Why your 10-minute stretch routine isn’t working?

If you’re on the unflexible team, you’ve been there:

You wake up one day, and decide that enough is enough. You’re tired of feeling limited, you want to move freely! You want splits, pancakes, all those cool positions you see on Instagram.

So you look up a “10-minute daily stretch routine’“ on Youtube, roll out your mat, and get to work.

A week passes. Nothing really changes.

Two weeks in, still no progress.

Eventually, frustration kicks in. You miss a few days, then a few more. Then you quit telling yourself that you’re just not flexible.

Here’s the truth:

You didn’t fail, the method did.

The idea that flexibility comes from doing light stretches for 10 minutes a day is a myth. Unless you’re naturally flexible, real mobility takes more than casual effort. Specially if you’re aiming at positions like splits and pancakes. Those require:

• Intensity (your body needs a strong enough signal to adapt)
• Rest (so your body actually has time to make those changes)
• Consistency over time (but not necessarily daily repetition)

Even professional dancers (people who are already incredibly flexible) have to work hard to maintain those ranges. If you’re not starting with that kind of range, a low-effort daily routine simply won’t cut it.

Actually, by stretching lighlty every single day, you’re doing two things wrong:

1. Not applying enough intensity to trigger change
2. Not allowing your body the recovery time it needs

So what should you do instead?

Unfortunatelly, developping lasting flexibility will come with intensity, purpose and consistency. You’ll have give your body the intensity it actually needs to adapt.