Research shows fitness isn’t just about touching your toes
Why is a forward fold out of reach?
I love yoga, keeping up with a daily practise and spending way too much money on mats, blocks, and clothes. I’m also an avid gym goer and don’t shy away from cardio anymore. You’d call me healthy enough, right? But guess what… I still can’t touch my toes without a bend in my knees.
It’s a classic statement of fitness and flexibility, especially it seems in yoga, where forward folds are so common. Over you go and suddenly the entire body neatly folds like a sheet of paper, tidy and compact. Then there’s me, sticking my back out and rounding over like I’m in pain.
The opinions
When I started doing daily yoga, a goal I quickly picked up was trying to touch my toes. I thought it was a sign of fitness and strength to get my body into a perfectly formed forward fold. It seemed most people could manage it, so why not me? But no, not even as a happy, active child in the playground could I ever manage it.
‘You’ve got tight hamstrings, loosen them’ or ‘if you stretch every day, you’ll get there’ they said.
But no, still not a fix for me. The funniest comment I got when I chatted to friends about my struggle with it was ‘why not try yoga?’ Ironic. I spend half my time telling people to try yoga, so I’m already convinced it works, but that still doesn’t mean I can touch my toes.
The reality
Not everyone is going to find doing a forward fold as easy as the next person on the mat. As Claire Maldarelli, science editor of Popular Science, suggests, “the span of your arms and length of your torso compared to the height of your legs” is a “major physiological attribute that can’t be changed” (Maldarelli).
Ok, I should reveal I’m bordering on being six feet tall and that does mean I have a lot further to go getting into the neat fold I see in yoga videos. It’s worth saying there’s many stretches I can do now because of yoga that I struggled with beforehand. It’s because of the way I’m made that I find certain things harder than others, and everyone finds this in their fitness journey at some point. It’s how you work with it that counts.
The Turning Point
One day I touched my toes. For the first time I can remember in my entire life, I did it by accident. Weird right?
At the time, I’d been in the gym and did an intense session using a hamstring curl machine, and other leg-based equipment, and then during my cool down, the magic happened.
I had been trying, post-workout, to stretch by reaching for my toes, to see if that helped. Behold, the one time I’m stretching on autopilot, I lean down into a nice, soft forward fold and touch my toes with only the slightest knee bend. I’d done it.
Ok, so this didn’t last forever and if you asked me now to stand up from the desk and touch my toes it might not happen, but at least that meant I could do it. I get that being so tall, with such long legs, means I’ll never be the same as those who’ve mastered doing it, but I did something I set my mind too, and that’s what counts. I said I wanted to touch my toes, so I learnt how to.
The how-to
So, if I’ve inspired you to start off on a similar hamstring stretching journey, there’s ways to go about it safely. It’s important to say, you should always work with what feels right for your body, and if toe touching is out of reach that is totally ok.
If you do have a go, Tyler Read, writer on Healthline, argues “If you can’t touch your toes, performing a stretching routine that addresses each muscle area individually is the best way to improve your toe touch abilities” (Read) and this can be a manageable and achievable way to do it.
If you want to go down the yoga route, I found Yoga with Adriene on YouTube was amazing, with step-by-step guides and different skill levels. Hamstring yoga seemed to work better for me, but we’re all working with different obstacles so see what works for you.
Closing thoughts
Touching your toes in the perfect forward fold isn’t so achievable for every person out there, especially me. The main point is if you have a fitness goal get the facts together on how achievable it is for you and work hard to make it happen if you can. I’m not the body type to bend and flex into every yoga position, but I picked one pose and I mastered it for my body. That to me is self-care, and proves fitness isn’t just about reaching down to your toes.
Works Cited:
Maldarelli, Claire. “Why can’t we all touch our toes?” Popular Science. https://www.popsci.com/why-cant-i-touch-my-toes/ September 30th, 2021Accessed 08/11/2021
Read, Tyler. “How to Touch Your Toes: Tips and More.” Healthline. March 1st, 2020. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-to-touch-your-toes Accessed 08/11/21
Yoga with Adriene. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/c/yogawithadriene/videos Accessed 08/11/2021
Images:
1- Image by yogabelloso from Pixabay
2- Image by Pexels from Pixabay
