Remodeling versus rewiring, and the role of time
By Bernie Clark
August 6, 2026
[Note: this article was not written by an AI, although most illustrations were by ChatGPT. See the About Us Page for our AI philosophy.]
Perhaps you have heard this before: “Yoga does not increase our flexibility by making muscles longer. Muscles do not get longer. What is actually happening is that yoga is re-wiring our nervous system, allowing the muscles to be stretchier!” The teacher may even use a more technical term like “compliant,” meaning the tissue has become easier to stretch. This instructor might be well-versed in movement science, or perhaps they are just repeating what they heard in their own training. But a confident assertion of a theory does not make it a fact. While the central nervous system definitely has an important role to play in our range of motion, it is far from the whole story. Buckle up! It is time to dive deep and get nerdy.
On a closely related topic, lately I have heard the claim on several podcasts and in online posts by senior yoga teachers that holding a yoga stretch beyond 30 to 60 seconds will not increase flexibility. They are not saying that longer postures are not valuable for other reasons, but they insist that longer-held poses simply won’t increase range of motion (ROM).1 I did find many studies in the sports science field that might, on the surface, seem to lead to this conclusion, but when I dug a little bit deeper, the evidence was far from compelling.
The narrative in sports science dictates that any immediate increase in a joint’s ROM is not the result of a muscle physically lengthening like a rubber band. Instead, it is explained as a transient neurophysiological shift: the down-regulation of the stretch reflex, the manipulation of the Golgi tendon organs, and a gradual increase in sensory “stretch tolerance” dictated by the central nervous system. In simpler terms, you can think of stretching as a way of reducing muscle tone, which allows the muscle to be stretched more easily.
While this neurocentric argument does provide a necessary correction to earlier views that brief stretches permanently elongate elastic fibers, it does not tell the whole story. The claim that flexibility is “all in the brain” represents a sweeping extrapolation of highly specific sports science experiments. Its conclusions are valid only for the short-duration, high-intensity stretches characteristically used by athletes. It breaks down when applied to alternative, long-duration contemplative movement traditions (for example, Yin Yoga) where passive postures are sustained for 3, 5, or 10 minutes in a state of deliberate muscular relaxation.
To understand how yoga alters the physical architecture of the human body over long periods, the current sports science paradigm must be qualified and recontextualized. By looking additionally at orthopaedic medicine, rehabilitation science, and tissue histology, we find compelling evidence that longer duration passive postures can, in fact, structurally reshape and lengthen both muscle and connective tissue. In reality, the muscles can and do get longer, as do other restricting tissues like tendons and ligaments, and holding postures longer than 60 seconds can increase flexibility and range of motion.
Biomechanics and the Stretch Reflex
To understand the limitations of the current consensus, we must first examine the physiological mechanisms that govern short stretching protocols. When a muscle is subjected to a static stretch, it immediately experiences a protective feedback loop managed by the nervous system. Specialized proprioceptive cells embedded parallel to muscle fibers, known as muscle spindles, continuously monitor changes in muscle length and the rate at which that length changes. If a stretch is executed rapidly or pushed to an unfamiliar end-range, the muscle spindles send signals to the spinal cord. This triggers an involuntary motor response, called the stretch reflex, which directs the target muscle to contract defensively. This helps to protect the surrounding joint from dislocation or structural tearing. To override this defensive contraction, conventional stretching relies on two primary neurophysiological phenomena:
Autogenic Inhibition: When a muscle undergoes tension, another set of receptors located at the muscle-tendon junction, called the Golgi tendon organs (GTOs), detects the stress. If the tension is sustained, the GTOs fire an inhibitory signal that relaxes the muscle, partially neutralizing the muscle spindle’s defensive contraction.
Sensory Adaptation (Stretch Tolerance): Research demonstrates that during a standard 30-to-60-second stretch, the tension within the muscle rapidly declines.2 This property is known as viscoelastic relaxation. However, when these subjects are tested over a multi-week period, the physical stiffness of the muscle tissue often remains completely unchanged. The observed long-term increase in ROM is therefore attributed to an upward shift in the individual’s pain threshold or stretch tolerance. The brain simply permits the individual to push further into the existing length of the tissue before signaling discomfort, meaning the adaptation is fundamentally sensory and neurological, rather than structural.3
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A Rule of Thumb for Yoga Teachers |
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If a student has a goal of increasing range of motion of a specific muscle group, asanas that place that group under a stretching load for 30 to 60 seconds, repeated until the cumulative time under stretch reaches approximately 4 minutes, and then repeating the practice 3 times a week, should yield a reasonable outcome within a couple of months.
