Weight Training Tips for Hypermobile People
Weight Training Tips for Hypermobile People
Do you have hypermobility? Increased mobility in the joints can affect the way that you respond to training, and there are considerations you need to think about. By taking the right approach to weight training, you can not only reduce your risk of injury while working out, but also protect your body from injury in the long term.
What is hypermobility?
Flexibility is something that varies from person to person. Hypermobility isn’t just that you’re more flexible than the average person. In fact, you can train to increase your flexibility – particularly if you’re a gymnast, ballet dancer or circus performer!
Hypermobility is a medical classification. This comes with a test called the Beighton Score that assesses whether you are hypermobile.
This score assesses the range of movement in key joints including your little fingers, thumbs, elbows, knees and spine. The maximum score is 9, and to be considered hypermobile, you need a score of 5 or more.
For a visual guide of the different tests, click here.
In some cases, hypermobility can be a symptom of an underlying connective tissue disease such as Ehlers Danlos Syndrome or Marfan Syndrome. However, these conditions are rare. General hypermobility is far more common - research suggests between 10-25% of the population have some level of hypermobility!
Why you should do weight training if you’re hypermobile
The biggest challenge with hypermobile joints is that they will lack stability. As a result, the joint can overextend and lead to injury. Many also have a reduced perception of pain, particularly when stretching.
Weight training can help by:
Increasing awareness of the joints
Reducing risk of injury
Increasing stability of the joints by increasing the surrounding muscle mass
Improving your confidence and trust in your body
Weight training for hypermobility
How often should I train?
There isn’t a ‘perfect’ training schedule for someone who is hypermobile. It depends on how your hypermobility affects you in terms of pain, fatigue and other symptoms.
The key is training at whatever consistency you can maintain. If you can strength train 3 days a week, that’s fantastic. But if you have a bundle of symptoms to manage and 2 days is more achievable, work with that.
You might need to tweak your training to ensure you get the most out of those 2 sessions, but it’s better than pushing yourself for 3-4 a week until you overdo it and give up.
And if you injure yourself? Work with your healthcare team to substitute those training sessions with your rehab program. That way, you keep the habit up of 2-3 sessions per week, making it easier to return to strength training once you get the all-clear from your team.
Stability and technique are non-negotiable
One downside of hypermobility is that when you’re training, you may use other muscles to compensate if you’re not stable or performing the correct technique. That’s why you need to focus on stability and technique every time you train.
It’s much better for you to keep the weight on the lower end so you can focus on the mind-muscle connection and engage the muscles you’re training.
Never heard of the mind-muscle connection? Learn how to utilise it here.
Incorporate isometrics
One easy way to boost your mind-muscle connection is by doing isometric movements. Isometrics are movements that cause tension without moving – think planking, wall sits, glute bridges and overhead holds.
This type of training helps to establish the mind-muscle connection, give a sense of stability in the joint and increase awareness of the joint or proprioception (more on that shortly!)
And if that wasn’t enough of a reason to incorporate isometrics? They can also have an analgesic or pain-killer effect, so they can help keep your pain level down if your hypermobility comes with chronic pain.
Keep control at all times
You might think that lifting more and doing more sets is better. But when it comes to a hypermobile body, you’re better off sticking to the weight and sets that fatigue your muscles and challenge you without a loss of control.
The goal? To have complete control through the entire range of motion of that exercise. Sure, you might be able to move your body well beyond what others can. But if you don’t have control or strength in that range, it leaves you vulnerable to injury.
One way to support this is to look at your movements and where you have control. Take a pushup as an example. Do you have the same level of control at the top, in the middle and at the bottom of the movement? Can you control it on the way down and on the way up? Or are there areas where you’re shaky or compensating with other muscles?
Once you’ve nailed the basics of the movement, consider the variations. The tweaks to your arm placement, your leg placement, and eventually tools such as blocks or bosu balls can help you to become strong across the different ways you need to move in everyday life.
Train for your body’s challenges
To take it one step further, you can look into training methods that are specific to what you might face. Two examples of this are training for proprioception and perturbation training.
Proprioception is all about your perception of where your body and its parts are located in space. Unfortunately, it’s something that a lot of people with hypermobility struggle with. But the good news is that training it can help to reduce pain and increase strength in hypermobility.
So how can you train it? An easy way is to make sure you have a reference point during each movement. When you’re lying on the floor, the sensation of the floor under you gives your body information about where the different parts of your body are. But you can also include exercises and tools that challenge your proprioception such as single leg balance movements, balance beams, bosu balls and plyo box exercises.
Perturbation training is also known as reactive balance training. The goal is to enhance your body’s reaction to anything that can disturb your balance and cause you to fall or injure yourself.
Many with hypermobility experience more frequent issues like twisted ankles and tripping over hazards. By including this form of training, it can mean the difference between avoiding injury or a minor one and a major injury that sets you back months or even years.
However, this form of training is best for those who have already done work on controlling movements and building strength from different angles. It’s also hard to implement by yourself, so working with a trainer to incorporate it is your best bet.
Feeling overwhelmed by all of this?
There is a lot of science & different factors to consider when it comes to a well-planned training program.
This is why working with a trainer can make such a difference! Not only does it keep you more accountable, but it also means your program will have periodisation built in to protect you from injury and overtraining while keeping you progressing towards your goals.
Need a training program that is tailored to your needs & goals?
If you’re sick of feeling unmotivated, discouraged and unsure where to start, now is the time to take action.
Together, we can overhaul not only your nutrition and training program, but also boost your motivation and master your mindset – learn more about my 1:1 coaching here.
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While we make every effort to make sure the information in this website is accurate and informative, the information does not take the place of medical advice.