This post may contain affiliate links. Please read the disclaimer for more info.

It feels safe to say that just about every adult wishes they could be more flexible, perhaps like they “used to be”. I happen to wish the same thing. I’ve even done a lot of looking into the topic over the past year wondering what it is that I should be doing to get my body more supple again.

The answers, once realized, are incredibly straightforward. When I came across some of these options along with the reasoning for them, I felt like an idiot to say the least.

As I thought about them, I couldn’t help but kick myself over how obvious they are. It’s important to remember, however, that the answers are not actually obvious but they appear to make perfect sense once we’ve heard a case made for them.

I’ve also noticed there is A TON of misunderstanding around this topic and way too much incorrect information being circulated by people who have never even tried to learn more about the topic. Hence why I have included “without stretching” in the title of this article, as stretching is proving to be a less and less reliable way to gain flexibility naturally.

So what I have done is come up with a list of ideas that are accessible to absolutely everyone and would require very minimal lifestyle changes. Here are the 8 ways that I recommend (and personally use) to gain flexibility naturally:

 

Less Sitting

Even if you live under a rock, I’m sure you’ve heard in some form that sitting is bad for you. Well, this is true and untrue but we’ll talk about that in more detail another time.

The part of that statement that is very true though is how much sitting we do; its too much! Anyone reading this likely spends a double-digit amount of hours each day just sitting. That’s bad.

If you think about it, would you really expect your body to remain flexible if you spent 13 of your 16 waking hours each day sitting?

That’s what made me realize I had a problem. I had to adopt different ways of resting like the side-bent sit (pictured below) and squatting which are significantly better options for your joint and musculoskeletal health.

Try switching out some sitting with these two postures and I can assure you that your hips, legs, and back will feel better. 

More Constant Movement

To take the last step a little further, we not only need to do less passive sitting, but also more general movement. I’m talking any kind of movement.

The more you sit and lay around, the more your body tightens up because it reads your inactivity as a sign that you do not have any pressing physical matters, so it will use the energy in some other way than to maintain a supple body.

I’d also like to add that this point completely goes against the myth that we just simply lose the ability to perform simple movements because we are getting older. This is a myth because it is blaming the body for robbing you of something you weren’t using anyway.

For example, many older people will note that getting up and down from the floor is difficult or not possible for them.

But when was the last time they squatted to get something off the floor? Most people bend at the waist instead of at the hips to go down. When was the last time they hit their full range of motion in their ankles, knees, or hips? Most of these people go from standing to sitting in a 90 degree chair. No wonder they don’t have that motion anymore, they haven’t been using it since they were a small child.

The key is to use all the movements that you want to keep. So if you don’t want to lose range of motion or have your joints hurt, make sure you use them and give them enough movement to keep them supple. 

The reason children and younger people seem to stay supple for so long is because they use their bodies so much more compared to adults. They squat down to play, play sports, and turn everything into a game because they want to move around.

You will find your body feeling much looser when you move more consistently throughout your day. No stretching needed.

 

Myofascial Release

Myofascial Release has been a savior for my foot pain when I was plagued with plantar fasciitis.

What is so special about “releasing” your muscles, is that you are essentially ungluing them from the connective tissue that is restricting the bloodflow, hydration, and movement capacity of the muscles themselves. It can be a fantastic solution to give you pain relief from muscle tension, which is how I use it.

This method is more effective than stretching because it puts the pressure directly on the connective tissue to make change rather than just pulling on a muscle that is already too tight and doing so while it’s restricted by the connective tissue (which is stretching). 

Use a medium to high density foam roller like this one for less intense muscle release, or my personal favorite, firm massage balls like these for a deep and very effective release.

The result is that when you release muscles from the tight grip of the connective tissue around them, these muscles suddenly are able to move more and allow you to stretch further.

 

Deep Squatting

I’ve touched on deep squatting already but it’s worth having it’s own segment because it should be a fundamental part of your life.

The squat is a position that our ancestors and many places around the world today have been using to do so many sedentary activities like defecating, cooking, socializing, resting, eating, and even giving birth.

It’s an excellent position for us to take up because it is the most comfortable position to defecate in as well as digest our food fully. It also happens to put our ankles, knees, and hips through their full range of motion (ideal for flexibility).

It’s difficult to get into a comfortable deep squat when you haven’t practiced this position in a long time, so try leaning against a wall while you do it or placing a yoga block under your bottom to get started.

After several months of practicing squatting, I’ve noted that the aforementioned joints as well as my lower back and achilles muscles feel better from this naturally stretched position.

 

Hanging

Hanging is a future topic for me to cover in more depth on this blog, but for now, you can know that it is an essential position for the well-being of our shoulders, elbows, wrists, and fingers.

Check out this article written by Ido Portal (one of the leaders of the Movement Culture community) about why this position is so fundamental. 

I like to think of hanging to be the squatting of the upper body. Squatting = ideal for lower body, hanging = ideal for upper body. It also makes your whole back feel better if you get achy or stiff because you have gravity pulling your bodyweight straight down.

Since I don’t have an I-beam or fixture to hang from in my apartment, I got myself a pull-up bar that can hang in a door frame and be moved around easily.

Ground Living

Ground living can be put multiple ways such as “Floor living” or even “Furniture-free”. The concept is this: the floor is your friend.

We are so accustomed to sitting on cushy chairs and laying on comfy couches and sleeping in specific kinds of beds. But all this furniture has taken us away from the most grounding aspect of our lives, the ground!

You will notice that this is where children do most of their playing and live the majority of their lives because it is completely natural to us.

As an adult, it’s important to realize too that furniture destroys our body and ruins our posture. Forward-head posture, unnatural back curvature, misaligned hips, slumped shoulders, and more are all prominent parts of modern day society.

When you sit on the ground, however, you force your body to hold itself upright rather than having a chair do it for you. This means more muscles will have to be engaged and it means those muscles will be stronger and more functional. These muscles include everything making up your core (abdominals, obliques, back muscles) and many in the legs (hips, hip flexors).

For a large part of my day, I am either squatting, kneeling, or side-bent sitting in my room with minimal artificial structure supporting me and I’m also back to sleeping on the floor at night. 

 

Minimalist Footwear

Minimalist footwear is another savior for my feet and I have realized that it saves much more than just your feet.

From wearing traditional footwear all your life, your ankle mobility will be lacking because your calf and achilles muscles will have shortened (tightened) so much from the elevated heel built into footwear. This is a much bigger problem than people realize currently, as it is a huge contributor to conditions like plantar fasciitis and various forms of tendonitis.

I made a full switch over to minimalist footwear around a year ago and will never go back. I’m very happy that I can now give my body the foundation it needs to realign itself and strengthen muscles that have been essentially dormant for so many years.

 

Natural Movement Programs

There’s also always the option of enrolling in a class or an online course that will not only teach you how to mobilize your body, but do it in a fun, educational, and motivating way as well. This is another step I took a few months ago to get more movement into my life by enrolling in the Movement 20XX program by Vahva Fitness.

This online course has taught me many different ways to move my body and incorporate these ideas into my daily life. The course uses multiple different approaches to movement such as dance, martial arts, and many things that you will see in Movement Culture from someone like Ido Portal or Erwan Le Corre (which is what I am most interested in).