Three Questions with Meghann Koppele Duffy

Hypermobility - 3 Questions to Overcome Movement Roadblocks

• Meghann • Episode 1

Share episode

What do clothing and your tongue have to do with hypermobility? Join me, Meghann Koppele Duffy, in the premiere episode of Three Questions with Meghann Koppele Duffy, where I explore the impact of those surprising factors and your body’s proprioceptive awareness.  In this episode, I’ll give you some practical exercises that you can try as well as some thoughts for critical self-reflection for managing hypermobility.  Let's explore these three crucial questions and transform your movement experience together.

Resources mentioned:
My Website
Connect with me on Instagram
Connect with me on Threads

Meghann Koppele Duffy: Welcome to three questions where critical thinking is king and my opinions and my research are just here to support your learning and understanding. Hey, I'm Meghann, also known as Meghann Koppele Duffy or MKD, and I am really honored that you chose to click on three questions. Today's topic is hypermobility.

It's a condition and or symptoms that may be holding back many of your patients, clients, or even you. So let's start at the top, and I want to ask you, where is your tongue? Literally, where is your tongue right now? And I know you guys, you're all overachievers. You probably already moved your tongue to a better or prime location.

But let's be honest where our resting tongue position is. So I want everybody to say your full name, like your parents would say it if you were in trouble. Swallow, and right after you finish swallowing, keep your tongue where it lands. And what I want you to do is just take note. And then what I want you to do is move your head around.

Maybe right to left, up and down. That's all I want you to do. And I want you to ask yourself, Is your tongue getting closer to your ear in any one direction? Is your tongue shifting to another tooth, another part of your mouth? Is it suctioning to the roof of the mouth? Is it shaking? What is happening with your tongue?

And if you work with hypermobile humans, ask them what is happening with their tongues. Now, if you were able to even attempt to do any of this, congratulations! You're able to react to a sensory input, which is very important, especially for hypermobile humans. Now, why is this important? Because our hypermobile clients might be like Gene Simmons, uh, big long tongue, or they might not be able to move their tongue at all.

The inability to mobilize or stabilize our tongue has a direct effect on so many things like balance, spinal stability, and also how we speak. So, can your client move their head without moving their tongue? Can they move a limb without moving their tongue? Try it right now. If you're driving, keep both hands on the wheel.

See what happens when you actually move limbs. Is your tongue moving in your head? Is what your tongue touching moving? These are all questions that you need to answer and start thinking about why. Rather than changing it or forcing your tongue or creating gripping patterns, I want you to ask yourself how this could be affecting you

or your client's ability to mobilize their eyes, mobilize their spine, and reflexively stabilize when needed. Now, changing tongue position or pressure is also a strategy people use. Hello, Michael Jordan, Google it. Do your clients stick out their tongue, push their tongue into their cheek, or do weird shit with their face when they're concentrating?

Don't ask them not to do that. Don't ask them to relax their face. What I want you to do is realize they're searching for sensory input there. They're pressing, they're changing pressure, they're using that gripping pattern to create a sense of stability so their brain feels safer so that they can move.

Now, research is, is, let's see. Research is interesting on the tongue, but limited. And what I have found, there is a lot of research talking about tongue position and balance and tongue position and spinal stability. But I don't see enough talking about how it's affecting hypermobile humans. And if you're hypermobile, you know this.

There is a lot of good research on hypermobility, but you're all beautiful snowflakes and different. And that creates variables that scientists like me do not love. Think about medication. Advil, right? It says take two pills every, whatever, four to six hours. Don't quote me on that. But, that's based on a 150 pound man.

Not because pharmaceutical companies hate women, I mean, they might, but I don't know. It's because women often have menstrual cycles and hormone fluctuations that they cannot always control for in research. I mean, that's another topic, researchers. I think we can isolate these variables, but, you know, we'll save that for another episode.

So more importantly, if you're a researcher, if you're working with hypermobility, I challenge you. So, start looking at tongue position, tongue mobility, and tongue sensation and seeing how it affects our client's spinal mobility, stability, and ability to mobilize your eyes. So before we go on to a question two, what I want everybody to do is clean their teeth with their tongue.

Yeah, literally. Oh, well, I mean, if you're listening to me, you couldn't see what I did. I just rubbed my tongue all across my teeth. I want you to notice how that feels. Does it feel good? Do you hate the sound? Do you rather do it on the inside of your teeth? How does that feel to you? And now what I want you to do is press your tongue into your cheek.

