Whether or not you're good at this could make a huge difference in guessing your life expectancy. Here's how you test it at home.
When it comes to supporting longevity, foundational habits like walking more, eating better, and getting enough sleep pop up again and again. But recent research suggests another factor may subtly signal how well your body is aging.
A study published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, one of the first to track flexibility’s connection to mortality, followed more than 3,000 middle-aged adults for nearly 30 years. Researchers found that those with less body flexibility had a higher risk of earlier death than those with a greater range of motion in their joints. The findings suggest that flexibility may be an overlooked yet important indicator of long-term health.
“Regular exercise is one of the most powerful actions a person can take to preserve and promote good health,” says the study’s lead author, Claudio Araujo, MD, PhD, Dean of Research and Education at Clinimex – Clínica de Medicina do Exercício in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
But exercise should be viewed broadly, he adds. Aerobic fitness, muscle strength, and having good balance have each been linked to a lower risk of earlier death—and flexibility is another essential component. “Regardless of the type of exercise you practice, dedicate at least five minutes of each session to stretching,” Dr. Araujo says. “It is a small investment with potentially meaningful long-term benefits.”
The link between flexibility and longevity
After taking age, body mass index, and health status into account, women involved in the study who had a low flexibility score had a 4.78 times higher risk of early death compared with women who scored high on the test. Men also had a significant gap—less flexible men were 1.87 times more likely to die earlier than men with higher flexibility scores.
To measure flexibility, Dr. Araujo developed the Flexitest. “I began studying flexibility in the late 1970s,” he says. “At that time, the standard method for assessing flexibility was the sit-and-reach test.” But he recognized that a person may be flexible in one joint, such as the shoulder, but relatively inflexible in another, such as the hip or knee.
That’s why the Flexitest is designed to measure passive range of motion at all the body’s major joints—ankle, knee, hip, spine, wrist, elbow, and shoulder—through 20 movements. “Each movement is graded from 0 to 4, and the scores are summed up to provide an overall measure of flexibility,” Dr. Araujo explains. This combined score is known as the Flexindex.
Why it matters
There are a few potential reasons flexibility could be linked with longevity, one of which involves the overall risk of falls. “Falls are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in middle-aged and older adults,” says Dr. Araujo. “Individuals with better flexibility may be more capable of avoiding falls or reducing impact during a fall—similar to children, who are typically more flexible and rarely sustain serious injuries when they fall.”
Flexibility may also be an indicator of healthier tissues and blood vessels, explains Shane Davis, MD, a non-operative sports medicine physician at Tufts Medical Center. Dr. Davis is not an author of the study. “There is some evidence suggesting that the flexibility that we associate with the musculoskeletal system is also correlated with flexibility of the cardiovascular system, and thus an indicator of healthier blood vessels and less cardiovascular disease,” he says.
Conversely, Dr. Araujo adds that stiffer tissue negatively affects flexibility and may contribute to stiffer blood vessels.
“Regardless of general mortality risk, better flexibility is good for joints and tendons, facilitating better function, a more active lifestyle, and improved balance, which would all lead to healthier and longer lives,” Dr. Davis says.
Because the study, published in 2024, was observational, Dr. Araujo emphasizes that it does not directly prove that low flexibility directly causes a shorter lifespan. More research is needed to definitively explain the association.
Check your flexibility at home
For a quick at-home check, the sit-and-reach test—which involves placing your legs forward on the ground and reaching towards your toes—is a classic flexibility assessment that’s often used in research studies, Dr. Davis says. In practice, being able to touch your toes suggests good flexibility, reaching your shins is considered moderate, and reaching only above the knees may indicate limited flexibility. However, this test focuses primarily on lower-body mobility, so it doesn’t provide a complete picture.
An assessment like the Flexitest can offer a more precise, encompassing measure of someone’s current flexibility—and you can perform it at home following this online Flexitest demo video. “The complete assessment of all 20 passive movements typically takes less than three minutes,” Dr. Araujo says. You’ll just need a partner to provide gentle assistance.
The images accompanying each movement show “scores” based on how closely your range of motion matches the illustrated position. Lower scores indicate limited joint flexibility, while the highest score is rare among non-athletes.
Another simple home test Dr. Davis recommends is seeing whether you can rise from the floor to a standing position without using your arms for support. This movement requires a combination of flexibility, strength, and coordination across several joints, making it a broader snapshot of overall mobility.
Daily habits to improve flexibility
No matter your level of flexibility, the good news is that you don’t need hours of yoga to improve. “It is more important to stretch regularly than it is to do a lot in a single session,” explains Dr. Davis.
He says that a simple routine can take as little as five minutes a day and should focus on several major muscle groups throughout the body. You can target them with these movements:
- Hamstrings: Seated or standing forward reach.
- Hip flexors: Kneeling lunge position.
- Lower back: Knee-to-chest or cat-cow movements.
- Shoulders: Cross-body arm pulls and overhead reaches.
- Trunk rotation: Seated or standing spinal twists.
For best results, he says to perform stretches when muscles are warm, such as after light activity or at the end of a workout. Stretch to the point of mild tension—not pain—and breathe normally throughout the movement. “Static [slow, sustained holds] stretching is preferred over ballistic (bouncing) methods for safety and effectiveness,” says Dr. Davis.
Dr. Araujo also notes that stretching routines can combine multiple joint movements into a single exercise—what he calls “flexercises.” Ideally, he adds, people should have their flexibility assessed so stretching routines can focus on the joint movements where range of motion is most limited.
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