However, if the limitations to Increased ROM are structural in nature, longer times under load may be required. Eventually a natural limit is reached, governed by compression where one part of the body comes into contact with another part of the body.4 |
This framework explains why a standard vinyasa or hatha yoga class, which typically sequences short posture holds of 5 to 10 breaths, improves mobility primarily through nervous system down-regulation. Our brains learn that the end-range position is safe. For this reason, it is reasonable for yoga teachers who have had some training in sports science to extrapolate these findings into the claim that holding a pose for longer than 30 to 60 seconds will not increase flexibility. But, such extrapolations are not justified based upon what the sports science actually demonstrates. Longer holds have not been evaluated. A sports scientist may say, “No additional benefit was observed under our protocol.” This is not the same as claiming, “No additional benefit exists.”
Protocols and Demographics: Who and What is being studied?
Whenever a study is cited in support of some biomechanical or medical claim one must look beyond the abstracts and check out the protocols and demographics being studied. Exactly who is being studied and what is being studied? A protocol is the way the experiments are conducted; the demographics describe the participants. Let’s review the typical sports science protocols and demographics. I think you will agree, these do not faithfully describe typical yoga practices or students.
Sports Science Protocols
The vast majority of stretching studies I found utilize protocols consisting of 15, 30, or 60 seconds of stretch per muscle group. 5 In rare instances, researchers extend the hold to 120 seconds. The stretches are usually done to hamstrings or calf muscles. The stretch was usually applied, stopped, and repeated until the total time under load was around 4 minutes. This is sometimes repeated two or three times a week and the whole study may have lasted anywhere from 6 weeks to 3 months. There are very few studies that I could find where postures were held beyond two minutes or where the duration of the study lasted for several months.
Think of an average yoga practice: it is often done several times a week for years. It is not just a few weeks. During the weekly practices the total time under load for a particular set of muscles may well add up to far more than 4 minutes.6 The sports science research was not investigating what typically occurs in a yoga practice. That was not the intention of the studies. Longer, passively held postures were not studied. No one in sports science looks at 3 or 5-minute holds. Thus, assertions that five-minute holds yield no additional ROM, or that they produce no structural change in muscle length, are not scientifically proven facts.
A dedicated yoga practice is not a short-term therapeutic intervention; it is a lifestyle practice done several times a week over years or decades. Connective tissues like tendons, ligaments, and deep fascial networks possess exceptionally slow metabolic turnover rates. Expecting these dense collagenous structures to undergo measurable physical remodeling within a six-week study is biologically unrealistic. Long-term structural shifts occurring in lifelong yoga practitioners are not disproven by short-term research.
Demographic Bias
The selection of participants in most stretching research can introduce a significant selection bias. If the participants are young, active, healthy college students or competitive athletes the findings of the study cannot be extrapolated to all demographics. The sports science studies I read routinely exclude older adults, sedentary populations, and individuals recovering from injuries or suffering from chronic musculoskeletal disorders. This exclusion overlooks how stretching affects stiffer, less compliant fascial tissues that are often found in older populations.
Look around the yoga studio the next time you are in a class. Unless you are taking a power yoga or Ashtanga class or some other challenging modality, you will probably see a very different group of people from those the sport scientists study. The average student may be over 50, often has a joint replacement, or has recovered from cancer, or has any one of numerous conditions. These are not the people looked at in sports science studies. How can we assume that what happens to younger athletic people in the peak of health will represent what happens to most people?
Is it really safe to assume that because a younger athlete gets no additional increase in range of motion from holding a pose longer than 30 seconds, that no-one gets any increase in their ROM if they hold the posture longer?
Evidence of Muscle Lengthening Beyond the Nervous System
So far, I have proposed that setting a boundary of 30-60 seconds, beyond which no additional flexibility will be gained, is flawed. But the other claim, that increases in flexibility are solely due to neurological adaptations is equally flawed. To understand why, we must go beyond sports performance and examine clinical orthopaedics and physical rehabilitation. In these fields, physicians and physical therapists routinely achieve successful structural lengthening of tissues using time-dose principles that may also be present in longer-held yoga postures.
