13. Neck Pain & Hypermobility: Why You’re Not Fragile (and What Actually Helps)

If you have hypermobility and live with ongoing neck pain, it’s easy to feel confused, frustrated, or even afraid to move.

In this episode, April and Laura unpack why neck pain is so common in people with hypermobility and why it doesn’t mean you’re fragile, broken, or destined for pain.

They discuss how ligament laxity, reduced proprioception, muscle fatigue, posture, and nervous system sensitivity all contribute to neck symptoms, and why common advice like excessive stretching or neck cracking can sometimes make things worse.

This conversation focuses on what actually helps long-term:
 ✔️ building strength and control
 ✔️ improving proprioception
 ✔️ understanding pain as a protective signal, not damage
 ✔️ using a graded, whole-body approach to rehab
 ✔️ recognising red flags and knowing when to seek further assessment

Most importantly, this episode reframes hypermobility from something to fear into something that can be managed — and even become a strength — with the right plan and support.

If you’ve been told to “just be careful” or feel unsure about how to move safely with hypermobility, this episode is for you.

Disclaimer: Before making any health changes, consult with a healthcare professional.

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Transcript

April: 0:05

Welcome to the RX Physiotherapy Podcast, your go-to destination for all things physio, rehab, health and wellness. I'm April Patterson

Laura: 0:14

and Laura,

April: 0:16

and each week we will dive deep into fascinating topics within the health world. From physiotherapy to nutrition and beyond. We cover it all. So

Laura: 0:25

sit back, relax, and enjoy the journey as we explore the exciting world of health and wellness. Let's get started.

April: 0:33

Hi everyone. It's um, April and Laura here. Today we're gonna be going through a episode on neck pain and hypermobility. We're just gonna talk through some things to consider with hypermobility and neck pain and, uh, just talk through some of our clinical experience. So we have Laura with us today. She is one of our physiotherapists at RX Physio, as you would've seen on our social media, and I'll just pass her over to introduce herself.

Laura: 1:01

Hello everyone. Uh, my name is Laura and I've been a physio for a few years now. I've done a few years in private practice and I've been here at RX Physio for a bit over a year. Uh, so looking forward to chatting about hyper mobility and neck pain today. Love it.

April: 1:15

And Laura's one of these people who has the phenotype of hyper mobility, but because she's been so strong and active her whole life, she's had very minimal musculoskeletal injuries from it. So it's. I think it's really important to highlight because there's so much online that makes it seem like if you have hyper mobility, that you just are destined to live a life of pain and it's not always the case. So I think it's really great to have you as an example with that too, Laura. Yeah. Okay. So we're gonna start with what is hypermobility and why the neck is different in hypermobility. So. With the neck, you've got excess ligament laxity, and it just means that the joints are relying on the muscles and their nervous system for stability more. And because the cervical spine is such a, a highly mobile and load, uh, an area that is loaded with everything that we do, symptoms show up much sooner. And there's an even more of a reliance on proprioception, which is impaired with heart mobility as well. So this altogether. Combined with, there's some really important structures that go through the neck, the nervous system, the blood vessels, all the cranial nerves. It's just an area that has a lot of complexity, and when you add in that excess ligament laxity, it can just bring on a lot more symptoms that we see in the general population, but to an more extreme of that. Yeah. So Laura, why do you think neck pain is so common in the black motor

Laura: 2:58

population? So, as you've mentioned, you've got that excess ligament laxity, which is meaning that our muscles are overworking to compensate for this, and this is gonna lead to a lot of fatigue in the neck area. And you get the development of trigger points, which can be a source of pain for some people. Uh, you also got, uh, like you mentioned as well, that reduced proprioception. So there's. More fatigue and more work with those muscles in general. And you can have that increased, uh, sheer forces along the joints due to the laxity, which can be a size of pain as well. And it's also more common with people, particularly in our EDS populations, so hyper mobile ls, d course, uh, populations. You've got autonomic and sensory sensitivity, which is more common. And this can also imply the pain. Those signals are becoming more sensitive, which can make that experience. Of, of discomfort increased.

