Strengthening and flexibility.  While it is possible to look at these as two different things, they are really integral to each other.  For example, when I started the yoga “intervention” (as the instructor calls it) sitting on the floor was a problem for me.  I can get onto the floor, I can get up off the floor, but sitting on the floor and breathing, or worse, sitting on the floor in specific poses  made my hips actually lock in place so I couldn’t stay seated, but I couldn’t straighten my legs either.  The result was rolling on the floor in pain.  Very counterproductive.  The solution was to prop my legs up while sitting because first of all, I wasn’t flexible enough to have my knees on the floor, and secondly, I wasn’t strong enough to hold them up.  The strain of holding my muscles in position because I didn’t have the flexibility to relax them was what was causing my hips to lock.   Within the weeks I’ve been doing yoga, I have both increased flexibility and strengthened those muscles so I no longer have to prop my legs.  As an added benefit, this has decreased my bilateral trochanteric bursitis enough that I no longer feel like I need the regular cortisol shots I’ve been getting.  While I’ve exercised the muscles, as suggested by a physical therapist who did not want me to get the shots, it was the combination of both strengthening and increasing flexibility that has settled this very chronic, very painful condition down to something very manageable.  While bursitis and fibromyalgia are two completely different conditions, management may not be so different.