Hypermobility is often perceived as simply being naturally more flexible than average and having the ability to perform extreme stretches and positions, like over-splits or contortion-like backbends. While these perceptions contain some truth, they don’t fully capture what true hypermobility is or what it means to live with it. So should you stretch if you’re truly hypermobile?

…and why it’s not what you might think.

Are you looking at the way other people seem to move somewhat effortlessly, expressing their flexibility without even being aware of it? But as much as you’d like to be like them, you’ve resigned yourself to the fact that at your age it’s just too late to do something about it.

You’ve tried to improve your flexibility but started to think it’s just not for you, because you haven’t been seeing any improvements despite the work you’ve put in. Frustrating, huh?

But what is form, let alone proper form, you might ask?

Flexibility training is physically challenging, but there is another, lesser spoken about aspect that plays into it – it’s your mindset and your ability to delay instant gratification and forego quick results.

What dictates whether we can relax into a stretch or not? Why does it impact our flexibility training?

How I ended up in the world of flexibility training, given I wasn’t a gymnast or dancer growing up and mostly certainly wouldn’t have been considered flexible.