Strength and Conditioning for Flexible Joints

Out and About and Physical Fitness - Joint and Muscle Issues - Strength and Conditioning for Flexible Joints - Introduction
Most children are flexible and some more so than others. Most children will become less supple as they get older, but a small percentage will remain flexible.
Many people with increased flexibility do not experience any significant difficulties; in fact, in many situations (i.e. sportspeople, dancers etc.) flexibility can have positive advantages.
However, some people experience difficulties with symptoms which are understood to be related to having increased flexibility.
These problems are often related to poor muscle strength, poor muscle stamina, muscle tightness and poor control of joint movement and not the flexibility itself.

Common parental concerns

In early development children may initially take longer to achieve crawling, walking, and running. Other frequent findings are:
  • Clumsiness and frequent falls
  • Flat feet
  • Clicky joints
  • Tiredness
  • Reluctance to walk longer distances
  • Pain
  • Difficulty with handwriting, dressing or holding a knife and fork.
If your child has Autism and presents with the above symptoms please review the Play and Autism page for further advice and support.

What can I do to help?

A child who is flexible and does not have any symptoms does not require any management or activity modification. Some of the symptoms of flexibility are understood to be related to weaker or tighter muscles and this muscular deconditioning and instability causes the muscles to have to work even harder. It is therefore particularly important to focus on being healthy, strong, and fit.

The stronger and fitter your child is, the better for their symptoms and general well-being. Supportive footwear such as trainers which provide shock absorbance and are lace up/ buckle shoes support the whole foot. Also ensuring that your child maintains a healthy living weight as this can limit excessive stress through muscles and joints.

Encourage normal everyday activities and play, for example:
  • Swimming
  • Cycling
  • Play in parks
  • PE
  • Dance

Pain management

  • Pacing (Spreading activities out throughout the day). If your child is experiencing muscle pain after exercise, this can be normal, and they should not stop all activity but breakdown or separate tasks to help complete them. Pacing makes activities more achievable enabling them to be completed in manageable chunks without increasing pain. Encourage activities over the week consistently to help build up fitness and strength.
  • Hot water bottle/ warm bath. Aches and pains associated with hypermobility are usually a result of muscle fatigue, not damage or injury. A warm bath or a hot water bottle may help.
  • Please visit our Pain and Fatigue advice page for further information.

Exercises for children with flexible joints

Hands

Ball grip squeeze

Ball grip squeeze
Using a tennis ball/rolled up socks, squeeze the ball and hold this position for five seconds, relax and repeat five times.
Repeat daily .

Resisted thumb extension

Using an elastic band around your thumb and fingers, open your thumb to increase the resistance of the band. Hold this position for five seconds, relax and repeat five times.
Repeat daily

Exercises to Improve Fine Motor Control

Using Sponges and face cloths

  1. Using Sponges and face cloths
    1. Let a sponge or cloth absorb water then wring it out into another container. Count how many times your child has to squeeze out the water to fill the container.
    2. Half fill two containers with coloured water (using food colouring). Use a sponge or cloth to transfer some of the water from one container to the other – encourage your child to look and see what colour they have made.

  2. Use rookie sticks (learner chopsticks), tweezers or salad tongs to pick up items such as pieces of cotton wool, or straws. See how many different objects they can pick up. Ask your child to try picking them up at one end of the room and carrying them in the tweezers to the other end of the room before putting them down.
  3. Using Playdoh or Theraputty
    1. Hide marbles in the playdoh/putty then kneed it. See if your child can find the marbles again.
    2. Squash, squeeze, pinch and poke the playdoh/putty to model shapes.
    3. Make balls by rolling a small piece of playdoh between flat palms in a circular motion. Also get them to try making the balls by rolling the playdoh between the tips of their thumb and index finger.
    4. Squeeze it into a big ball
    5. Roll the playdoh into a long snake. Pinch the back of the snake with index finger and thumb (making sure their finger joints don’t bend the wrong way). Alternatively they can roll the end to a really fine point by using just their finger.
    6. Poke a hole in the playdoh/putty with the index finger. Get your child to squeeze all their fingers and thumb (of one hand) into the hole and then to try and spread their fingers wide apart and so stretching a big hole in the playdoh/putty.
    7. Roll out a long thin sausage. Wind it round to make a basket.  Roll small balls to make ‘eggs’ for the basket.
    8. Make a pancake by patting a ball between the palms of their hands, or between the palm of one hand and the table surface.
Last updated23 Dec 2024
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