What’s tissue tolerance? Can it help me avoid injury with hypermobility?

Injury prevention – how do we work towards that with hypermobility?

hypermobility

by Jeannie Di Bon, December 15th, 2022

What’s tissue tolerance? Can it help me avoid injury with hypermobility?

I’m not talking injury from trauma like a fall or an accident. I’m talking those exercise or everyday strains to our soft tissue type of injuries. Many things are going to contribute to avoiding injury, such as increased body awareness, improving our proprioception, control of our joints and stability overall. These are all part of my hypermobility movement programme that I use with all clients. I think it is huge contributing factor to why people who are deconditioned do so well in The Zebra Club too – because we build tissue tolerance very gradually.

We’re ultimately looking to improve our tissue tolerance. But It is essential to avoiding those soft tissue strains. I have had clients return to exercising with weights, hiking, figure skating, cross country skiing, football, golf and tennis. These activities had become impossible due to pain or subluxations.
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How did they get back to these activities? We prepared their tissue to tolerate the demands placed upon them. It takes commitment and appropriate movement strategies to improve tissue tolerance. It didn’t happen overnight, of course. There were ups and downs. But having the drive and determination to get there pays off.
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I’ve talked a great deal in the past about finding the baseline (I’ve got a YouTube video all about this). The first step is finding your baseline – the point you can exercise without causing a flare-up. It does not matter if that baseline is one or two reps. Don’t feel pushed or guilty about trying to do an excess number of repetitions when you are starting out. In my experience, it won’t work because the tissue does not have the tolerance level for it, yet. I say yet because I’ve seen amazing transformations happen.

Small steps, patience with yourself and enjoying the journey to tissue tolerance is key. Movement wants to be enjoyed, not a chore or something we’ve been told to do.

I hope this helps – remember to check out my YouTube video on finding your baseline on my hypermobility channel.

2 Comments

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Damien Parker - 11th January 2023

Thank you for everything that you do. Reading these is really helpful and supportive!

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    Jeannie Di Bon - 13th January 2023

    Thank you, so glad it helped.