MANAGING HYPERMOBILITY
Building Strength & Stability
Understanding how strength, control and gradual loading can help support hypermobile bodies and build confidence in movement.
HOW YOUR BODY CREATES STABILITY
Stability is something your whole body creates.
Your body doesn't rely on one structure to keep you stable. Stability comes from different systems working together to support and control movement.
Passive support comes from structures such as ligaments, joint capsules and other connective tissues, which help provide restraint without needing to actively contract.
Active support comes from muscles producing force around and across joints.
Your nervous system helps coordinate this — using sensory information about position and movement to organise when, where and how much muscular activity is needed.
These systems aren't working separately. They work together to create the support and control your body needs as you move through the world.
ADD GRAPHIC: These systems work together — the contribution of each can vary between people, joints, positions and activities.
WHEN PASSIVE SUPPORT IS DIFFERENT
This balance can look different in a hypermobile body.
For people with symptomatic hypermobility, connective tissues may provide less passive restraint and support. This contributes to greater movement and can mean that the other parts of the stability system have more work to do.
But muscular strength is one element that we can influence.
By building strength, coordination and control, we can give the body more active support and more capacity to manage movement and load.
But there is an important limit to what strengthening can do.
we can't make better connective tissue…
We can build more support around our body, but strengthening can't replace the connective tissue we started with.
Strength isn't a cure for hypermobility. It's one of the tools we can use to give our bodies as much support as possible through the systems we can influence.
Being strong doesn't mean you'll never experience instability, pain or injury — and needing other forms of support doesn't negate the strength you've built.
BUILDING CONTROL
You don't need more range. You need more control.
Hypermobile bodies often have access to plenty of movement… duh we know this, we’re hyper-mobile!
Strength and stability work can help us develop the ability to produce force and maintain control through the ranges that matter to us.
That might initially mean working in a smaller or more supported range, then gradually exploring different positions, loads and ranges as control develops.
It doesn't mean end-range movement is inherently dangerous, or that every joint needs to stay perfectly “neutral”.
The aim is to build the support and control you need to move with more confidence, capacity and choice.
EXERCISE PRINCIPLES FOR HYPERMOBILE BODIES
Some ways of moving can be particularly useful when we're building strength, stability and control.
There isn't one type of exercise that every hypermobile person should be doing.
But there are some exercise principles that can be particularly useful when we're trying to build strength, body awareness and control.
1. ISOMETRIC LOADING
Building force without needing lots of movement.
What it is
An isometric contraction happens when a muscle produces force without much change in joint position.
Think: pushing into a wall, holding a bridge, pressing your hand into resistance, holding a calf raise, or resisting a movement without actually letting the joint move.
Why it can help
Isometrics allow us to load muscles while keeping the joint relatively still. That can make them particularly useful when movement through range is currently provocative, when you're learning to find muscular support around an area, or when you want to introduce load in a controlled position.
They can also be useful in tendon rehabilitation. Some people experience short-term pain relief following isometric loading, although this response is not universal, and research hasn't found isometrics consistently superior to other forms of tendon loading.
For some people, isometrics can also be a useful symptom-management tool — a way of giving an irritable area some muscular input and load without asking it to move repeatedly through a provocative range.
How it might look
Isometrics don't necessarily require a formal workout.
They can be incorporated into a rehabilitation or strength program, used as a starting point for an irritable area, or scattered through everyday life when that works for you.
You might press your hands together at your desk, hold against a resistance band, push into a wall — or, if you're anything like me, remember your wrist exercises while sitting at a red light.
Small amounts of useful movement still count.
2. CLOSED-CHAIN MOVEMENT
Building control with some external support and feedback.
What it is
In a closed-chain exercise, the hand or foot is in contact with a relatively fixed surface.
Think: squats, bridges, wall push-ups, step-ups or weight-bearing through your hands.
Why it can help
Closed-chain exercises often involve multiple muscles working together around a joint and provide sensory information through contact with the ground, wall or another surface.
That's particularly relevant in hypermobility because proprioception and body awareness can be altered, and developing movement control is an important part of rehabilitation. Closed-chain exercise combined with proprioceptive training has improved knee proprioception and pain in a small randomised trial involving people with hypermobility syndrome. PubMed
How it might look
Closed-chain movements can provide a useful place to develop control and confidence before adding movements that require more freedom, coordination or control through space.
Open-chain exercise matters too.
When the hand or foot is free to move through space, the body has to produce and control movement differently. These exercises can help build strength and control throughout the ranges we actually use.
For some people, beginning with more supported or closed-chain movements can make it easier to develop awareness and control before progressing into less-supported movement. For others, open-chain exercise may be appropriate from the beginning.
The progression should follow the person, not a rule.
3. SLOW & CONTROLLED LOADING
Giving your body time to produce and control force.
This is where I think time under tension belongs, but not quite with the rationale you proposed.
What it is
Slowing an exercise down increases the amount of time your muscles spend producing and controlling force during each repetition.
Instead of rushing through ten repetitions, you might deliberately control the lowering phase, pause, and then return.
Why it can help
Slower movement can make it easier to notice positioning, reduce reliance on momentum and practise controlling movement throughout a range.
Increasing time under tension can also make relatively modest resistance challenging — which can be useful when simply adding heavier and heavier loads isn't appropriate or accessible.
How it might look
Try changing the tempo before assuming you need to change the weight.
Slower lowering.
A pause in the middle.
Holding the position briefly.
Moving deliberately through the return.
But — just like everything else on this page — slow isn't inherently better.