April: 3:52

That all makes lots of sense. I think let's go now and talk about, um, the joints or ligaments and the muscles, um, and, uh, well related to hypermobility as well. So ligaments, because they're so flexible, they're not able to act as a passive stability in the same way with someone who has, um, typical connective tissue. And therefore you can think of it like a stretchy pair of jeans versus rigid. The stretchy pair of jeans is only gonna go so far and it's gonna give a lot more stability because of that. Whereas a stretchy pair of jeans just gonna keep going to the point where much further than a rigid pair of jeans would, and it just means that that muscular system's working so much harder to mitigate that. And someone with high mobility just needs so much more. Strength and, um, condition in the muscles to be able to compensate. So one of the things that we see a lot of is that forward head posture. Um, we can even look at, call it military neck, where, and again, we have such a forward, down, forward facing, down lifestyle that you have that straight neck, you got the weak front of the neck, overloaded joints in the back, and then you just see. Really overactive upper traps and um, oid mastoid, which is that big muscle that you feel in the front of your neck that helps you turn your neck. Um, and all of this is just leading to so much muscle tension in the system and even more so, or that it can put a lot of pressure on the nerves as well too, leading to headaches even so much as to some people experience nausea. Um, it really plays havoc on the quality of life. But what's really interesting is that a lot of people come in and tell us that they actually feel really tight, and when you assess them, they actually do look really tight. But the reason for this is that the body is tightening the muscular system just to act as like a protective guard so the muscles aren't short in. In the typical sense where like, you know, you need to stretch and lengthen and do movement to increase the length of the muscle, they're actually purposely making themselves tight for that stability. And what we've seen a lot of is that the nervous system is doing this to protect you. It's not doing it for a random reason. So we need to be quite careful with how much we actually get your muscles to relax because they are trying to help you. It's more about building that strength long term. Have you seen any clients reasonable with that sort of situation?

Laura: 6:39

Yeah, absolutely. I see it, um, all the time, especially you see in those upper trap fibers. There's just so much tension and tightness. Even though your range of motion is more than what I would say is a normal range of motion. They go through full range of motion, those muscles feeling really tight, but they're still giving you functional movement and I find it's really common in students and office workers as well, any sort of sedentary. Position where you're sitting down all day and those muscles having to work so much to hold our neck, still trying to stabilize that neck. So yeah, uh, I absolutely see it very common and, uh. As we'll talk more about later on in this episode, we'll talk about the strength training and, and the benefits of postural control and strength training as opposed to a long stretching, which is a lot of physios in the past might have prescribed. Definitely switching more to that strength based rehabilitation to try and improve both, uh, strength and prop reception of those muscles so they're not having to work so hard and not giving our patients so much pain. Yeah.

April: 7:42

Yeah. No, and it's so interesting when you start looking at the muscular fatigue and like the sensitization side of things as well too, when you've got a muscular system that's just so overworked because it's having to stabilize extra flexible joints and the reduced proprioception, which is your body's ability to know where it is in space. So for a good example is for like the average person, if they bend their finger back, they can only go so far and the body says you're at end of range. Whereas for us, our body's waiting for that signal to say I'm at end of range, but now my finger's like, you know, way further back. So our body just doesn't get that cue of like, this is where I should stop moving to protect myself. So the muscles are working so hard, we constantly have to compensate for that as well, which ends in us having a much higher chance of. Of pain and protective measures, which then can lead into limiting movement and then just get weaker as well. And it can be like a vicious cycle at times. But yeah, one myth is that stretching, it might feel good in the moment, but it's more of a short term pain relief and it doesn't create that stability that they're needing. Therefore, it's kind of keeping that vicious cycle as well. What's your thoughts on, um, stretching with hypermobility?

Laura: 9:06

That is a great question. Uh, definitely stretching past the limit can overstretch those ligaments, which we already know are already quite lax, so we don't wanna overstretch the ligaments. Uh, like it can be a useful tool for providing some temporary relief, but I always say getting into some strength training, particularly starting with some isometric work just to build your awareness and space or your proprioception first so your body knows, oh, this is a. Safe and comfortable range to be in. Uh, and then, but yeah, if you're overstretching, you're gonna just increase that laxity, which is then just going to, 'cause some people make your symptoms worse. So yeah, it's very case by case. But in general, I a little bit of gentle stretching for short term pain relief, but I wouldn't do those sustained really long holds. How about you? What do you think about it?