Static Progressive Stretching (SPS) and Serial Casting
When patients have severe joint contractures resulting from prolonged immobilization, trauma, or surgical scarring, the short-duration static stretching described in sports science is clinically ineffective. The cause of reduced ROM is not increased muscle tone. To restore permanent range of motion, rehabilitation medicine relies on Static Progressive Stretching (SPS) devices or serial plaster casting.
SPS involves placing a joint into an orthotic device that holds the shortened tissue at its absolute end-range under low, continuous passive tension for 30 minutes to several hours every day. (This is like Yin Yoga on steroids and should only be done with a therapist’s supervision.) Clinical trials demonstrate that this long-duration protocol forces the tissue to adapt structurally.7 It works because the extended duration allows the fluid components of the tissue to shift, transferring the mechanical stress directly to the structural proteins. It works because the muscles can actually get longer.8
Does SPS prove that holding a yoga pose for a long time lengthens the tissues as well? I cannot make that exact claim, for the simple reason that long-held yoga poses have not been studied. But I strongly suspect that the SPS findings make it biologically plausible that long-duration yoga poses engage many of the same remodeling pathways.
Sarcomerogenesis
The physical lengthening of the muscle under long-duration tension is a documented cellular reality. The basic functional unit of a muscle fiber is the sarcomere. As shown in figure 3, these are small, elastic units within the muscle fiber which can both contract, thus shortening the muscle, and elongate when under an external load. When a muscle is subjected to prolonged, continuous mechanical stretching, it adapts to the demand for length through a process known as sarcomerogenesis: the synthesis and addition of new sarcomeres in series within the muscle cell (also called a muscle fiber).9
In a foundational study from the 1980s, a relationship between stretch duration and sarcomere adaptation was shown. The study discovered that when an animal limb was immobilized, short periods of daily stretching lasting only 30 minutes were sufficient to prevent the loss of muscle length and stave off atrophy. Crucially, when the duration of continuous, passive stretching was extended to one to two hours, it forced a structural increase in the total number of sarcomeres, physically lengthening the muscle.10
The studies reaching these conclusions are animal studies. It is suspected that the same mechanisms apply to humans, but for a variety of ethical reasons, the same studies have not been done on human muscles. Thus, we are again left with a strong speculation, but not proof, that human muscle length is not a fixed, unalterable physical trait controlled exclusively by the brain. Instead, it is a dynamic structure capable of physical elongation, provided the mechanical stimulus lasts longer than the short-duration threshold of sports science protocols.
Under appropriate conditions muscles can and do get longer. It just takes more time.
Connective Tissue Remodeling and Viscoelastic Creep
Muscles do not exist in isolation; as shown in figure 4, they are fully encased in a dense, continuous matrix of connective tissue known as the extracellular matrix (ECM) and deep fascia. Fascia is composed primarily of collagen fibers, elastin, and a fluid-like ground substance rich in water and glycosaminoglycans.
Connective tissues are inherently viscoelastic—they exhibit time-dependent mechanical properties that combine both fluid and solid behaviors. When a brief force is applied, fascia behaves elastically; it temporarily deforms but soon returns to its original shape once the stress is removed. However, if a low-intensity, passive force is applied continuously over several minutes, it triggers a phenomenon known as viscoelastic creep. This is what happens in many forms of yoga.11
When a sustained passive load is held for several minutes, the mechanical response of the tissue transitions from a macro-level elastic stretch to micro-level structural changes. Fluid is slowly displaced and squeezed out of the compressed zones of the deep fascia. This temporarily dehydrates the local area, reducing the internal hydrostatic pressure that typically keeps the separate fascial sheets tightly packed and resistant to movement.
As this fluid displacement progresses, the solid components of the matrix begin to shift. The collagen fibers, which naturally rest in a wavy or “crimped” pattern at a microscopic level, straighten along the direction of the tensile load. Once fully uncrimped, individual collagen fibrils begin to slip and slide past one another, realigning themselves parallel to the direction of the pulling force.12 This mechanical realignment decreases the passive stiffness of the connective tissue, allowing the body to steadily access a greater range of motion without an increase in active muscular effort.
