🦵🦵🦵🦵

Joint hypermobility is such a bitch.

I love yoga, I love dancing (not especially good at any form of dance, mind you, but I love it), but because my ligaments are overly stretchy, I actively have to exercise to make my muscles and joints more rigid. Instead of enjoying my natural flexibility, I have to fight it because my ligaments are too flexible to give me joint stability. I also have to watch what shoes I wear, because I have a high arch in my feet which worsens my tendency to sprain my ankles.

It took me years to stabilise my knees and ankles enough to safely run and hike. I used to still do it, mind you, but I was constantly injuring myself until I built up the right posture and muscle stability.

Now I'm trying to work on my shoulders, neck and back, which have the added challenge of being in an unnatural position all day at a desk job. I've recently pulled a muscle around my left shoulder blade because I tried to do pull-ups without sufficiently building up the muscle first. Apparently I slept on it wrong last night so the pain from that woke me up at an ungodly hour, hence the 3am rambling.

It wouldn't have likely pulled a muscle for anyone else, but due to hypermobility my shoulders flex in directions that other people's don't, and where other people's ligaments stop their movements before muscle, joint or bones get injured, mine don't.

Plus sides? Great, effortless flexibility. Also a side result is that this same gene that causes hypermobility slows visible aging because my skin's collagen is different. It also makes my skin particularly soft - I do bruise very easily though. So as long as I continue to look after my skin, build up muscle to stabilise my joints and exercise regularly, I'll (theoretically) age well. My incredible great aunt has it too, and she's still mobile, relatively independent, and has an active social life at nearly 98.

Joint hypermobility is a bitch, but at least it has linked benefits.

(I'm going to try to remind myself of that when the sleep deprivation catches up to me later 🫩)