Flexible Enough for Daily Life… But Still Stiff? Here’s Why (and How to Fix It)
- Tamara Smith
- Aug 9
- 3 min read
Most people think mobility and flexibility are the same thing—they’re not. Once I learned the difference, it completely changed how I train myself and my clients. It’s the reason we can move better, recover faster, and feel stronger in everyday life.
Flexibility is your passive range of motion—how far your muscles and connective tissues can stretch when you’re relaxed. Think of touching your toes during a hamstring stretch. Someone else could gently push you a little further—like I do in my assisted stretching sessions—and that’s still flexibility. It’s about your tissues’ potential length, not how you move under your own power.
Mobility is your active, controlled range of motion—how far you can move yourself, with strength and stability, through that range.
For example, reaching your arms overhead to put away a heavy box on a high shelf without straining your shoulders or compensating through your lower back. Mobility is about using your flexibility in a way that’s strong, stable, and safe.
Why Mobility and Flexibility Work Best Together
If you’re flexible but lack mobility:
You might relax into a deep squat during yoga…
But lowering yourself into that position, picking up your child, and standing again with control could feel unstable or risky.
If you’re mobile but not very flexible:
You can move well within your current range…
But you might be limited in how far you can go—and that’s where injuries happen.
Common examples:
Straining your back while gardening because you can’t comfortably reach the soil without rounding your spine
Tweaking your shoulder reaching behind the car seat to hand someone a water bottle!
Training both together ensures you can access more range and use it without getting hurt!
How Assisted Stretching Fits In
Improving flexibility through stretching—especially assisted stretching—gives your body more available range. But if you never strengthen and control that new range, your brain sees it as unfamiliar territory and may not let you use it naturally in daily life.That’s why pairing stretching with mobility training (strength, balance, and stability work) is so important—it teaches your muscles and nervous system to feel strong and confident in your new range of motion.
This is exactly what I focus on in my blog series Strength and Stretching – Making Mobility Last - helping you gain range, lock it in with strength, and hang onto it for every day life. Check out that series if you want quick actionable exercises you can do anywhere in 5 min!
Putting It Into Practice: Stretch, Stabilize, Strengthen
I'm a big fan of examples you can implement immediately so hopefully this helps:
Stretch – You open up the range with flexibility work.
Example: Assisted hamstring stretch to help you reach further without pulling.
Stabilize – You teach your muscles to hold that new range without collapsing. Example: Single-leg balance with a soft bend in the knee to engage your hips and core.
Strengthen – You load that range so it becomes usable in daily life.
Example: Romanian deadlifts to build hamstring and glute strength through your new range of motion.
This sequence helps your body trust the new range and turn it into lasting mobility—not just a temporary stretch you lose by tomorrow.
Bottom line: Flexibility opens the door. Mobility teaches you how to walk through it—smoothly, powerfully, and without pain.If you’ve been focusing on one without the other, you may be missing a big piece of the movement puzzle.
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