Somewhere Between Ankle Training & La Dolce Vita: A Few Things I've Been Thinking About Lately
Hi, I’m Jessica,
I’m a certified 500H Yoga Teacher specialized in flexibility & strength trainings and a Yoga practitioner for 14+ years
I’m not a dancer.
I’m not an ex-athlete.
I wasn’t a “naturally flexible” kid.
I built my movement after 40, through trial, error, and the realization that traditional training wasn’t cutting it.
I created a method that bridges the gap between strength and flexibility—without the fluff, without wasting time, and without forcing movements that don’t feel right:
FLEX&FLOW® a new way of movement.
On ankles that deserve more attention, why your body gets good at what you ask it to do, the difference between doing more and actually progressing, and a little Italian escape.
Hello hello!
How's October treating you so far?
Mine has been a rather colourful mix of teaching, filming, exciting new projects, lots of little details to figure out and, of course, a few moments of being personally humbled by my own exercises.
And because apparently I can't go through a week without noticing something about how people move, I've collected quite a few thoughts lately.
Some about training. Some about the way we approach progress. Some about how much attention we're actually paying to what we're doing.
And some about escaping to Italy in November, because there's only so much time one can spend talking about hip flexors.
But first, can we talk about your ankles?
YES. YOUR ANKLES.
I recently posted about training your ankles, and I'm going to say it again.
Train your ankles. And don't shout at me when you get humbled.
We spend an extraordinary amount of time thinking about our abs, glutes, legs and shoulders.
We want stronger legs, a more defined waist, better posture, stronger arms and perhaps a peachy bum while we're at it.
All perfectly reasonable ambitions.
Meanwhile, our ankles are quietly getting on with the job of carrying us around all day.
Walking. Running. Squatting. Balancing. Climbing stairs. Changing direction. Dancing until our feet hurt.
Quite a lot of responsibility for something most of us barely give a second thought.
And then you try a few controlled ankle exercises and suddenly discover that your feet have been freelancing for years.
The thing is, ankle strength and mobility aren't particularly glamorous training topics. Nobody is rushing to Instagram to show off their beautifully controlled dorsiflexion.
But they're incredibly relevant to how we move.
Your ankles are part of a much bigger conversation between your feet, knees, hips and the rest of your body.
If your ankle can't comfortably access a certain range, another joint may have to make adjustments to get you into the position you're asking for.
That doesn't automatically mean something is wrong. Our bodies are rather clever at finding solutions.
But it does mean that paying attention to these smaller areas can change how we experience much bigger movements.
Think about a squat.
You might be focusing entirely on your glutes and thighs, while your feet are gripping the floor, your heels want to lift or your knees are struggling to travel forward.
Suddenly, what looks like a leg exercise becomes a very interesting conversation about your ankles.
And this is exactly why I love working with small, precise movements.
Not because small automatically means better.
But because slowing something down gives you the opportunity to notice what is actually happening.
Sometimes a tiny movement tells you far more than another twenty repetitions ever could.
YOUR BODY GETS BETTER AT WHAT YOU ASK IT TO DO.
Here's something I keep coming back to.
Your body adapts to what you do most. And you probably sit most.
Before anyone gets offended, I'm not suggesting we all abandon our desks, throw away our chairs and spend the working day squatting on the floor.
I spend plenty of time sitting myself.
But consider how much of your day happens in relatively similar positions.
At your desk. On the train. In the car. On the sofa. Looking at your phone.
Your hips spend hours in flexion. Your spine moves through a fairly limited selection of positions. Your shoulders and arms often spend much of the day doing things in front of you.
And then we expect our bodies to feel brilliant when we suddenly ask them to squat deeply, reach overhead, rotate, balance or move through a completely different range.
A little optimistic, perhaps?
The body is constantly adapting to the demands placed upon it.
If you repeatedly practise a movement, you become more familiar with it. Your nervous system gets better at organising the task. Your muscles develop the capacity to produce force in the ways you're asking them to.
But adaptation works both ways.
If certain positions or movements rarely feature in your day, you may become less comfortable or capable in them.
That doesn't mean you've permanently lost anything.
It means you might need to start giving your body some different experiences.
And this is where the conversation about fitness becomes much more interesting to me.
Because doing a workout and developing movement capacity aren't necessarily the same thing.
You can sweat through a class, feel absolutely exhausted afterwards and still spend very little time developing the specific strength, control or range that your body could benefit from.
Sweating is a perfectly normal response to physical effort.
It just isn't a particularly useful measurement of how much you've improved your movement.
Neither is soreness.
Neither is how many exercises you managed to squeeze into forty-five minutes.
What matters is what you're asking your body to learn and whether you're giving it the opportunity to improve.
CAN WE TALK ABOUT ALL THAT STRETCHING?
While we're here, there's another topic I have quite a few opinions about.
Stretching.
And before anyone gets upset, I LOVE a good stretch.
I spent years teaching yoga. I understand the appeal of a long, satisfying stretch, especially after a day spent sitting at a desk.
But if you're constantly stretching the same areas and wondering why nothing seems to change, perhaps it's worth looking at another piece of the puzzle.
