If you are doing 25 stretches in 25 minutes then I’m not surprised at your frustration with your progress. You need more focus.
I was doing physical therapy for a back injury last year. They gave me four stretches to do. Each stretch is held for 30 seconds. I repeated each stretch four times. With a rest between stretches, that takes about 3 minutes per stretch; for bilateral stretches (e.g., once for each leg), 6 minutes. So my whole stretching routine of four stretches took 15-20 minutes. I did this routine twice a day for 3-4 months and my flexibility increased dramatically. And I’m older than you.
The op feels better after adding this routine to their existing general fitness program. No more reason needed to continue as is than that. That’s the point.
That said someone who has had poor flexibility always is not the same as someone who had been more flexible earlier in life. The latter likely does not have the same potential.
The limit is genetic at any age and is further limited as we age too. Stretching regularly will get people closer to what their personal limit is.
And yeah the shoe tying thing is odd.
I see lots of teen runners whose forward bend sucks. Tight hamstrings. They tie their shoes just fine.
Someone who cannot reach to tie shoes? That’s not just garden variety loss of flexibility with age. Stretching as an isolated activity generally adds nothing to the ability to function in daily living or quality of life. (Very different than stretching as part of other activities like yoga or Tai Chi.)
I would recommend Tai Chi. Seek a reputable Master, with an established legacy school. It might be fairly pricey. Even if you don’t continue beyond the first year or so with the classes, the daily exercises will include Qi Gong (energy farming) exercises that will greatly increase balance and flexility if done at LEAST twice a week, but daily is far better for you.
Tris
Don’t bounce, or press your muscles to stretch. Relax into the reach at your limits. Gain a bit every day, and eventually you will find the floor to be your natural limit. Some Tai Chi master.
I’m past sixty, and more or less as flexible as I ever was (very flexible). I don’t lead a particularly sedentary life although I don’t do much manual labor any more, but more importantly, I was simply born flexible. It is nothing to me to put my ankle on the kitchen counter, sit in a squat for a long time and rise from it without effort, sit in full lotus, touch my palms to the floor without bending my knees. I have always been this way and have, as far as I know, done very little to deserve it. My sisters are all similarly flexible.
Like many traits I’ve done nothing to work for I was particularly proud of this until I started doing Pilates and structured equestrian lessons and was told that I may be flexible as all get out, but I am unbalanced, sit crooked, and am weak all over. I hate truth.
All of the above, I think, with the ‘something else’ being psychological. I had frozen shoulder for a while and did some PT. I also tend to have sore knees.
It’s slowly getting better since I started yoga and strength training.