When Flexibility Becomes a Liability
For a long time I’ve wanted to write this. Not to criticize yoga. Not to dismiss it. But to speak honestly about something I kept seeing in my clinic, over and over again.
Some of my earliest patients were long-time yogis. Dedicated. Disciplined. Years, sometimes decades, on the mat. These were not beginners doing foolish things. These were people who knew their bodies.
And yet, they came to me with the same set of problems.
Loose joints.
Unstable shoulders.
Hips that would “slip.”
Knees that didn’t quite track.
And in some cases, repeated subluxations or full dislocations.
At first, I didn’t connect the dots. I assumed injury, bad luck, maybe age. But after seeing enough of these cases, a pattern began to emerge.
Too much flexibility.
Not enough stability.
We need to understand something very basic about the body.
Ligaments are not designed to stretch the way muscles do. Their job is to hold joints together, to provide restraint, to keep things from going too far. When we repeatedly push a joint to its end range and hang out there—especially passively—we are no longer working muscle. We are loading the ligament.
And ligaments don’t behave like muscle tissue.
They have poor blood supply.
They heal slowly.
And when they are overstretched or injured, they often do not return to their original tension.
This is where the problem begins.
You may not feel it right away. In fact, early on it can feel like progress. You go deeper into poses. You get praised for your flexibility. You feel open, loose, advanced.
But what you may actually be doing is trading stability for range.
Over time, that passive looseness shows up as instability. The joint no longer has the same integrity. The body now has to rely on muscles to do a job that ligaments used to handle automatically.
If those muscles are not trained for that role, things begin to slip.
This is where we start seeing shoulders that don’t feel “held in.”
Hips that click or shift.
Knees that feel unreliable.
And yes, sometimes dislocations.
Now, to be clear, not everyone is affected the same way. Some people are born with more lax connective tissue. Some fall into categories like Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, where the ligaments are inherently more elastic. These individuals are often naturally gifted in yoga. They can achieve positions others cannot.
But they are also the ones most at risk.
Because what looks like ability is often vulnerability.
And unless that mobility is paired with strength and control, it becomes a liability.
This is why I have, for years, recommended what I call the 70% rule.
Never go to your end range.
Never hang on your joints.
Never collapse into a pose.
Work at about seventy percent of what you think you can do.
At that level, you can stay engaged. You can feel the muscles working. You are developing control, not just range. You are building a body that is not only flexible, but stable.
Because flexibility without stability is not health.
It is borrowed range.
And eventually, the body will ask for it back.
I know this will get pushback. There are strong beliefs around yoga, and many people have benefited from it. I’m not denying that. I’ve seen those benefits myself.
But I’ve also seen what happens when the pendulum swings too far.
My intention here is not to take anything away. It is to add a layer of understanding. To offer a bit of protection to those who are committed to their practice.
You don’t need to prove anything to your joints.
They are already doing their job.
The question is whether we are allowing them to keep doing it.
I love you all so
Dr G