The flexibility of your body correlates with the flexiblity of your artieries. Flexibility is one of the main aspects of physical fitness along with cardiovascular fitness, muscular strength and endurance. As we get older it is normal for our arteries to begin to become stiff. No one knows the exact cause of this stiffening but it begins to occur in middle age. It has been shown that higher levels of physical fitness seem to delay the the development of the age-associated stiffening of our arteries. We know that this stiffening of the walls of our arteries has been found to be an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease like heart attack and strokes as well as death. None of us want stiff arteries for it is just logical that blood will not flow as well in a stiff artery. It is also shown that people with lower flexibilty have higher blood pressure.A recent study found that stretching exercises, but NOT strength training or aerobic exercise, improved (by 23 percent) the flexibility of the carotid artery, the main artery in our neck that carries blood to our brain. These are some of the first scientific studies I have seen that actually shows that flexibility exercises, such as yoga and/or pilates might help keep us healthy longer and reduce the incidence of cardiovascular disease. This is very exciting information! Since heart disease is the number one cause of death in our country, this could be life-saving.
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