When a stress or posture is finally released, the tissue slowly draws fluid back into the ground substance. This means that after one session of a long stretch, no increase in tissue length occurs. But over months of repetitive, long-duration practice, this consistent mechanical stress stimulates cellular signaling that permanently remodels the thickness and orientation of the underlying collagenous web.13
Pathological Tissue Shortening
The reality of physical tissue restructuring can be observed in the opposite physiological direction. Just as long-duration mechanical tension physically lengthens human tissue, the prolonged absence of tension, such as that found in cast immobilization or neuro-pathological problems, forces the body to rapidly shrink and structurally shorten its muscle and connective tissue architectures.
Cast Immobilization and Sarcomere Loss
When an injured limb is placed in a cast that locks a muscle in a chronically shortened position, the human body adapts to this restricted state very quickly. Measuring muscle cells fixed in shortened states (such as a calf muscle locked in constant plantarflexion) reveals a rapid, dramatic reduction in length. This architectural shortening is driven by serial sarcomere loss.
If a muscle is maintained in a shortened position for weeks, the body systematically eliminates up to 40% of the sarcomeres in series within each myofibril. It seems that our body decides that maintaining these contractile units is metabolically wasteful given the lack of length demand, so it dismantles some of the sarcomeres. This shortening reduces the muscle’s resting length and shifts its optimal tension-generating capacity to a restricted range. This adaptation is entirely structural and cannot be undone by simple neurological relaxation techniques or standard short-hold stretching protocols.14
Pathological Contractures and Fibrotic Remodeling
In neurological pathologies, such as cerebral palsy, post-stroke spasticity, or chronic immobility, muscles are subjected to relentless, long-term involuntary shortening. 15 When a muscle is trapped in this state, the adaptations extend far beyond the nervous system, initiating a profound remodeling of the connective tissue matrix.
Analyses of chronically shortened pathological muscles reveal a condition known as tissue fibrosis. The extracellular matrix experiences an over-accumulation of dense, disorganized collagen fibers and an increase in advanced glycation end-products, which create rigid cross-links between independent fascial sheets. The fluid ground substance loses its water-binding capacity, causing separate layers of muscle and fascia to adhere to one another.
The muscle becomes glued into a shortened position. In these advanced orthopedic cases, the restricted range of motion is entirely structural. It remains completely locked even when the patient is placed under general anesthesia—a state that entirely eliminates all central nervous system muscle tone and stretch reflex activity. This clinical reality proves that joint restriction and range of motion can be entirely mechanical and independent of neurological signaling, validating the argument that reversing these states requires an equally structural, long-duration physical intervention.16 People suffering these conditions are not normally chosen to participate in sports science experiments.
Conclusion: Rebalancing the Spectrum of Flexibility Science
A yoga teacher who emphatically states that any increase in range of motion is not due to muscles getting longer but by the nervous system reducing muscle tone is not aware of the whole story. Yes, for standard athletic conditioning and fast-paced vinyasa yoga styles where postures are held for 30 seconds or 4 or 5 breaths, the scientific consensus is reasonable: flexibility gains under these conditions are predominantly driven by neurological down-regulation and an increased tolerance to stretching signals.
However, by declaring that flexibility is exclusively neurological or that stretches held for longer than 60 seconds create no additional range of motion, many yoga teachers and sports scientists have unintentionally over-extrapolated findings from short-duration stretching protocols, mistaking the limits of experimental designs for the limits of human physiology. It simply isn’t so.
The clinical evidence extracted from static progressive stretching, serial casting, and pathological tissue remodeling confirms that human tissue is highly plastic. When the crucial variable of time is expanded from 30-60 seconds to several continuous minutes, the physiological mechanisms shift. As the duration of loading increases, structural mechanisms assume an increasingly important role alongside the continuing influence of the nervous system.
Direct studies examining long-duration Yin Yoga practice are still needed. The purpose of this article is not to claim those studies already exist, but to argue that evidence from orthopaedics, rehabilitation medicine, and tissue biology makes structural adaptation during long-duration stretching biologically plausible and worthy of direct investigation.