If your life or sport involves speed, power or reacting quickly, those are capacities that may eventually deserve training too.
4. PROPRIOCEPTION & BODY AWARENESS
Learning where your body is — without always having to look.
This deserves its own principle, not just mentions scattered through closed-chain.
Proprioception is your ability to sense where your body is positioned and how it is moving.
Altered proprioception has been reported in hypermobility populations, and proprioceptive/balance training features in rehabilitation approaches. PubMed
Why it can help
If it's harder to accurately sense where a joint is, controlling that joint — particularly through a large available range — can become more challenging.
Training body awareness gives the nervous system opportunities to practise recognising positions and coordinating muscular responses.
How it might look
This doesn't necessarily mean standing on increasingly ridiculous unstable surfaces.
It might mean moving slowly enough to notice position, using a mirror or external feedback initially, practising balance, controlling where a joint stops, or gradually reducing the amount of visual or external feedback you need.
5. STRENGTH THROUGH USEFUL RANGE
Building control through movement, not simply avoiding it.
This one is really important for Anasa, because otherwise the section could accidentally teach people to brace, hold and stay in mid-range forever.
What it is
Rather than treating parts of your available range as places you're never allowed to go, strength can gradually be developed through the ranges your body needs.
Why it can help
Hypermobility gives us more available movement. The long-term goal isn't necessarily to avoid that movement altogether — it's to develop the capacity to control and tolerate the ranges that are useful to you.
Evidence in children with symptomatic hypermobility actually found benefits from knee exercise performed into the hypermobile range rather than restricting all training to “neutral” range. That doesn't establish that everybody should train every joint at end range, but it does challenge the idea that hypermobile range is inherently forbidden. Ehlers-Danlos Society
How it might look
You might initially work in a range where you feel confident and controlled, then gradually explore further range as strength and awareness develop.
For someone else, full-range movement may already be completely appropriate.
Again:
The progression follows the person.
STRETCHING A HYPERMOBILE BODY
Feeling tight doesn't always mean you need to stretch.
Sometimes that tightness is coming from muscles that are working hard, are fatigued, or are trying to contribute to stability.
And this can create a frustrating cycle:
You feel tight → you stretch → it feels better temporarily → you feel tight again → so you stretch even further.
When you have a large amount of available joint movement, you may need to move through a considerable amount of range before you actually feel the muscle you're trying to stretch.
Sometimes the movement ends up coming predominantly from the already-mobile joint rather than effectively targeting the muscle.
ACTIVE vs PASSIVE STRETCHING
ACTIVE vs PASSIVE STRETCHING
Passive stretching uses an external force — gravity, body weight, your hand, a strap or another person — to move you into range.
Active mobility asks your muscles to create and control the movement.
For a body that already has plenty of passive range, building active control can sometimes be more useful than continually chasing more passive flexibility.
If you're looking for temporary relief from muscular tightness rather than more range, you might prefer heat, massage, a foam roller, massage ball or other comfortable soft-tissue strategies that don't require taking the joint further into range.
These may help the sensation of tightness, but they don't necessarily address why the muscle is working hard. Strength, load, recovery and support may still need consideration.
Sometimes the muscles that feel tight are also working hard to help you feel stable.
PROGRESSING STRENGTH
Progress doesn't always mean adding more weight.
Our bodies adapt when they're given an appropriate challenge and enough opportunity to recover.
Progress might involve more resistance, more repetitions, a different range, less support, greater complexity or eventually more speed.
But harder isn't automatically better.
Better control at the same load is progress. Recovering more easily is progress. Returning after a flare is progress. Maintaining your capacity during a difficult period is progress too.
We'll explore this more in Managing Load, Energy & Recovery.
FINDING MOVEMENT THAT WORKS FOR YOU
The “best” exercise has to work for the person actually doing it.
Movement might look like lifting weights, Pilates, swimming, cycling, climbing, dancing, yoga, pole, resistance bands, gardening, sport or exercising at home.
But if you hate the movement you're doing and have to continually force yourself through it, it's probably not going to be particularly sustainable. Enjoyment matters. And your brain gets a say too.
You might need routine or novelty. Music or silence. Company or solitude. A detailed program or as little setup as humanly possible.
All of this is useful information about how to make movement workable for you.
Your starting point matters too. One hypermobile person might currently be rebuilding tolerance with small amounts of supported movement, while another might be lifting heavy weights, climbing or competing in sport.
Hypermobility doesn't automatically mean beginner exercise. Start with the body and capacity you actually have.
Exercise doesn't have to be something you dread in order to be doing your body good.
BUILDING STRENGTH FOR YOUR LIFE
The goal isn't to become good at rehabilitation.
Strength is useful because of what it allows you to do.
Getting off the floor. Carrying your shopping. Working. Walking further. Gardening. Picking up your child. Dancing. Going to the gym. Returning to sport. Having more energy left for the rest of your life.
Different lives require different kinds of strength.
You don't need to build somebody else's version of a strong body. You are building support and capacity for your body & your life.
The point isn't strength for strength's sake. It's having more capacity for the things that matter to you.
WHEN MOVEMENT HURTS
Pain is information, not a test you have to pass.
If a movement hurts, that's information.
It might mean changing the load, range, position, speed or amount you're doing. It might mean you need more support or recovery. Or that particular exercise may simply not be the right option right now.
Modify it. Adapt it. Reduce it. Or find another way to work towards the same goal.
If something repeatedly causes significant pain, instability, new symptoms or worsening function, stop and reassess rather than continuing to push through it.