Strength.
Let's take your hip flexors.
You sit for hours, your hips feel tight, and your first instinct is to stretch the front of your hips.
Fair enough.
But that sensation of tightness doesn't necessarily tell you that a muscle is physically too short.
It can be influenced by a whole range of things, including how much you use the muscle, how strong it is, how comfortable you feel in certain positions and how your nervous system responds to movement.
Sometimes the answer isn't simply to pull harder on the area that feels tight.
Sometimes you need to build strength and control through the range you're trying to access.
This is where loaded stretching becomes interesting.
Rather than only moving into a stretch and hanging out at the end of your available range, you're asking muscles to produce force while they're lengthened.
Think hamstrings, hip flexors and inner thighs.
All those areas we tend to stretch repeatedly.
Now imagine not just reaching a position, but actually having the strength to support yourself there.
That's a different demand.
And it's one of the reasons strength and mobility belong in the same conversation.
I don't see mobility as something you do for ten minutes after your proper workout.
Or as the gentle alternative to strength training.
I want you to be strong in the positions you can access, and capable of accessing positions that are useful to you.
That's a big part of what FLEX&FLOW® is built around.
Not collecting exercises.
Not chasing the deepest stretch.
But developing strength, range, coordination and the confidence to use your body in different ways.
YOU CAN GOOGLE A THOUSAND EXERCISES. BUT THEN WHAT?
This brings me to something I've been experiencing in my private coaching sessions.
I've been working with a client, Lili, on her splits.
And her story is a very good example of why I care so much about how people approach movement.
She had a goal.
She'd already looked up exercises, tried different approaches and followed advice she found online.
She wasn't someone who needed convincing to put in the work.
Quite the opposite.
She was determined.
But despite all that effort, she kept finding herself back at square one.
Sound familiar?
It's incredibly easy to assume that if you're not progressing, you simply need to do more.
More stretching. More sessions. More exercises. More discipline.
Or perhaps a completely different routine.
And with an almost endless supply of exercise tutorials available online, finding another routine is hardly difficult.
You can Google a thousand exercises.
Ask AI to create a full training plan.
Save another fifty tutorials.
Follow someone else's progression.
But none of that automatically tells you why YOU are stuck.
What you're compensating for.
Which muscles aren't contributing as expected.
Whether the exercise you're doing is even addressing the thing that's currently limiting you.
Or what your body needs before it can comfortably take the next step.
And that's where individual coaching makes such a difference.
FROM "I WANT TO GET OUT" TO "OH, I WANT TO STAY HERE."
One of my favourite parts of working with Lili has been seeing how her relationship with the movement has changed.
In the beginning, certain positions felt like something she wanted to escape from immediately.
The body gripping. The effort feeling enormous. That instinctive feeling of wanting to get out, out, OUT.
And over the course of five private sessions, something started to shift.
Not just the visible progress towards her splits.
Her understanding.
We looked at positioning. We worked on strength and control. We explored where she was holding unnecessary tension and where she needed more support.
Sometimes we made things more challenging.
Sometimes we made them smaller.
Sometimes we worked on foundations that, at first glance, didn't look particularly spectacular.
But those details matter.
And one of the loveliest changes was hearing her go from wanting to escape a position to actually wanting to stay there.
Because suddenly the movement wasn't just something she was trying to force her body into.
It was something she was beginning to understand and feel more confident in.
She started celebrating what her body could do rather than getting frustrated about what it couldn't do yet.
She began recognising why she'd been stuck.
And she now has a clearer understanding of how to continue working towards her goal.
That, to me, is progress.
Of course, improving the actual splits position is part of it.
But so is building the confidence to work towards that position without constantly second-guessing yourself.
Less guessing. More understanding. Actual progress.
And while not everyone wants to do the splits, the principle applies to so many movement goals.
Whether you're trying to get stronger, improve your overhead range, feel more comfortable in a squat or stop feeling as though your shoulders are doing all the work in every upper-body exercise.
Sometimes getting better isn't about doing more.
It's about finally understanding what you're doing.
THE DETAILS NOBODY CLOCKS IN A FLEX&FLOW® CLASS.
I notice things.
A lot of things.
Perhaps that's partly a consequence of spending twenty years working as a stylist before I started teaching movement.
In styling, tiny details change the entire picture.
The proportion. The placement. The angle. The way something sits.
And while the human body is obviously not a fashion shoot, that attention to detail has become a very important part of how I teach.
I notice when someone's feet keep turning out.
When their ribs pop forward to create the illusion of more range.
When a movement that's supposed to happen at the hip is actually happening through the lower back.
When shoulders start creeping towards the ears.
When momentum takes over because the intended muscles are no longer doing quite as much work.
These aren't reasons to panic or start obsessing over perfect technique.
Movement doesn't have one universally perfect shape.
But they're useful observations.
Because they give us information about how someone is organising a movement.
And that information helps me decide what to do next.
Maybe we change the position.
Maybe we reduce the range.
Maybe we add resistance.
Maybe we take it away.
