Can you touch your toes? What that says about your health — and how to get better at it.

Reaching down to the ground to touch your toes can feel very satisfying. It’s an easy way to wake up the muscles in your lower back, hamstring and calves, as well as get a great stretch in your spine and the back of your legs.

For most, this stretch — known sometimes as a forward fold or a standing pike — is pretty simple. But as we age — and as life circumstances provide more challenges for our bodies — the ability to bend down and graze our toes can slowly disappear.

How can we combat that? Alex Corbett, a physical therapist, tells Yahoo Life that there are a number of ways we can work on staying flexible — so that our toes are always within our grasp.

What does the ability to touch our toes really say about our health?

Some people may assume that being able to touch your toes is the gold standard for flexibility. However, the reality is that all it tells us is that we have “moderate flexibility in your hamstrings and low back,” says Corbett. Our calves and spine also need flexibility in order for us to successfully achieve this pose.

Landon Uetz, a physical therapist, tells Yahoo Life that being unable to touch your toes is not an indicator of anything serious, especially if someone isn’t struggling with flexibility in other areas of their life. “If there is no pain associated with the movement, there would be the option to address it through exercise but I wouldn’t consider it mandatory to remain healthy,” he says.

And while there is some evidence to say that poor flexibility is associated with increased mortality, Corbett says that’s not the whole picture, as increased flexibility may only serve as a proxy to being active — something we already know is good for our heart health, muscle mass and overall strength.

Focusing on being active overall, as opposed to just working out to increase your flexibility, is key to having a beneficial relationship with exercise — and if you are more active, you’ll likely also be more flexible.

Why flexibility is important — and what to do about it

There are benefits to flexibility, whether or not you can specifically touch your toes, says Corbett. The more flexible we are, the more we can do — which is particularly important for staying independent as we get older.

If we don’t stay flexible throughout our life, we may lose the ability to do certain things when we reach older age — like “putting away overhead luggage, standing from the ground or grabbing something out of the back seat of a car,” says Corbett.

While Uetz notes that “toe touches alone aren’t a complete health indicator,” maintaining flexibility through exercises can “promote long-term joint health, balance and quality of movement.” Being able to bend down to touch your toes, specifically, may also mean that you can do other moves more easily too, like picking something up from the ground.

“Inflexibility may not be a direct health concern, but it may indicate other possible health issues such as chronic conditions or sedentary lifestyles,” Uetz says.

Dr. Yash Mehta, an interventional spine and sports medicine doctor, tells Yahoo Life that flexibility can also “potentially decrease your risk of falls.” The reason? Being nimble, he notes, “helps us better navigate the space around us.”

“That may make it easier to navigate steps, or certain obstacles on the ground, which helps avoid the fall in the first place,” he explains.

If you want to work on your flexibility — and potentially be able to touch your toes in the future — there are certain moves that can help, says Uetz, as they loosen the muscles needed to touch your toes. These moves include both static and dynamic stretching and can be done multiple times a week.

Dynamic stretches

Here are some dynamic stretches to try. You should aim to do eight to 15 reps at a time per leg.

Walking hamstring sweeps

While standing, straighten one leg with your heel on the ground and slide your arms down your leg until you feel a stretch in your hamstring (the back of the thigh). Watch this video tutorial for more detailed directions.

Leg swings

While standing, hold on to a stable object. Swing one of your legs front to back across your body while keeping a straight leg to alternate stretch in your hamstring and hip flexors. Watch this video for more guidance.

Romanian dead lift

Stand while holding on to a weight of your choice. Hinge at your hips while keeping your knees relatively straight while the object moves toward your toes for a stretch in the hamstring. Then return to standing. Here’s how it’s done. To do it without a weight, plant one foot on the ground, bend your back over while keeping it straight, lift your opposite leg up and out behind you and reach your hands toward the ground. Here’s a video example.

Static stretches

These static stretches should be held for 30 to 60 seconds at a time.

Supine banded hamstring stretch

While lying on your back, place a resistance band or belt around your foot and raise one leg up while keeping the knee straight to receive stretch. A how-to video can be seen here.

Standing hamstring stretch

Stand with a leg up on a step and keep your knee straight, then shift your weight and lean forward to receive stretch in the hamstring. Watch a how-to here.