April: 9:53

Yeah, I agree. I think that it's good you made that distinction. I think that. It's okay to do some stretching within range just to help those muscles stop being so fiercely tired and angry. But yeah, holding at that end of range is, or just gonna be stretching those already over well, tissues that have too much mobility in general. And if you don't have strength through that range, then you're vulnerable the more range you get. Yeah. One thing that. I've had quite a few clients come in and say that they've had their necks cracked. And this is one thing I'm actually really, really passionate about is that it's actually really risky when you have hyper mobility that it can put a lot of pressure on all the nervous system and the blood vessels. And if you don't have someone that's trained in hypermobility, it's just my opinion, I would never let anyone touch my neck, never let anyone crack my neck or do a manipulation unless they were. Very clearly trained as this, uh, in a DS. Yeah. What are some of the more red flags that people can, or even just indicators that someone might be hypermobile in, say. The neck in particular.

Laura: 11:05

Yeah. So most common, uh, red flags that I'll be looking for is any sort of neurological symptoms. Um, I'm looking as well for things that we might need to look, refer a specialist for. So things like night pain or a headache, it just doesn't stop, uh, radiculopathy, which is like a pain that shoots down the arm or the leg depending, um, somewhere down the peripheral part of the body. Um, history of trauma is really important to screen for, especially in acute neck pain. We just wanna rule out any fractures or, um, damage there from acute trauma, like a car accident or a football rugby tackle, or a fall hitting the head sort of thing. We just wanna rule out and make sure that there's. We've rule out all of those things before we look into that hyper mobility rehabilitation. Yeah. Um, you also wanna look in particular for referring on for scans and things like that, which we tend to not need scans, but if we do in hyper mobility, it can be important to look for dizziness. Uh, especially episodes of fainting looking out things like pot symptoms where you stand up really quickly and you get a lot of dizziness. Um, and you wanna look at just for individual disturbs and these things are really important to bring up with your doctor or your physio if you're seeing them as well, just to make sure they're aware and they've got them there in the background.

April: 12:18

No, I definitely agree with that. I think, um, testing the table artery if you are going to a physio is really important. Just it having that extra flexibility in the first few levels of the spine. Um. Can mean that there's chances that there's more pressure on that part of, um, your anatomy. So getting that cleared before you have anyone touch your neck as well too. And one of the ways that you do that is you go to your end of a range. So you turn and you look towards one direction. Use your hand, push slightly over, do this with a physio, don't do this by yourself. And just get them to clear if you have any sort of increased symptoms that Laura mentioned before, because. If there is any, uh, t artery involvement, that is something that you wanna know about and get tested.'cause it can cause

Laura: 13:09

and definitely no cracking

April: 13:11

if you have that.

Laura: 13:12

Yes.

April: 13:12

No cracking,

Laura: 13:13

ruling out the cracking.

April: 13:15

No cracking. So true because that artery supplies a, the large part of your brain. And, uh, if there is compression through there, um, it can cause brain fog, it's a symptom. Or you can have like sudden drop of packs. I've had clients where. They've been sitting in bed and all they do is they move their head back and they faint and they've like rotated and compressed that artery on one side and it's caused that blackout symptom. So, um, this is something that you wanna be aware of 'cause there's things you can put in place to protect yourself from, um, with a serious stuff. So, let's go through now and talk about why strength's so important in the bills.

