Hi, I’m Andrew from Sydney Sports Podiatry – runners treating runners.
Today we’re going to talk about Hypermobility.
What’s Hypermobility?
Basically, it’s the reason why most of our patients come in with a foot problem.
Hypermobility means your ligaments are too stretchy and they don’t hold your feet together as tightly as they could be.
At Sydney Sports Podiatry, we see way more female than males with foot and leg problems arising from hypermobility.
I can only push my pinky finger up in the air a small amount. Though as you can see, some people like Alexa are able to bend their pinkies up to 90 degrees.
This is a sign of Hypermobility.
Test it for yourself – Place your hand up vertically like this, bend your hand forward, grab your thumb, then see if you can touch your thumb back to your wrist.
Some people like Alexa can touch their thumb against their wrist or get very close to it as well.
The next test is to place your arm straight out front. As you can see, Alexa’s arm goes backwards.
So these are all signs of hypermobility in your ligaments, and the same thing applies not just to your hands and elbows but also to your feet.
What it means is your ligaments just aren’t holding those joints together properly and if you’re running, you’re more likely to pronate (collapse arch) too much and your muscles are going to work too hard.
If you think you’ve got hypermobility, if your fingers and thumbs bend backwards too much, your elbows hyper-extend (over-straighten), if anyone’s ever called you double jointed and your feet look a bit flat, there’s a very strong chance that it’s because your ligaments are too stretchy and you have a degree of hyper-mobility.
This is where most of our patients will come from.
We can assess and measure you with a biomechanical examination, and then we’ll formulate a diagnosis and a treatment plan to help you get better and back to the exercise you want to do.