If we want to adopt an evidence-based model of human movement, we must recognize flexibility as a multi-layered spectrum:
By establishing this distinction, yoga teachers and students as well as movement educators in general can move past dogmatic tropes. Acknowledging that long-duration, passive positioning yields genuine mechanical and structural adaptations validates the unique, restorative benefits of long-hold styles like those found in Yin Yoga. In other words, muscles can and do get longer and there are significant benefits to our flexibility from long-held, static postures.17
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1 One recent example of this interpretation appears in Jason Crandell’s Yogaland podcast, What Science Actually Says About Getting More Flexible (April 21, 2026). Summarizing the current sports science literature, he states that 30 to 60 seconds is the “sweet spot” for increasing flexibility and that holding a stretch beyond 60 seconds provides little additional benefit from a tissue adaptation perspective. He also notes, however, that longer holds may be valuable for other reasons, including cultivating stillness, patience, and the ability to remain present with discomfort. The discussion in this article is not intended to question those benefits, but rather to examine whether the current evidence justifies extending conclusions drawn from short-duration athletic stretching protocols to long-duration yoga practices.
2 Magnusson SP, Simonsen EB, Dyhre-Poulsen P, Aagaard P, Mohr T, Kjaer M. Viscoelastic stress relaxation during static stretch in human skeletal muscle in the absence of EMG activity. Scand J Med Sci Sports. 1996 Dec;6(6):323-8. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0838.1996.tb00101.x. PMID: 9046541. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9046541/
3 Weppler CH, Magnusson SP. Increasing muscle extensibility: a matter of increasing length or modifying sensation? Phys Ther. 2010 Mar;90(3):438-49. doi: 10.2522/ptj.20090012. Epub 2010 Jan 14. PMID: 20075147. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20075147/ The conclusion reached was, “increases in muscle extensibility observed after a single stretching session and after short-term (3- to 8-week) stretching programs are due to modified sensation.”
4 For a full investigation of the roles of tension and compression in limiting range of motion, please refer to my book, Your Body, Your Yoga www.yinyoga.com/ybyy.
5 Rather than cite dozens of individual studies, I sought a useful meta-study. A meta-study is a study of studies. In one meta-study I found, 189 individual studies were selected for review covering the years from 1977 to 2024 and included over 6600 participants, most between the ages of 18 and 40. The studies protocols ranged from holding a stretch between 30 to 60 seconds, repeated 3 or 4 times per sessions with 3 to 7 sessions per week over 4 to 8 weeks. The study I am citing is by Ingram LA, Tomkinson GR, d’Unienville NMA, Gower B, Gleadhill S, Boyle T, Bennett H. Optimising the Dose of Static Stretching to Improve Flexibility: A Systematic Review, Meta-analysis and Multivariate Meta-regression. Sports Med. 2025 Mar;55(3):597-617. doi: 10.1007/s40279-024-02143-9. Epub 2024 Nov 30. PMID: 39614059. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39614059/
The conclusion of this meta-study was, “for immediate short-term improvements in flexibility, coaches and therapists should prescribe a cumulative total of 4 min of static stretching per muscle group. For long term improvements in flexibility, 10 min per muscle group per week are needed to maximise the benefits, irrespective
of the number of weekly sessions. Furthermore, stretching beyond the point of discomfort or pain is unnecessary for increased flexibility.”
6 Consider for a moment what a study might find if it compared the standard sports science protocol of a total of 4 minutes of stretching of the hamstrings, 3 times a week for 6 weeks to an Ashtanga student who does a daily Mysore practice 6 days a week for years. In Ashtanga the warm-ups alone, of 5 Sun Salutation A and 5 Sun Salutation B where Down Dog is held for 5 breaths (approx. one minute), place the hamstrings under load for a total of 10 minutes. Then think of all the other poses in his practice which stretch the hamstrings. The Ashtanga student’s hamstrings will probably experience 20 minutes or more of a daily stretch of the hamstrings. Is it reasonable to think the sports science subject will gain the same range of motion in forward folding as the Ashtanga student? The protocols used in sports science are not designed to answer the question of what is the optimal recipe for increasing range of motion. It answers a narrower question: is there any increase in ROM when holding a stretch for 60 seconds versus 30 seconds when done as a warm up two or three times a week?
