dancing exercises or just plain marching on spot.

Read this page on warm up and its effect on your body and get going.