A different body might need a different strategy.
Maybe you’ve always been the flexible one: the splits, the elbows that bend a little too far, the ankle you rolled and kept dancing on.
Maybe you’re also always tight, your joints have their own soundtrack, and you’ve been stretching the same muscles for years with very little to show for it.
I’m Em: physical therapist, former professional dancer, and someone who spent a long time wondering why her body seemed to follow a different set of rules.
Below is what I’ve learned, in plain language.
IF THAT SOUNDS FAMILIAR, this page is for you.
Photo sequence placeholder
Your multi-photo sequence, full width.
Maybe. A few of these might ring a bell:
01
PALMS TO THE FLOOR.
You can fold forward and lay your hands flat without bending your knees. Or you used to.
02
THE THUMB TRICK.
You can bend your thumb back until it touches your forearm.
03
PARTY TRICKS.
As a kid, you could do the splits or twist into shapes that made your friends squirm.
04
IT POPPED OUT. AGAIN.
A kneecap or shoulder slipped out of place more than once growing up.
05
“DOUBLE-JOINTED.”
You’ve been calling yourself this since grade school.
06
CHILDHOOD “GROWING PAINS.”
Leg aches you were told you’d outgrow.
07
THE ANKLE THAT KEEPS ROLLING.
You’ve lost count of the sprains.
08
IT RUNS IN THE FAMILY.
A parent or sibling bends the same way you do.
QUICK SCREEN
SAID YES TO TWO OR MORE OF THE FIRST FIVE?
That’s the same quick screen clinicians use to flag hypermobility.
None of these automatically means you’re hypermobile, or that hypermobility is behind your symptoms. Together, though, they can form a pattern worth asking about, and the answers can change how you approach your body.
Cards 01–05 adapted from the Hakim-Graham Five-Part Questionnaire (2003). Card 06: Viswanathan & Khubchandani, 2008. Card 07: J Foot Ankle Res, 2014. Card 08: 2017 International Classification of the Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes.
For most of my life I assumed everyone’s body worked more or less like mine.
I knew I was “double-jointed.” My elbows went a little past straight, my knees looked unusually straight, and as a dancer I could get into positions people found impressive. A lot of them didn’t feel impressive to me. I worked hard for my splits, but I never trained my shoulder mobility. People would marvel at my scorpion while I was thinking the hardest part was holding onto my foot.
When I went to PT for a hip flexor injury, I’d demonstrate my range and hear how impressive it was. Meanwhile I was thinking, That’s my bad side. Can we talk about why it hurts?
I also assumed dancers with less impressive feet just needed to point harder.
Then I started studying anatomy and assessing real joints, and it finally clicked: some people’s joints genuinely don’t move that far. PT school gave me the vocabulary and hands-on experience to explain what I’d been noticing for years.
Being able to recognize hypermobility raised a bigger question, though: Okay, now what do I actually do about it?
That question shaped how I think about movement, exercise, and physical therapy. Moving farther doesn’t mean you can control that movement, tolerate the demands placed on it, or feel comfortable there. Most of my work happens in that gap.
A TRAIT
JOINT HYPERMOBILITY
Greater-than-typical movement at one or more joints.
A TRAIT
GENERALIZED JOINT HYPERMOBILITY
Increased movement across multiple joints.
A DIAGNOSIS
HSD
Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder. A diagnosis for symptomatic joint hypermobility that meets relevant clinical criteria and isn’t better explained by another condition.
A DIAGNOSIS
hEDS
Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. A heritable connective tissue disorder diagnosed with specific clinical criteria that look at much more than flexibility.
Not everyone who’s hypermobile has HSD or hEDS. A high Beighton score (a common screening tool for joint hypermobility) can’t diagnose either one on its own.
A physical therapist can assess your mobility, strength, coordination, symptoms, and function, and flag when further medical evaluation makes sense. A label can be useful, but what matters more is understanding what’s going on so you can make informed decisions about your care.
One of my favorite questions. You can put your palms flat on the floor and fold into positions that make other people wince, and your hamstrings still feel like concrete.
Feeling tight and having limited range of motion are two different things. Tightness is a sensation, shaped by muscle activity, fatigue, pain sensitivity, habitual movement strategies, and training load, among other things. Some people’s muscles may ramp up activity around joints that are harder to control, but tightness on its own doesn’t prove your body is guarding an unstable joint.
