Your hypermobility-friendly guide to yoga- a journey through movement

I used to go to yoga, overstretch and wonder why my joints wouldn't support me the next day. Now, I have learned how to care for my hypermobile joints and use yoga as a tool to help manage my hypermobility. I'm here to help you do the same.

Here's your hypermobility-friendly guide to yoga:

Regulate your nervous system

The first thing people think about when it comes to supporting hypermobility is joint support. And yes, knowing how to support your joints through any movement practice really helps, but your joints will likely be reluctant to work with you if you haven't set the foundation.

The prevalence of fight or flight mode in the hypermobile population is HUGE. There are several reasons for this, but the one that is most relevant to yoga is proprioceptive feedback. When non- hypermobile people extend their joints, they will naturally meet an end range of motion. This is where their body is saying 'STOP- it's not safe to extend any further!' The body usually then stops that joint from hyperextending, either by tightening the muscles around the joint to make it physically impossible, or sending pain signals to the brain making the person reduce the intensity of their stretch. If the body is pushed past these limits, it can result in an injury.

With hypermobility, we often lack this proprioceptive feedback and don't receive that 'STOP' signal. Our joints go past a 'safe' range of motion without giving us any indication that we are hyperextending. And while your brain is telling you it must be fine (it doesn't hurt, after all) your nervous system is not being fooled. Your nervous system is receiving the message that your joint has gone beyond a 'safe' range of motion and therefore perceives there to be a threat. This then puts your nervous system on high alert (aka fight or flight mode).

It makes sense, then, that if we are hyperextending consistently throughout the day, the body is receiving more and more 'threat' signals and ends up staying in survival mode for a prolonged period of time. The body responds to this by bracing (making the muscles around your joints tense and become tight). Now, when you try to move, instead of being super flexible, it just hurts and you end up being more likely to injure yourself.

Which is why supporting hypermobility through movement starts BEFORE the actual movements themselves. Taking the time to tell your nervous system that it's okay, that it's safe and it doesn't need to brace anymore is SO IMPORTANT (and literal injury prevention). You can do this by using any of the nervous system regulation techniques that work for you (doing a breathing exercise, tapping, shaking it out, rocking).

Use props

I avoided using props in my yoga practice for a really long time. I used to think that props were only to help people get further into yoga poses, and I was hypermobile enough not to need help with that. I could go so far into all the poses using my body's flexibility alone that I thought I didn't need props.

It took until my yoga teacher training for me to realise that props are useful for everyone. But for the hypermobile population, they are near enough essential. Props provide extra support to our joints. They prevent hyperextension by giving us external proprioceptive feedback cues, letting us know where our bodies are in space. As mentioned above, this helps our nervous systems enter a state of safety, literally helping us to relax into each pose.

Examples of how you can use props in your yoga practice include putting a bolster under your knees in baddhakonasana (butterfly) or dandasana (staff pose). You can see other examples here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DMnuvtos8oi/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Prioritise movement over stillness

If there's one thing I've learned learnt about the hypermobile community, it's that we all know how to spot a fellow zebra in the wild. Always fidgeting, can't sit still, constantly trying to find a movement that eases some kind of pain.

We have often been socially conditioned to view constant movement as a 'bad' thing. It's always 'why can't you sit still?' or 'stop fidgeting'. For a hypermobile person, this can be a really damaging message. Our bodies need movement more than the average person (especially where ADHD hyperactivity is involved). Being in motion tells us where we are in space- something non-hypermobile people get internal feedback on without movement.

When our bodies are not receiving that feedback and don't know where we are in space, our nervous systems panic. This is why I personally struggle to practice yoga styles such as a more traditional restorative or yin- the practices where you're expected to hold poses in stillness for a prolonged period of time.

However, over-doing one type of motion can overwork your muscles and joints, which can make injuries more likely. You ideally want a mixture of different types of movement. These include side bends, twists, and flows between extension & flexion (in and out movements) and elevation & depression (up and down movements). And as always, staying within a pain free range of motion. Our bodies know what they are doing, they know what they need. Our job is to learn to trust them.

Focus on stabilising and strengthening

People love to tell the hypermobile population that they 'shouldn't be doing yoga'. When questioned on why, the most common response I get is 'because it's not safe'. And while I wouldn't advise someone extremely hypermobile to rock up to a class without either knowing that the teacher is trained in hypermobility or knowing how to manage it themselves, I also believe that it is very possible for us to practice safely and easily and even for it to help us manage our hypermobility if taught in an informed way.

So how do you make sure you're moving safely? The main goal of yoga for hypermobility is preventing hyperextension. When I first started consciously adapting my practice for my hypermobility, this was far more of a mental battle than a physical one. I had to learn what a 'normal' range of movement looked like and then remember to do this in each and every pose, correcting my joints when they popped back into hyperextension.

I consciously prioritised focusing on controlled movements by reigning back stretches from my natural end-range. After a while of doing this, my body started to learn where my joints 'should' be. Gradually, I was able to stay for longer and longer in each pose without my joints becoming unstable and popping back into the default mode of hyperextension. I was enhancing my sense of proprioception and gaining stability along the way.

When you have a basic knowledge of anatomy, it's easy to understand why this is the case. Essentially, me manually putting my joints where they needed to be was, in turn, strengthening the muscles around my joints. This then created more in- built support and made it easier to achieve stability.

I realised that in order to maintain this stability, not just in yoga but also during everyday tasks, I needed to do some strength work. I couldn't really be bothered to go to the gym and do a 'standard workout' so I began to incorporate gentle strength work into my yoga practice.

I started to shift my view of what 'counted' as yoga. I began to slow down movements such as lowering from plank, add movements such as lifting my back knee just slightly off the floor when in low lunge, and adding reps of these strengthening movements throughout my practice. (Of course, this has to be worked up to gradually and only after stability has been achieved.)

Work with your body

It is very easy to feel like your body is working against you. Believe me, I've been there-everything you do to be 'healthy' seems to end up backfiring on you. Believe it or not, your body wants to work with you. It will tell you if something feels good or not- either in the moment or after it. Learning to listen to these cues, figuring out what it is specifically that your body doesn't like and responding to them, really is the key to moving pain- free with hypermobility.