Laura: 13:52

Obviously you've got a lot, all your hands on techniques, which can be great temporary. Solutions to some, some pain and chronic pain in particular in the neck. Heat pack, massage, gentle mobilization. Some people find dry nibbling and cupping effective and taping. But again, we find these are all temporary solutions. Yeah. So they'll give you that temporary leave to allow you to do what's actually going to give you that long term benefit. Yeah, and there's so many studies back it up are doing strength training both in their shoulders and the neck. Is extremely, and even the call is extremely important and that's, as we say, the medicine to, to help with chronic pain and give you a solution that's not like, you know, you keep seeing someone forever and ever. It's okay. You see a person get those symptoms settled down and then build up a rehabilitation program over. They say it takes double the amount of time for people with hypermobility to build strength. So you are looking at sort of three to six months of regular strength training to reduce your symptoms to a. A really good level to, to manage and improve your quality of life. So the reason it works is because rather than relying on that passive support of those ligaments and and structures where improving our active control, so the use of our muscles and tendons to stabilize and improve our posture, this improves our joint stiffness, our pain tolerance, and tissue capacity, and it just fills that resilience to the daily load. Um, so personally I've been doing strength training now, thankfully, being a physio, I know a little bit about it for about two or three years and I just try to aim for two to three times a week as a minimum, hitting all major parts of the body. And that's really helped me playing soccer, doing triathlons to not inch myself particularly soccer, you get a lot of ankle sprains people rolling their ankles and acls, and by doing that strength training, I'm providing that improved active control to reduce. That, uh, risk of injury, um, and, and reduce any, any pain that could develop from my ligaments having to do all the work. So just trying to build that baseline. So for particular, for neck pain, we're looking at your deep cervical flexors. So doing lots of chin tucks and, and head lifts are lower and mid traps. So doing exercises like a one arm row or a cable row, um, straight arm ball downs and even getting the lap ball downs is really effective. Um, switching on our serus and our rotator cuff muscles as well to give you shoulder. A lot of stability. And I think your, probably your favorite one is the diaphragm and making sure that we, we've got that good core control our, with our breathing. Making sure the muscles are switching on at the right time as well, so we're not just, you know, stretching out the upper traps in the gap. We're also strengthening

April: 16:38

all those, all those other muscles as well. Talk about a bit more about the breathing. I think that's a really good place to start for us with hypermobility.'cause a lot of times we're also quite highly stressed individuals as well, because we've got. Increased, uh, sympathetic tone from having to keep our body up against gravity, uh, whether you have pots or we could go down into that realm. But generally, uh, cortisol is a way to manage your extra hypermobile body and the vascular system to keep you upright against gravity. So a lot of us tend to have a lot of stress just generally from that. Uh, it's also correlated with a DHD and different types of neurodiversity. So getting your breathing under control can put you back into a parasympathetic nervous system, which means that your heart rate isn't going a hundred miles an hour. Yeah. You are able to think more clearly, and we all know that when we're stressed, we tense our muscles in order to cope with that as well. So if someone comes in and they have lots of stress in their life, they're a desk worker and. I can just see that they're breathing all through their chest and all their muscles are so tight from stress and trying to stabilize. Just getting them to work with their diaphragm actually starts to put them into a better position so that we can activate, rethink in the way that it's intended to. But the analogy I really like about strength is if you could lift 10 kilos, one kilo would be easy. You'd be able to do it for long periods of time. If you currently have two kilos, one kilos, and half of that, you are lifting half of your capacity to get tied pretty quick. So strength training just makes you more efficient at life so that your day to day isn't a 10 outta 10. So strength training is the long term, one of the long term best strategies for fatigue 'cause you're making your body more

Laura: 18:30

effective just by increasing that mu muscular strength.

April: 18:35

But yeah. So let's go through just some practical takeaways. Now, one of the things that we start with is getting you into a good position so that your body doesn't have to work as hard to hold your head up against gravity. So if you are sitting with like a neutral posture, which is your ears are in line with your shoulder, then your head will weigh about five to eight kilos. But if you are 60 degrees forward with your head, that weight now goes to 27. So you can see how just the postures that you sit in all day mean that your body actually needs to be way stronger to tolerate that. Um, and there's also been studies to show that if the head is in a forward position, it actually exudes all the blood vessels in the front of the neck as well too. We'll never say that you can't go into a posture. Our body's made to move through all ranges, but just depends how much you're hanging out in that range. And if you're sitting there for hours on end, 'cause you're focused on work and next minute you've got lots of neck pain, um, you feel a bit brain fog, et cetera, it's something that we need to improve for you. So some things you can start off with is getting yourself into that better position with your ears over your shoulder. Sometimes when you first try this, it can be quite uncomfortable through the upper back because the joints have become so stiff into that forward head position that it's uncomfortable to go back. And that's where we can start with some foam rollers. Foam rolling or your physio can help to. Downregulate all of those muscles with some massage cupping needling. And then from there you wanna start to sit with good posture for say 10 minutes of the hour. Your, if you have not been sitting in this posture previously, it will take some time to adapt to. So I think it's always best to start 10 minutes, I mean that's achievable, and then build that up over time. You just wanna avoid like hanging out in those end of ranges for long periods of time. As Laura mentioned before, doing some slow isometric side holds can get those muscles to start activating and building some more strength and proprioception without asking the body to stabilize that joint and move at the same time. So that's usually where we start. We get people into a good position first, and then you wanna start building some isometric strength into all of the joints slowly so that we can start building some stability. Is there anything I've missed with that one that you would focus on at start? Uh,

