Anya Shevelyuk

I get a lot of inquiries about what to eat and supplements to ingest to become more flexible.

The honest answer is, eating healthy in general is good for your body. There is NO scientific proof out there YET that eating certain foods or taking vitamins and supplements with help you stretch better. The drug industry has been marketing to all sorts of people making claims that a supplement will do this or that to achieve greatness. They aren’t your friend, they are your drug dealer. These unregulated supplements are designed to sound good and sell fast to make a quick buck. Once the body has 100% filled each reservoir of any nutrient, the rest gets urinated out. Unless you are dangerously deficient in a certain nutrient, taking more of any said nutrient is only going to make you feel more alive at best.

Progression is all in the mind. Only your mental state can help your body achieve greatness. If you are calm and truly doing the right exercises for your body to achieve a certain goal (assuming you have no handicaps or restrictions), you can attain that goal. If you are frantic, scared or full of dread/anxiety… throwing yourself around to achieve something without focus or understanding the steps and sensations will make you feel stiff and defeated.

Something I realized about my own training recently is that I used to eat snickers bars and drink lattes every day before training. A big myth is that sugar makes you stiff right? I disagree, and here’s why.

Although my body loves sugar and salt, these days my teeth and gums aren’t loving it. The past year I’ve been eating more normal foods and less cakes and chips. Now when I train, I feel less bendy then when I was training on a sugar high. The sugar/caffeine rush gave me more energy which allowed me to achieve flexibility quicker and go deeper. Now I find myself going slower, but I do feel more controlled and super focused. So, eating less sugar and salt made me hyper-aware and mindful, but it didn’t make me more flexible.

Long story short: It’s all in the mind. Eat smart, don’t overindulge, and stay hydrated.