Maybe we need to build a foundation before making the exercise more demanding.
That's the kind of teaching I love.
And it's what I want people to experience in FLEX&FLOW®, whether they're working with me privately, joining a group class or training through my online programs.
Not just following along.
Actually developing a better understanding of their own bodies.
FIVE MINUTES. NO PHONE.
Now, here's a little challenge for your next class or workout.
Nothing complicated.
No equipment.
No elaborate morning routine.
Five minutes before you move, don't look at your phone.
And five minutes afterwards, do the same.
That's it.
I know. Revolutionary.
But think about how often we rush into a class straight from another activity.
Answering messages on the way in.
Checking emails.
Scrolling while waiting for the session to start.
And then, the second it's finished, reaching for the phone again.
What if you gave yourself just a few minutes to actually arrive?
To notice how you're feeling before you start.
Are you tired? Restless? Distracted? Full of energy? A little stiff from sitting all day?
And afterwards, notice what changed.
Perhaps your breathing feels different.
Maybe your shoulders feel less tense.
Maybe you're more awake, more settled or simply pleased that you showed up.
Or perhaps you discover something completely different.
The point isn't to manufacture a particular feeling.
It's to pay attention.
Because the more familiar you become with how your body responds to movement, the more useful that information becomes.
And yes, you can absolutely do all of this while still enjoying a good workout playlist.
A LITTLE SOMETHING NEW IS TAKING SHAPE.
Speaking of how I like to approach movement, I've also been working on something exciting.
I recently visited Recover Society, where FLEX&FLOW® is set to become part of a broader approach to strength, mobility, recovery and longevity.
And I love the idea of movement being part of a bigger picture.
Because I don't think fitness should be reduced to how exhausted you feel after a class or how many calories you managed to burn.
I want people to think about what their training actually gives them.
More strength.
More movement options.
Better coordination.
The ability to keep doing the activities they love.
And perhaps a little more curiosity about what their bodies are capable of.
That doesn't mean every session has to be serious.
Quite the opposite.
Anyone who's taken a FLEX&FLOW® class knows there's plenty of room for laughter, the occasional swear word and being unexpectedly humbled by a 2 kg weight.
But underneath all of that, there should be purpose.
I'm excited to bring this approach into a setting where movement, recovery and long-term wellbeing can be considered together.
More details on that soon.
AND NOW, CAN WE PLEASE GO TO ITALY?
Because after all this talk about ankles, hip flexors and movement capacity, I think we've earned a little Italian dolce vita.
POV: It's dark by 5 PM, but you're in South Tyrol and your only plan is to move, eat and do absolutely nothing else.
Imagine waking up in November and the only thing on your to-do list is yourself.
No Christmas shopping.
No endless to-do lists.
No rushing from one thing to the next.
Just four days in South Tyrol, six FLEX&FLOW® sessions, long breakfasts, delicious Italian food, good conversations and absolutely no pressure to be productive every minute.
That's exactly the idea behind Melt Into Winter, November 19–22, at the beautiful Parkhotel Mondschein in Bolzano.
We'll move, of course.
There will be plenty of strength and mobility, attention to detail and probably a few muscles making themselves known.
But there will also be time to do absolutely nothing.
To enjoy the hotel.
To eat something delicious.
To have a long conversation without checking the time.
Or simply to enjoy a change of scenery.
Personally, I think November sounds a lot better with a little Italian dolce vita thrown in.
And if you've been thinking about taking a few days for yourself before the end-of-year madness begins, this might be a rather lovely way to do it.
Explore Melt Into Winter, November 19–22
ONE LAST THING. I'M CURIOUS.
I've recently been asking people who practise FLEX&FLOW® alongside other sports and movement disciplines about their experiences.
And I'd love to hear yours.
Maybe you're into running, strength training, Pilates, yoga, Hyrox, pole dance or something completely different.
Have you noticed anything change since adding FLEX&FLOW® to your routine?
Perhaps you feel more stable.
Perhaps certain movements have become easier.
Maybe you've noticed better control, more strength or a greater sense of what your body is actually doing.
Or perhaps something has surprised you.
I'm also interested in hearing from people who've practised FLEX&FLOW® during pregnancy and what that experience was like for them.
Because while I can tell you all day long what I want my method to help people develop, I'm equally interested in hearing what people actually experience when they take that work into the rest of their lives.
And that's perhaps the thought I'd like to leave you with.
Your training should give you something you can use beyond the workout itself.
Not every session needs to be harder.
Not every exercise needs to look impressive.
And you certainly don't need to collect another fifty routines before you start paying attention to the one you're already doing.
Sometimes the most useful thing is to get curious about the details.
And sometimes it's to train your ankles.
Seriously.
Don't forget your ankles.
j x
Ready to experience the FLEX&FLOW® difference? Visit JESSICA KLIMACH FLEX&FLOW® SCULPTED STRENGTH & FLUID MOBILITY THE REVOLUTIONARY ALL-IN-ONE METHOD trust me, your body has never felt this good to learn more about my strength and mobility training programs. Your body has been waiting for this conversation.