Laura: 21:05

I think you. Done. That's exactly what I would do to start with. And I've just found recently with a few of my participants, particularly my younger kiddos, um, using a wall and just literally standing back against the wall, putting your head up against the wall to give you that feedback. It's been really helpful. Just something else to add in. Yeah. Um, if you're struggling to. Find that point of, oh, where should my head be sitting in a way to reduce your neck pain. For a lot of people, it's okay to have a little bit of head forward, head posture and it's, it's actually normal, but if you're getting pain, that's where we need to really figure out the cause and definitely recommend seeing someone get it assessed, um, as well to make sure that you are getting, doing the right exercises as well.

April: 21:47

Definitely a hundred percent. And then at the start of your rehab, as we're starting to push into areas that have previously been quite guarded and your body is protective of you and your joints, rightfully uh, the pain. Pain process is the same thing as the anxiety process. It's a survival strategy. If your body is concerned with the integrity of any part of your body, it'll just give you pain so that you self limit. But the body thinks like, how do I survive right now? It doesn't think if I move like this for 20 years, what's gonna happen to me? Uh, in the same ways, if we're anxious about something, we'll want to avoid it, then we can have other negative repercussions from that. So when we think about pain, we always wanna. Listen to our body and thank our body for that pain 'cause it's trying to protect us. And then slowly show it that it's okay to move. And this more than likely results in an increase in pain at the start because your body is going, hold on, we haven't done this in a while. Is this safe? And it, it's trying to work that out. So we just need to push a little bit into pain. Then let our body have more time to recover. So pain is not always bad or predictive of damage. It's a signal that we need to listen to. And this is where having a physiotherapist is worth its weight in goal.'cause you can talk to them and you guys can work through, is this good pain or is this pain that I should be avoiding? Am I doing this right or. Is the technique maybe not correct and the pain is something I should be pushing into. Um, but yeah, so the other thing too is that it's rarely ever just the neck. So when someone comes in with neck pain, one of the first things I actually look at is to see where their hips are. When they're standing and sitting, they go really flat back. Have they got that? Sunken shoulder look and is their neck really flatten out forward?'cause if you're not sitting correctly from your hips, then you are relying on just your neck to hold you up instead of the whole body working together. So the neck is the last thing in the chain, but it is if you don't have that foundation through again, through the other joints, then it can look like the next problem. But it could just be the last thing that can't cope. Um. Yeah. What have you seen in your experience, Laura

Laura: 24:18

Ab absolutely agree with all of that. I think it's so easy to be like, oh, your neck saw, let's massage the truss. Okay. Uh, but we need to really look at the whole body. And like you said, it depends on your hip rotation. It depends on your endurance of your back and core muscles. It depends on the endurance of your, uh, postural shoulder stabilizers. I find a lot of people that I've seen with hypermobility who've also had multiple subluxations or dislocations of their shoulder. And so what's happened is those rotator cuff and shoulder stabilizers have been inhibited. So their upper traps are not only working to hold their head up, right, but also trying to stabilize a shoulder as well. And that's where I'm seeing really quite often actually, someone will come in with they've disc their shoulder or done a labral tear and then they're getting neck pain. So yeah, we need to look at not just the neck, but sometimes the shoulder, the, the thoracic spine, absolutely everything. Some people I've had come in and try to get them to do a plank and they can't hold it for more than 10 seconds or they can't hold a wool. Sit for more than that either. And you realize that, you know, the whole body needs to be looked at. Um, and that's what I like about working here. We don't just focus on one area, we look at the whole person.

