Why can regular yoga practice make you more flexible?
Show answer & explanation
Answer: Your nervous system accepts deeper stretches
Your nervous system accepts deeper stretches ✓ — Flexibility is partly a nervous-system skill. Repeated gentle stretching teaches stretch receptors and the brain that a wider range of motion is safe, so the muscles resist less; over time, muscles and connective tissue can also become less stiff.
Your joint ligaments become loose — Loose ligaments are not the goal. Ligaments help keep joints stable, and overstretching them can make a joint less safe rather than more flexible; yoga mainly changes stretch tolerance, muscle tone, and soft-tissue stiffness.
Your muscles untie hidden knots — Tight muscles can feel as if they have knots, and yoga may reduce that tension. But flexibility does not improve because literal knots are untied; it improves because the body tolerates the stretch better and the surrounding tissues gradually adapt.