Sometimes a hypermobile person really does have a restriction: very mobile hips with limited ankle dorsiflexion, for example, or a mobile spine with stiff shoulders. That’s why feeling tight doesn’t automatically earn you more stretching from me.
Stretching isn’t bad for hypermobile people, and I’m not going to tell you to stop. If you’ve stretched the same spot every day for years and nothing has changed, though, it’s worth asking what you’re trying to change. Is there a true mobility restriction? Do you want short-term relief? Are you chasing a specific performance position? Or would strength, endurance, or coordination be a better place to start?
Massage works the same way. It can feel great and help in the moment, but short-term relief doesn’t explain why the discomfort keeps coming back. For a lot of bendy people, the real work is learning to use the range they already have.
FEELING TIGHT DOESN’T NECESSARILY MEAN A MUSCLE IS short.
Tightness can be influenced by muscle activity, fatigue, sensitivity, and how your body responds to movement.
Sometimes there’s a genuine restriction. Other times, improving strength or coordination may be more useful than chasing additional flexibility.
This section is for my dancers, gymnasts, cheerleaders, yogis, and naturally bendy humans.
Photo: available range (passive / end range)
How far a joint can go, with help from gravity, momentum, or your hand. Control gets harder out near the edge, so bodies often brace, grip, or hang on passive structures. That’s often where “tight” shows up.
Photo: usable range (active / controlled)
How far you can go on your own and still hold, move, and add load, with muscles doing the work. With training, more of your available range becomes usable.
KNOWING WHERE YOU ARE.
Your body’s sense of joint position and movement. Some hypermobile people have sharp position sense and some find it fuzzier. Either way, you can train it.
WHERE YOU TEND TO REST.
Locked knees, sinking into one hip. These habits feel normal and aren’t automatically harmful. Standing another way will feel like work at first, because your muscles are picking up the job.
OWNING THE EDGES.
You’re allowed to use end range. We train you to get there on purpose, with muscle instead of momentum, so you have more options when your activity asks for them.
Somewhere along the way, a lot of hypermobile people got the message that their future is tiny corrective exercises: clamshells and resistance bands forever, nothing challenging, ever. No thank you.
Those exercises have a purpose, but they’re a starting point. Strength training builds the capacity to handle daily life, exercise, work, and sport.
START LOW, GO SLOW
We might start with isometrics, a smaller range, or lighter resistance, then build from there. Expect progress over months.
WHAT IF IT FLARES?
A flare doesn’t automatically mean injury. We look at what you felt, how long it lasted, and how you recovered, then adjust. New or worsening symptoms get a medical check.
In people with HSD or hEDS, symptoms sometimes involve more than one body system: fatigue, gastrointestinal concerns, orthostatic symptoms, pelvic health concerns, and differences in certain tissue characteristics. Not every hypermobile person has these, and having them doesn’t mean hypermobility is the cause. They can still be important parts of the clinical picture.
THE PART PEOPLE MISS
YOU DON’T NEED A FORMAL DIAGNOSIS TO START WORKING ON STRENGTH, CONTROL, AND confidence.
You don’t need to analyze your joints all day, and you definitely don’t need to be afraid of movement. Start with a few questions:
Which activities matter to you? Which movements feel comfortable, and which don’t? What have you tried, and what actually helped? Are you dealing with recurring symptoms, or just curious why your body moves the way it does?
If you have persistent pain, recurring injuries, functional limitations, or symptoms involving other body systems, a clinical evaluation can sort out what needs attention. That might mean physical therapy, a physician, or other specialists. For some people, the most useful first step is learning that extra flexibility doesn’t mean something is wrong.
The Ehlers-Danlos Society
Information on EDS, HSD, diagnostic criteria, and education.
Hypermobility Syndromes Association
Patient education and practical resources for symptomatic hypermobility.
Dysautonomia International
Education on autonomic conditions and orthostatic symptoms.
KEEP LEARNING WITH EXTEND WITH EM
Dance & Performing Arts
Mobility, strength, control, and the demands of performance.
Pelvic Health
What pelvic floor PT actually involves, and how pelvic symptoms can connect to the rest of the body.
Hypermobility Articles & Resources
Movement education, exercise modification, recovery, and building strength.
Looking for a physical therapist who understands movement science and what it’s like to live in a bendy body? I’d love to help you make sense of yours.
WORK WITH ME ->
Educational content only. This page is not a diagnostic tool or a substitute for individualized medical advice.