April: 25:27

Yeah,

Laura: 25:27

I think that's. A really important thing. And just going back as well to the pain science as well, I love the analogy, motion is lotion. So even though initially it might be a little bit uncomfortable in the end, it does provide those natural pain reliefs, it reduces cortisol and yeah, it's what you need motion. But we need to know what motion we need and how often, and the, uh. Volume and intensity of that. And it needs to be a really gradual progression as well. You don't wanna go from being able to lift one kilo to, you know, 30 kilo deadlifts straight away. It's gonna take a few months to slow, slowly build up to, to the strength, um, that you'll see. Um, and yeah. I was gonna say something as well about, um, the pain education. And I like the analogy of your having sometimes when you have. An eight outta 10 pain and nothing shows up on the scans. Your pain is very real and it is there, and clinically it might not, you know, make a lot of sense, but it is very real. Um, sometimes those signals are caused by, uh, sensory nerves called nociceptors and they're providing signals saying something is wrong, but sometimes it's like a sensitive car alarm. Might brush car past a car and the alarm goes off, but someone, they're not trying to break in, they just, you know, brush past the car. Whereas if someone's trying to break in and the car alarm's going off, then that's what you want it for. But sometimes the car alarm's going off, but it's not actually anyone trying to break in. So it's kind of like in the neck sometimes you have these extreme high levels of pain, but there's nothing showing up clinically. There's no sprain or fracture or anything like that. And, and it can be explained by these like overloaded oversensitive. Tissues, so hundred

April: 27:14

percent.

Laura: 27:15

Yeah,

April: 27:15

totally true. If we don't sleep well, our pain is most likely gonna be higher. And there's some really good studies to show that as well too, because our stress levels are gonna be higher and when there's more cortisol in the body, it's gonna sensitize what's already angry. It's gonna dial everything up. So one study showed that poor sleep can amplify pain since to be by two or three times. So. If you are not sleeping well, not eating well, your stress levels are really high, it's gonna interfere with your rehab exercise. As you said, Laura is a really good way to manage stress. So the exercise can help with that aspect of it, given that you're up to the level of being able to do that exercise. And there's always ways of bringing things down, like doing, um, some swimming or some bike riding, some really supported movements. Just to get your body back into that window of tolerance.'cause if your nervous system is just super stressed, you're not sleeping well, then your ability to heal is gonna be impaired. And also to, if your body is so stressed, it's not gonna think that it's a good plan to give you less pain.'cause it's going, I'm just going to make everything red alert so that we survive. So we need to really make your body feel safe. That's the number one, and that's where the hands-on treatment actually really helps. So by doing some massage and your physio can teach you to do this yourself as well too, it will bring you back into your body and help you to just down regulate that pain sensitivity. And that's what massages is achieving. It's reducing the sensitivity that's going to the brain. So instead of the brain getting a message that this is a 10 outta 10 pain. It might be getting a message now that there's a two outta 10 pain because it's got that extra feedback. So the other side to living with EDS is that like we do have body awareness differences in terms of the proprioception that we talked about, and learning how to move your body in a safe and joint sparing way is, it feels sometimes like relearning how to move, even relearning how to walk, et cetera. In your experience, Laura, what have clients said to you about, um, like say they've come into you and you've said, okay, we need to change the way that you are, you're moving. And um, do you feel like that really impacts on how long it takes to rehabilitate someone? Or what, how do those proprioceptive changes really infect. Individuals that you've seen just'cause I think it's something percepts a hard thing to get your head around exactly what it is. Um, but yeah. What's your experience with that?

Laura: 30:10

I think people kind of get excited when I talk about it. A lot of people they say, yeah, I used to, you know, I grow, I was always the clumsy kid. I've always tripped over. Um, you know, I would, would walk on a pavement and. Just tripped and roll my ankle. Yeah. So I think for a lot of people when I tell them and, and educate them on a reception and building that, yeah, there's a lot of positivity and I think people feel really seen of like, oh yeah, it's not just me. I'm not just the coms one. It's actually because my body's having to work so hard to, um, hold myself up against gravity, for example. Um,

April: 30:46

you actually feel very validated by that as well. From all the doors that I've walked into or times I've tripped over my own feet,

Laura: 30:52

I was like, well, this all makes sense now. Yeah, exactly. Um, and I think that's what I love about like being able to work with people and educate them like. Yes, it's gonna take a long time to improve that reception compared to, for example, the general population. We don't have hyper mobility. Um, it does take time to build that off, and I think providing that education, sometimes they might have been told, oh, you're gonna be bettering two weeks, or just sleep it off, or just stretch it out. I think having that awareness on understanding that, oh, okay, we need to support your whole body, your balance, your pre reception. Your awareness, um, rather than just, you know, bandaid solution. I think,

April: 31:32

yeah.