Which one did you pick? Okay, don't switch to the other one. Pick the one you picked. And now see if you can move limbs or turn your head without changing the pressure between your tongue and your cheek. Give it a try right now. I'm going to do it with you.

Maybe that decreased your pain. Maybe that focused you. I know for me, I was able to let my eyes track with my head, which is very challenging for me after having multiple concussions. So, you might not have any answers today, but hopefully you have a lot more questions that lead you to critically think about your tongue.

Now, let's talk about question two, which is my favorite sensory input via your clothes. So what is your favorite outfit, accessory, or, um, this might be even more helpful. What do you do when you get home? Like, do you take off your bra? Do you put on sweatpants? Do you stay in your clothes? Do you take off your underwear?

Do you wash your face? What makes you feel the best? Now, again, you might not want to ask, like, a new client if they take their underwear off as soon as they get home, okay? But, you know, once you've built trust with the client, these are really important questions. I mean, I have a friend who works out in her jeans.

I also have a client who does this. Yes, in her jeans. You heard me correctly, and if she wasn't the most amazing person, and I hope she's listening to this now and laughing, I would report her to the authorities because I would think there was something wrong with her. Now, do you like being in jeans? Or, do you prefer a softer material?

Now, I am hypothesizing, is that even a word? I make up words. It's kind of a thing I do. And I also say sayings backwards. So if you hear me do that, just write them down because the list will get long real fast. Anyway, back to the jeans. So what's super interesting, jeans are pretty stiff and can give structural support to limbs.

So say you're deadlifting and you always shift at your knee or your ankle. Wearing jeans might give your skin more sensory feedback so you can actually stabilize at joints that are needed so you can mobilize around them. So don't like laugh at people when they wear weird shit to the gym. Okay? What are you wearing to the gym?

Let's talk about me for a minute. I cannot wear compressive pants. I am like Chris Farley in his little coat. Okay, and if you don't know what I mean, please Google that. Um, it's very important and you're just from a different generation. I'm going to do an episode about that because every generation thinks the generation before or after them are idiots and we're not, we're just different based off our life experiences.

So if you're the generation behind me, um, Google fat guy in a little coat and I promise you Adam Sandler was really funny. and Dumb and Dumber is a movie you need to watch. Trust me, it's still on my top five. I'm going off topic. Back to clothing. So, what do your clients like to wear? And how do they wear it?

Because it tells us a lot about their sensory preferences and what they can't stand. So for me, when I go shopping, The amazing people at, I won't call out any stores, are usually very helpful. But I'm 42 years old. I know what I like. So telling me that my pants are too big or small is not helpful. Yes, I know I would look slimmer in a more compressive legging.

But lady, it makes me want to punch you in the face. It makes it impossible for me to concentrate and I cannot move or differentiate my hip joint from my lower back and compressive pants. I have this weird thing where my pants have to be the same tightness around my waist as they are around my hips.

And if you've ever seen my body, I am very much a pear shape, very small in the waist and very wide in the hips. Um, at a young age, my mom told me I have Irish child's bearing hips, to which I responded at 12, well, I don't want to make babies. And she said, well, I don't know what to tell you. So yeah, there's that.

Anyway, so if you work at Athleta right now, I need you to hear this, please. I'm begging you. If you discontinue the Venice joggers or upgrade or change them. I will lose my damn mind. These Venice joggers, I'm going to stand up for my YouTube people. Oh my god, the waistband. It's like perfect. It's not too tight.

I can't have anything tight around my belly button. But it also helps me move at my hip joint that most pants inhibit. So if you're listening to this right now, I want you to think, if you're struggling with some exercises, change your clothes. What underwear are you wearing? Are you wearing underwear at all?

Underwear are also my arch nemesis. Maybe it's TMI in episode one, but let's be real here. Certain underwear, where they dig into your skin, your largest sensory organ, could be inhibiting or creating more mobility at certain areas. And if you're listening to this right now and being like, Meghann, oh my god, that's me.

Get rid of all the clothes that make you feel like shit. Find clothes that make you feel good and don't feel bad about changing your clothes a million times to feel good. It is very important and something that I encourage all my clients to do. Now in episode two, I'm going to talk a lot more about the sensory systems and ask you three more questions about those.

But for now, I want you to just stop what you're doing. If you're driving, again, be careful. And I want you to yell out right now where you feel your clothes touching you right now. Is it the band around your bra? Is it your socks? Is it your pants around your ankles? And I want you to decide if it annoys you or not.

