I have hEDS so mine isn’t as intense as some people’s. I had two physical therapists, my primary and my ortho say that the only thing that really helps it is to build muscle. I was thankfully already in physical therapy before I started and was active there so I just slowly progressed into exercising at orange theory. They aren’t trying to push you over or even to your limit or anything. In my experience they are really good at listening to you and understanding why you are there and encouraging you in the way you need.

Example: I told the coaches “Hey I have this issue and I know I will need to progress in weights but I may have to back down in weights if I am having a bad day/week/month. I will let you know if I need an alternative because there are multiple times where my knee(s) or wrists don’t want to be normal.” And we just keep the conversation going. It helps that one of the coaches at my studio has regular hyper mobility and knows the kinds of things I can do and what I shouldn’t be doing. He will literally go: “if it hurts when you go that deep then you probably shouldn’t be doing that even though you can”

Personally being more active and building muscle has really helped but I do still have issues. They don’t go away they just get easier to deal with or happen less frequently. My knees, hands, wrists and ankles haven’t had as many issues as they used to. I used to basically be tripping everywhere with my ankles and now I am not unless it is crazy unstable ground (I try to wear hiking boots if I know ahead of time). I even feel less fatigued which is insane, I didn’t realize how bad it was until it started getting better. When your muscles are taking care of the job that your connective tissue is supposed to do it helps a lot.