Laura: 31:32

From my experience, people have liked having that explained to them. Yeah. No, that

April: 31:38

makes sense. And we're gonna wrap this up now. Um, like one key message we really want to, uh, put forth is that you're not fragile. And with the right plan, hypermobility can be a superpower and there is with the right conditioning, there's not a lot that. It will hold you back from, there's a lot of caveats to that. You've gotta build up slowly to doing what you want to do, but I just don't agree with the message that is quite prevalent online that don't move your fragile because it's just not true. And there's so many people who have the phenotype of hyper mobility, like Laura, who still plays soccer. She's strength training and she doesn't have any pain. Yes, we have this extra flexibility, this extra, um, higher chance of injury, et cetera, but it's not a sentence for that. So I think some of the biggest breakthroughs we've had in our clinic are getting people stronger and then starting to feel like, wow, my pain is dropping and I am doing more, and I, I'm actually able to run without pain now and I'm not fragile. I'm capable and I just need the right tools in my toolbox. And actually I love exercise now that I've got the right formula for me and I'm not, you know, in a high intensity group training class where I'm being told to jump up into a box when I don't have capacity for that. So exercise, we actually asked all of our gym members as a survey, what's the number one reason they come to the gym and 80% said mental health. So exercise is. One of the best things that you can do for your overall health, and I just don't buy into that narrative that we're fragile. It's just not, it's just not true. We just need the right graded approach to what we're doing, and yeah, you need to find a physio and health professional that understand hypermobility, but even just someone who's open to it that you can bring information to, and they will listen to you and understand. It's a very real condition. And then just take small steps. So we're talking about this now in service today. If something is super hard to do, you are using willpower. Whereas habits are something that you should change very slowly. So you're introducing one thing at a time.'cause if something is too hard, you're not gonna stick to it. You're gonna be using willpower. And the moment we're tired, we're hungry, we've had a bad day, it's gonna go out the window and then we will feel like we've failed. Really, we've set the bar too high, and what you can achieve in six to 12 month period is enormous. You don't need to do it in three weeks. Just pick one thing and just slowly improve at it and just, yeah, you'll change your life. And even if it takes you 12 months to build the strength and the resilience, then you can enjoy it for the rest of your life after that. So is there anything that you wanna add to that, Laura?

Laura: 34:41

Just to finish off, I'll say, just to give people that hope that. Yeah, like you said, it might seem like you're looking at a mountain and there's, to get from point A to point B is gonna take all this effort, but just start with one thing. Even if it's, you know, walk five minutes every day. Yeah. Take your dog for a walk around the block. You don't have to run marathons, you don't have to, you know, hit the gym and do really heavy weights. You could just do some band work at home. You could just start with some just. A couple of exercises, you can start with just trying to stand an extra 10 minutes every day. I think it's so easy with social media and with the world right now to compare yourself to other people as well. And I think just stay in your own lane. And that's what I've found by staying in my own lane, just focusing on my own little goals each year and each day. That's been the most beneficial thing. Yeah. Um, it's great to have other people to talk to as well, like finding support groups of hypermobility and EDS as well. Um, but also just know you work with your therapist and, and the people around you who understand what you're going through. And it's okay as well to have good days and bad days. Not every day it's gonna be a good day where you can do everything you want to do. And yeah, progresses often staggered. So you'll get three steps forward and then you'll have a day where it's just a little bit of a flare up. Um, but the more you improve with your strength and ba improve your baseline, the less often those ups will happen. Yeah. So hopefully you'll be able to manage more and more.

April: 36:09

So true. And this is where, yeah, starting with a health professional to guide you through this. So that, and we talked about this today in in service too, that sometimes where you need to start, it feels like you're not doing much at all, but that's what your body needs to stay. And if you can stick in that zone for a little bit longer and slowly progress, that's where the magic is. And. Also to the advice that we're giving today is for the, the hypermobility spectrum disorder and HEDS. There are some more serious types of EDS, like vascular that, uh, require just a slightly different approach, and they're much rarer. Most people with hypermobility have the HEDS variant. So yeah, this is where it is really important to have a health professional guide you through this. If it is. Possible. So thank you so much for listening today, and we hope you got something out of it.

Laura: 37:11

Yes, thank you. Goodbye.