Because our sensory preferences tell us so much about what we need. And my hyper mobile clients, if something is a disruptor to sensory input, That will interrupt any neuroplasticity or changes in proprioception. I want you to hear that. Our skin, the largest sensory organ, that responds to light touch, heavy touch, pressure, rubbing, um, fabrics, buttons, pockets, could be disruptor to any positive changes in proprioception.

So it doesn't matter what you or your teacher is doing, nothing is going to happen. . So question three is a little bit of a tough one, and I might piss you off, but I am not here to agree with all your thought patterns, nor do I want you to agree with mine. I am here to get you to critic critically, think. Critically

think about three questions, and question three is, do your client or your actions line up with your goals?

I paused there on purpose because it, this is a tough one. People tell me their goals and often times their actions aren't lining up with their goals and often impeding their goals. I'll be honest. Step one always sucks. Raise your hand if the hardest thing for you to do is sit down and do the thing. But once you sit down and do the thing, you're doing the thing.

Cool. But oftentimes, we don't want to do the work it takes to reach the goal. Now, there's no shame in that, because readiness is super important. Okay? Now, what I want you to think right now about your goals. You have a lot of goal you have for yourself right now.

What is it? And admit if you are starting at step one. And admit if you have no idea what step one is. Because the truth is, most people want things both ways. When it comes to hypermobility, they want the excessive mobility, but they also want to leave pain free, headache free, issues free. And I get that. I mean, I wish I could eat candy all day and not become diabetic.

But my family history and sugar make that impossible. So, I have to like, eat protein and healthy foods so I don't get diabetes. I have the palate of like a 12 year old boy. I would be happy eating chicken fingers, french fries, Swedish fish, and Oreos all day long. Judge me if you want, but those are my five favorite food groups.

So, if you ask me, what's my readiness? What's your readiness to change? So, if you're seeing your clients or you're doing some crazy shit, crazy movement that it reinforces those hypermobile patterns that are giving you pain, I want to ask you, is your goal to stay hypermobile and make pretty pictures with your body or to be able to do weird feats of strength?

Or do you want to take the time to remap your proprioception to help with your hypermobility?

I'm going to pause there because I don't know what your answer is. It's a hard one. I also want you to think about this is you don't have to do what I say or what anybody says to reach your goals, but there are a lot of scientific principles like neuroplasticity, just doing reps ain't it. If you're doing just reps, you're often reinforcing.

The patterns that are make getting you in pain and the only way to really change that is to change it with a big change in neural focus. So I'm gonna ask you a question. Would you, oh god, I might get four questions, but this is only three questions. Can we call this question three B? Would you yell at somebody who was deaf and expect them to hear you better?

No. You would use sign language. You would help them read your lips. You would act out things if you didn't know sign language or another way to communicate. You would want to help give them the sensory input, whether it was from their visual system with sign language, or another way, maybe writing it down so they could read.

Because without sensory input, we cannot get motor output. Now please understand, I'm not saying that hypermobile people don't feel things, they do. But what I'm saying is, your or their proprioception, their sensations might be a very unreliable narrator. And what we feel often disrupts us from the sensory input our brain is getting that could lead to more lasting change to live pain free.

Okay? So, asking your people, what are their goals? And you need to be okay with their answers. They might not be ready to do the work it takes. They might not have the time or the energy to really focus in on specific sensory input and make those changes. Because changing proprioception is hard. And I want everybody who lives with hypermobility, EDS, or any connective tissue disorders, changing proprioception is very hard.

It is possible. So I always say to people who tell me it's impossible, Please, I'm working here. So it's only impossible because you can't do it. I'm doing it every single day. But it is hard ass work. And my clients are superheroes because they are really doing the work it takes to make the change. And I have a lot of clients who don't want to do the work to Takes to make the change.

So we work on other things and redefine goals. Okay, so to summarize and wrap this shit up, because you guys all have lives, and I wanna keep this under 20 minutes. So I want you to ask your clients where their tongue is. What are their sensory preferences or icks and be honest about goals, because in order to change proprioception, you need readiness to start at step one, identify the sensory inputs your brain can take in process and create a change in motor output.

Remember, this podcast is to foster your critical thinking. So try some things, have some fun, and every arrow will get closer to what works for your brain and body. Remember, you are the expert at your brain and body. But if you need fresh eyes, ears, reach out so I can help you to figure out how to actually organize and make this neurological change in your brain and body.

Thank you guys so much for being here for episode 1. And I hope you learned a little bit, had a little bit of fun, and maybe might do some tongue exercises. Thanks everyone. And I will see you in episode two for more about the sensory systems.