If your joints click, pop, or move further than most people’s — or if you have been told you are hypermobile or double jointed — you may have found that most information available focuses on flexibility and stretching. What is far less commonly discussed is what hypermobility actually means for the way your body functions, why it can cause pain, and what can genuinely be done about it.
This is something we see regularly at Aret Chiropractic, and it is an area where the right assessment and the right approach make an enormous difference.
What Is Hypermobility?
Hypermobility refers to joints that move beyond their normal range of motion. This can affect a single joint or multiple joints throughout the body, and it ranges from a mild increase in flexibility to a more significant generalised laxity that affects daily function and causes persistent pain.
The increased range of motion in hypermobile joints is typically the result of more elastic connective tissue — the ligaments and joint capsules that normally act as passive restraints to excessive movement are less restrictive than usual. This means the joint relies more heavily on the surrounding muscles to provide the stability that the passive structures are not fully delivering.
When muscular control is sufficient to meet this demand, hypermobility may be entirely asymptomatic — and in some contexts, such as gymnastics or dance, it can even be an advantage. When muscular control is insufficient, the joint becomes unstable, and pain, clicking, and a sense of giving way are common consequences.
Why Hypermobile Joints Click and Pop
Clicking and popping in hypermobile joints is one of the most commonly reported symptoms — and one of the most frequently misunderstood. In hypermobile individuals, joints move through larger ranges than they are designed for, and structures around the joint — including tendons, ligaments, and the joint surfaces themselves — can shift, snap, or decompress as the joint moves through these excessive ranges.
This is different from the normal joint cavitation that occurs during chiropractic adjustments or knuckle cracking. In hypermobility, the clicking is often repetitive, occurs during everyday movements, and can be accompanied by discomfort or a sense of instability rather than the brief relief that normal joint cavitation produces.
Repetitive clicking in a hypermobile joint is worth paying attention to. It is a sign that the joint is not being adequately controlled through its range of motion — and over time, this lack of control can contribute to joint irritation, inflammation, and degeneration.
The Concept That Changes Everything
Here is the clinical insight that shapes how we approach hypermobility at Aret Chiropractic — and it is one that is frequently missed in standard assessment.
If one joint is moving too much, it is usually because another joint nearby is not moving enough.
The body is a connected system. When a joint becomes stiff or restricted — whether from previous injury, habitual posture, muscle tightness, or simply underuse — the joints above and below it are required to compensate by taking on additional movement. Over time, this compensation can drive excessive mobility at the compensating joint, making it appear hypermobile when in reality it is simply working overtime to make up for a restriction elsewhere.
This means that treating a hypermobile joint in isolation — simply strengthening around it without addressing the stiffness elsewhere in the chain — will often produce incomplete results. The hypermobile joint continues to be overloaded because the restriction driving the compensation has not been resolved.
A thorough assessment therefore needs to look at the whole movement chain — not just the joint that is clicking or symptomatic.
- Identifying What Is Moving Too Much
The first step is identifying which joints are genuinely hypermobile and whether the excessive movement is a primary feature of the patient’s connective tissue or a secondary compensation for restriction elsewhere. This distinction changes the management approach significantly.
Joints that are primarily hypermobile need stability work — building the muscular control to manage their available range. Joints that are secondarily hypermobile — moving too much because of restriction elsewhere — need the restriction addressed first, so that the compensatory demand on the hypermobile joint is reduced.
- Finding the Joints That Are Not Moving Enough
Restricted joints are not always symptomatic. In many cases, a stiff thoracic segment, a restricted hip, or a poorly mobile ankle is contributing to excessive movement at an adjacent joint without producing significant pain of its own. Because it is not painful, it goes unnoticed — and treatment is directed entirely at the symptomatic hypermobile joint.
Clinical assessment of the full movement chain — including joint mobility testing at every relevant level — is essential to identify these hidden restrictions and address the true mechanical driver of the problem.
- Stabilising and Strengthening the Hypermobile Joint
Once the movement chain has been assessed and any contributing restrictions have been addressed, the focus turns to building stability and control at the hypermobile joint. This is not about limiting range of motion — it is about developing the muscular capacity to control that range safely and efficiently.
Effective stabilisation work for hypermobile joints typically includes deep stabilising muscle activation that targets the muscles closest to the joint, progressive loading that challenges the joint through controlled ranges before advancing to larger ranges, neuromuscular retraining that improves the speed and accuracy of the body’s protective responses, and functional movement retraining that carries the improved control into everyday activities and sport.
This type of rehabilitation requires careful progression. Loading a hypermobile joint too aggressively or too early can provoke symptoms rather than resolve them. The goal is to build capacity gradually — giving the nervous system time to develop the control strategies that the joint needs.
- Addressing the Whole Person
Generalised hypermobility — where multiple joints are affected throughout the body — requires a whole-body approach. Isolated treatment of individual joints misses the broader pattern of laxity and instability that drives symptoms across multiple regions. Education about joint protection, activity modification, and long-term self-management strategies are all important components of care for individuals with generalised hypermobility.
For some patients, generalised hypermobility may be associated with a connective tissue condition such as hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Where this is suspected, appropriate assessment and referral to the relevant specialist is an important part of management.
What to Expect From Treatment
Managing hypermobility is not a quick fix — but it is genuinely manageable and treatable, and the outcomes with the right approach are very good. Most patients notice a reduction in clicking and a greater sense of joint control relatively early in the process, with progressive improvements in strength, stability, and confidence in their movement over the course of rehabilitation.
The most important shift is moving away from stretching — which is rarely helpful and often counterproductive in hypermobility — and toward building the strength and control that hypermobile joints genuinely need.
At Aret Chiropractic, we assess the full movement chain, identify what is moving too much and what is not moving enough, and build a management plan that addresses both. If you have been living with clicking joints, a sense of instability, or pain that has been attributed to hypermobility without a clear plan to address it, we would like to help.
Call us on (02) 8018 8883 to speak with one of our Chiropractors at Aret Chiropractic in North Ryde, or book online for a consultation.
References
Beighton, P., et al. (1999). Hypermobility of Joints (3rd ed.). Springer.
Castori, M., et al. (2017). A framework for the classification of joint hypermobility and related conditions. American Journal of Medical Genetics, 175(1), 148–157.
Keer, R., & Grahame, R. (2003). Hypermobility Syndrome: Recognition and Management for Physiotherapists. Butterworth-Heinemann.
Maillard, S., & Murray, K. (2003). Hypermobility syndrome in children. In R. Keer & R. Grahame (Eds.), Hypermobility Syndrome. Butterworth-Heinemann.
Russek, L. N. (1999). Hypermobility syndrome. Physical Therapy, 79(6), 591–599.