How Hypermobile Bodies Are Special
At Ascend, we believe your body is unique, and that’s especially true if you have hypermobility. If you’ve ever been told you’re “too flexible” or wondered why your joints feel wobbly, unstable, or just different, you’re not alone. About 20% of the population has generalized joint hypermobility (Eccles et al., 2024), but no two hypermobile bodies are exactly the same.
At its core, hypermobility means your connective tissues—the stuff that holds your joints together—are looser than average. This allows for greater range of motion but often comes at the cost of less built-in joint stability. Some types of hypermobility extend beyond just the joints and affect other connective tissues in the body, including those that regulate blood vessel function—which is why some hypermobile people also experience symptoms like dizziness, fatigue, or circulation issues.
But hypermobility isn’t just about joints. Your nervous system is in on it, too.
Your Body’s GPS System Works Differently
Proprioception—the ability to sense where your body is in space without looking—works a little differently in hypermobile individuals. Because the joints don’t provide the same resistance or feedback, the brain has less reliable data to work with. This can lead to:
✅ Coordination challenges (often described as clumsiness)
✅ Differences in walking or running mechanics
✅ A unique relationship with muscle tension
Recent research even suggests a link between hypermobility and differences in brain structure, particularly in areas that process emotion and body awareness (Eccles et al., 2024). One emerging concept is proprioceptive surprise—when your brain predicts how a movement should feel, but because of your joint mobility, it doesn’t match reality. That mismatch can feel jarring and even contribute to feelings of anxiety or stress.
Why Hypermobile Bodies Feel "Tight" (Even When They’re Not)
One of the most common reasons hypermobile people come to Ascend is because they feel tight, tense, or constantly aching—but traditional stretching doesn’t seem to help (or even makes things worse).
Here’s why:
💡 If your muscles feel tight, it’s often not because they’re short—it’s because they’re holding on for dear life to stabilize your joints. Stretching that muscle away? That could make you feel even less stable and more uncomfortable.
💡 Some hypermobile people tighten up their muscles subconsciously to create more sensory feedback. If your body isn’t giving you enough information about where you are in space, increasing muscle tension is one way to make things feel more “real.” Stretching won’t fix that—it’s like turning down the volume on the only signal your brain is getting.
Hypermobility, Trauma & the Medical Gaslighting Problem
There’s something else we need to talk about. Hypermobility is over-represented in people who are:
✔ Autistic
✔ ADHDers
✔ Assigned female at birth
✔ Living with mental health conditions (Csecs, 2021)
And these groups also experience higher rates of medical dismissal, stigma, and trauma. Many hypermobile individuals have spent years being told:
❌ “You’re just not exercising right.”
❌ “You need to stretch more.”
❌ “It’s all in your head.”
This leads to chronic pain, frustration, and often, a deep distrust of the medical system. If you’ve ever felt like no one was listening, we hear you. At Ascend, we don’t dismiss pain—we help you understand it and give you the tools to work with your body, not against it.
From Bendy to Brawny: What You Can Do
Here’s the good news: Research shows that the right kind of exercise can reduce pain, build strength, and improve quality of life in hypermobile individuals (Daman et al., 2019; Zabriskie et al., 2022). The key is training in a way that supports joint stability, proprioception, and nervous system regulation.
This is exactly what we do in Bendy to Brawny—our 14-week strength training program designed specifically for hypermobile bodies. You don’t need to just “deal with it.” You can move, train, and live with more confidence, less pain, and a body that works for you.
Ready to get started? Let’s talk about how we make that happen. 🚀
References:
Eccles, J. A., Quadt, L., Garfinkel, S. N., & Critchley, H. D. (2024). A model linking emotional dysregulation in neurodivergent people to the proprioceptive impact of joint hypermobility. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 379(1908), 20230247. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2023.0247
Csecs JLL, Dowell NG, Savage GK, Iodice V, Mathias CJ, Critchley HD, Eccles JA. Variant connective tissue (joint hypermobility) and dysautonomia are associated with multimorbidity at the intersection between physical and psychological health. Am J Med Genet C Semin Med Genet. 2021 Dec;187(4):500-509. doi: 10.1002/ajmg.c.31957. Epub 2021 Nov 22. PMID: 34806825.
Daman M, Shiravani F, Hemmati L, Taghizadeh S. The effect of combined exercise therapy on knee proprioception, pain intensity and quality of life in patients with hypermobility syndrome: A randomized clinical trial. J Bodyw Mov Ther. 2019 Jan;23(1):202-205. doi: 10.1016/j.jbmt.2017.12.012. Epub 2017 Dec 15. PMID: 30691753.
Zabriskie H. A. (2022). Rationale and Feasibility of Resistance Training in hEDS/HSD: A Narrative Review. Journal of functional morphology and kinesiology, 7(3), 61. https://doi.org/10.3390/jfmk7030061
