Flexibility or mobility work can be a large part of any injured patient’s recovery at our Boulder Physical Therapy and Lafayette Physical Therapy clinics. In contrast, in a healthy population flexibility training should be one of the last things you spend time on each week because of its’ limited impact on injury prevention, health, or longevity. A common mistake gym participants make is utilizing their limited workout time each week to focus on flexibility at the expense of more beneficial forms of exercise such as aerobic exercise and strength training. I often prescribe strength training to both target strength and flexibility impairments saving time each week.
Researchers have shown a significant benefit of strength training to improve flexibility by improving our muscle’s stretch reflexes, or tolerance to stretch, and structurally lengthening muscle tissue. A recent review of the research documents how utilizing strength training can both improve muscle performance and flexibility.
Favro and colleagues published their review of the available literature on the impact of strength training on joint flexibility (J Strength Cond Res. 2025). Authors included 36 studies of close to 1500 healthy participants. They concluded strength training could be utilized to improve a participant’s flexibility. Higher intensity strength training protocols (weight utilized, contraction type, time under tension) created greater flexibility gains.
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