# Advice for someone with loose joints



## Silenceof_the_clams (Oct 19, 2022)

Hi everyone! I have been wanting to get into various martial arts for a while now. The one thing stopping me is all of my joints are hyper mobile and bend far beyond a neutral position with little effort. Does anyone have recommendations on a type of martial arts that might be safer for my joints than others? Or should I avoid this field of movement and find an alternative defense style? Thanks!


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## O'Malley (Oct 19, 2022)

Hi! And welcome to MT! 

First and foremost, go see a doctor and ask for advice. Don't take medical advice from randos over the internet, this might get you hurt.

That said, I'll give you my guess, so you can ask more specific questions to your doctor. I'd rather avoid arts that use joint locks, especially if they train at high intensity, as things may get out of hand. So based on this I would avoid grappling arts like BJJ, wrestling and judo. 

You talk about "defense style", so I'm gonna assume that you want to be able to defend yourself. For that, the optimal way is to train in arts with high intensity (i.e. those that have sparring and/or competition). Most striking arts do this while putting your joints at minimal risk: look at karate, muay thai, boxing, kickboxing, savate, etc.

You can also opt for an art that trains at a lower intensity but is self-defence oriented such as krav maga or penchak silat. They tend to be less effective at fighting because their physical conditioning is usually inferior and, when in a "real" fight, they need to step up the intensity to a level to which they are not used. The flip side is that their training allows them to train techniques in a much safer way, which can be the only way for people prone to injuries.

I hope this helps.

Source: I'm a random guy on the internet who occasionally sounds very knowledgeable, by his own admission.


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## Blue Lotus (Oct 19, 2022)

Silenceof_the_clams said:


> Hi everyone! I have been wanting to get into various martial arts for a while now. The one thing stopping me is all of my joints are hyper mobile and bend far beyond a neutral position with little effort. Does anyone have recommendations on a type of martial arts that might be safer for my joints than others? Or should I avoid this field of movement and find an alternative defense style? Thanks!


Hi! 

I have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (which has hypermobile joints) and I've been practicing Karate and MMA for two years. 

The MMA does do BJJ and I haven't had problems with training it. The instructor knows about my joints and by now most of the students do too. Some of the students get frustrated with elbow submissions on me because my joint keeps going and they don't have the leverage. But I know where the limit is and tap before my joints get there.

I have hyperextended my knee a few times while kicking in Karate, but not so seriously where walking it off hasn't helped.

I think if you know your body and your limits, training in what you like will serve you best.


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## JowGaWolf (Oct 19, 2022)

Blue Lotus said:


> Hi!
> 
> I have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (which has hypermobile joints) and I've been practicing Karate and MMA for two years.
> 
> ...


Not sure if this would help but maybe static holds can help.  I'm thinking of the components that make up the joints and if there is a way to condition some of those components in a way that would be beneficial to your condition. It's a guess


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## Blue Lotus (Oct 19, 2022)

JowGaWolf said:


> Not sure if this would help but maybe static holds can help.  I'm thinking of the components that make up the joints and if there is a way to condition some of those components in a way that would be beneficial to your condition. It's a guess


Thanks for responding! Can you elaborate on what static holds means?

In my case, collagen and connective tissue production and formation is messed up, so other than strengthening some of the muscles around the joints (I do Pilates to help with this) conditioning the tendons and other connective tissues is not going to help much. It might actually break them down further, from what I can gather.


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## MetalBoar (Oct 19, 2022)

Silenceof_the_clams said:


> Hi everyone! I have been wanting to get into various martial arts for a while now. The one thing stopping me is all of my joints are hyper mobile and bend far beyond a neutral position with little effort. Does anyone have recommendations on a type of martial arts that might be safer for my joints than others? Or should I avoid this field of movement and find an alternative defense style? Thanks!



*Usual Disclaimers:*
Not a doctor, not a specialist in hypermobility, and unless you live in Arizona, probably not able to work with you directly.  If you are in the Phoenix area, I'd feel confident working with you, but I'm not willing nor able to take responsibility for what you do with my advice without my direct supervision.

Until the pandemic I owned a small gym focused on very controlled, slow movement, high intensity, strength training, and because it was very low force, with strictly controlled range of motion on machines (largely hard limited by machine settings), I had several clients with hypermobility issues, including one of my oldest friends and martial arts training partners.  I know at least one of my clients was officially diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and I strongly suspect at least 2 others had the condition as well.  

I can't easily speak to which martial arts would be best for you, especially not knowing how severe your condition might be.  I had one client who would semi-regularly hyper extend their knee's just walking on grass or less than perfectly even pavement and dislocated a finger just picking up a very lightly packed suitcase.  I assume you don't have that level of challenge going on since it sounds like you've been doing karate and MMA for a while.  My friend, client, and MA training partner, who had hypermobility issues was able to train in Judo, Hapkido, Aikido, Kenpo, Shinkendo, western sport fencing, HEMA, and FMA during the time I've known him.   He'd only occasionally dislocate a shoulder (which he found slightly annoying and a little troubling, but not particularly painful) or have other, more minor, problems with fingers and elbows, in the grappling arts at schools that sparred hard.  He never gave his hypermobility much consideration when choosing an art.  I _can _say that when my friend stopped doing martial arts and became very sedentary in a tech job, his shoulder issues (and over all health) got much, much worse.

Regardless, I found that every client I trained saw a lot of improvement from weight lifting.  I personally recommend researching something like I was doing, with a slow, controlled, protocol, on quality machines that let you define the complete range of motion, ideally with hard stops.  If you were training with me (based on the limited info you've presented), I'd start relatively light and when I increased weight, do it in small increments, ask you to pay attention to your body, and coach you to stop if you felt like (or I saw that) you were unable to control the weights with your muscles, such that the joints were taking an inappropriate load.  Obviously, this isn't going to be a cure all for your issues, but I think it's likely that the more muscle you have the safer martial arts will be for you.  I think there's probably also a lot of benefit to learning to be aware of and really control range of motion under load, in a safe environment.

I guess the one last thing I'll say is that universally, my clients had a lot more trouble with pulling movements than pushing movements, which makes sense I guess.  From that perspective, I'd guess that striking arts (preferably without high kicks or other extremes in range of motion) would probably be good choices if you're looking to minimize risk, but still train.  The kenpo I did ~30 years ago fits that description pretty well, but there can be a lot of variation from school to school and lineage to lineage, and I won't vouch for the self defense value of any of them.  I believe that Wing Chun generally doesn't do much in the way of high kicks, but I'm not sure how their Yee Gee Kim Yeung Ma stance would be for your knees, etc.  The Filipino or other weapon arts might be good, depending on how much trouble your fingers give you.  I'm sure there are people on here who might have other suggestions if this direction sounds useful to you.


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## JowGaWolf (Oct 19, 2022)

Blue Lotus said:


> Thanks for responding! Can you elaborate on what static holds means?
> 
> In my case, collagen and connective tissue production and formation is messed up, so other than strengthening some of the muscles around the joints (I do Pilates to help with this) conditioning the tendons and other connective tissues is not going to help much. It might actually break them down further, from what I can gather.


Static hold is were you hold the position of the body in one position.  it doesn't require extension to work the muscle and it can be done with light weight.  Not sure if that would help you but it may be something you could ask your doctor about.


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