Good Health is Related to How Well You Can Touch Your Toes

“How far you can reach beyond your toes from a sitting position – normally used to define the flexibility of a person’s body – may be an indicator of how stiff your arteries are.”  according to the study “Poor trunk flexibility is associated with arterial stiffening” appearing in the American Journal of Physiology.

Researchers were able to document “that trunk flexibility was a good predictor of artery stiffness among middle age and older participants”  along with higher systolic blood pressure in the low-flexibility group.

Good arterial flexibility was related to truck flexibility and was independent of muscle strength and cardiorespiratory fitness (as measured by performance on an exercycle) .

The researchers concluded that “these findings suggest a possibility that improving flexibility induced by the stretching exercise may be capable of modifying age-related arterial stiffening in middle-aged and older adults” and that “flexibility exercise, such as stretching, yoga and Pilates, should be integrated as a new recommendation into the known cardiovascular benefits of regular exercise.”