Are You "Bendy?"
Are you hypermobile? "Double-jointed?" "Bendy?"
Can you easily fold your body over from standing and lay your palms flat on the floor with your knees straight?
Was bending your elbows backwards or hyperextending your finger joints your favorite party trick growing up? (Or maybe even popping a favorite joint completely out of socket - aka subluxing?)
Can you touch your thumb to your forearm?
Can you or could you ever do the splits without training?
If so - you might have a connective tissue condition called Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder (HSD) and/or its sibling condition Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS).
Hypermobility is great because it means you can arrange yourself around the world in a way that makes it easier for you to accommodate others. Until it becomes painful. Are you beginning to experience pain in your joints? I can help you build strength in your muscles so your ligaments (the connective tissue structures holding your bones together) no longer take on the load, potentially causing irreparable damage over time. Yoga has been extremely valuable in my life - I wouldn't be in this industry at all if it weren't for yoga. But ultimately, in my hypermobile body, yoga was fun because I was so mobile! ...But I paid a price for it hours or days later when the message from my ligaments finally made it to my brain, indicating that they had been stressed during the stretching process.
Because of the fascial disorder called Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder, when I reach for length, I often reach beyond my muscular capacity and instead load my vulnerable ligaments with the weight of my body. Some doctors will tell a hypermobile person to avoid weightlifting and to instead stick to cardio or swimming. While these are of course great exercises, it is crucial that people with HSD/EDS focus on strengthening their muscles and even repairing their ligaments via loaded joints ...but they must do this with extremely careful attention to their body's proprioception ("the sense of self-movement, force, and body position") in order to avoid damaging their ligaments even further. Book an appointment to learn how to manage gravity's forces on your ligaments and find out the unbelievable strength potential that is ready to spring forth from within you.