7 “The duration of low stress force must be applied long enough to produce biologic remodeling of joint tissues, which results in tissue elongation.” Bhave A, Sodhi N, Anis HK, Ehiorobo JO, Mont MA. Static progressive stretch orthosis-consensus modality to treat knee stiffness-rationale and literature review. Ann Transl Med. 2019 Oct;7(Suppl 7):S256. doi: 10.21037/atm.2019.06.55. PMID: 31728380; PMCID: PMC6829008. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6829008/
8 As an aside, I will admit that no postures in yoga classes are held for 30 minutes! However, in the Yin Yoga style, it is possible for a muscle group or joint to experience a total “time under stress” of 20 to 30 minutes. By sequencing postures that repeat movements, such as hip abduction (for example: starting in Butterfly, then doing multiple variations of Straddle and perhaps even Frog pose), cumulative stresses can approach the thresholds used in SPS.
9 “Skeletal muscle responds to passive overstretch through sarcomerogenesis, the creation and serial deposition of new sarcomere units.” Zöllner AM, Abilez OJ, Böl M, Kuhl E. Stretching skeletal muscle: chronic muscle lengthening through sarcomerogenesis. PLoS One. 2012;7(10):e45661. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0045661. Epub 2012 Oct 1. PMID: 23049683; PMCID: PMC3462200. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3462200/
10 Williams PE. Effect of intermittent stretch on immobilised muscle. Ann Rheum Dis. 1988 Dec;47(12):1014-6. doi: 10.1136/ard.47.12.1014. PMID: 3207382; PMCID: PMC1003657.
11 See Kang SH, Mirka GA. Creep deformation of viscoelastic lumbar tissue during sustained submaximal trunk flexion postures. J Biomech. 2023 Jun;155:111647. doi: 10.1016/j.jbiomech.2023.111647. Epub 2023 May 22. PMID: 37245386.
12 See Puxkandl R, Zizak I, Paris O, Keckes J, Tesch W, Bernstorff S, Purslow P, Fratzl P. Viscoelastic properties of collagen: synchrotron radiation investigations and structural model. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2002 Feb 28;357(1418):191-7. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2001.1033. PMID: 11911776; PMCID: PMC1692933. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/instance/1692933/pdf/11911776.pdf. This research directly proves the microscopic uncoiling and sliding of human collagen fibrils under tension.
13 See Kjaer, M., et al. (2006). From mechanical loading to collagen synthesis, structural changes and tissue elongation in human tendon. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 16(6), 363-380. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19706001/. This research directly tracks the long-term, months-long process of human collagen synthesis and physical remodeling in response to mechanical loading.
14 Two studies are offered for reference: 1) The Foundational Structural Study (For the 40% Sarcomere Loss): Tabary, J. C., Tabary, C., Tardieu, C., Tardieu, G., & Goldspink, G. (1972). Physiological and structural changes in the cat’s soleus muscle due to immobilization at different lengths by plaster casts. The Journal of Physiology, 224(1), 231-244. This is the original, peer-reviewed laboratory study that proved locking a muscle in a shortened position causes the rapid, dramatic elimination of serial sarcomeres by up to 40%. And, 2) Mathewson, M. A., et al. (2021). Serial sarcomere number is substantially decreased within the chronically shortened biceps brachii of humans with stroke-induced spasticity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 118(26), e2008597118.
15 Pingel J, Kampmann ML, Andersen JD, Wong C, Døssing S, Børsting C, Nielsen JB. Gene expressions in cerebral palsy subjects reveal structural and functional changes in the gastrocnemius muscle that are closely associated with passive muscle stiffness. Cell Tissue Res. 2021 May;384(2):513-526. doi: 10.1007/s00441-020-03399-z. Epub 2021 Jan 30. PMID: 33515289.
16 Farmer SE, James M. Contractures in orthopaedic and neurological conditions: a review of causes and treatment. Disabil Rehabil. 2001 Sep 10;23(13):549-58. doi: 10.1080/09638280010029930. PMID: 11451189.
17 This conclusion should not be taken to mean that enhanced flexibility or maximum range of motion is a panacea and is good for every body. The intention in our yoga practice is not to become hyperflexible. Rather the intention is to seek the optimal ROM that works for each student, and care, of course, should be taken to avoid too much elongation which could lead to joint instability.