Being “double jointed” means your joints move beyond the normal range of motion, a trait doctors call joint hypermobility. About 27% of people have at least one unusually flexible joint, but only around 3% are hypermobile across their whole body. You can get a good sense of whether you fall into that category with a few simple physical tests you can do at home.
Five Quick Questions to Screen Yourself
Researchers developed a validated five-question screening tool that takes about a minute. Answer yes or no to each:
- Can you now (or could you ever) place your hands flat on the floor without bending your knees?
- Can you now (or could you ever) bend your thumb to touch your forearm?
- As a child, did you amuse friends by contorting your body into strange shapes, or could you do the splits?
- As a child or teenager, did your shoulder or kneecap dislocate on more than one occasion?
- Do you consider yourself double jointed?
If you answered yes to two or more, there’s a reasonable chance you have generalized joint hypermobility. This questionnaire is a screening tool, not a diagnosis. But it’s the same one clinicians use to decide whether further testing is worthwhile.
The Physical Tests Doctors Use
The standard clinical assessment is the Beighton Score, a nine-point scale based on five types of movements. Each test checks a specific joint or motion, and bilateral tests (left and right sides) each count as one point:
- Little finger: Pull your pinky finger back toward the top of your hand. If it bends past 90 degrees, that’s one point per hand.
- Thumb: Press your thumb toward your inner forearm. If it touches (or nearly touches), that’s one point per hand.
- Elbow: Straighten your arm fully. If your elbow extends past straight, creating a visible backward angle, that’s one point per arm.
- Knee: Stand and lock your legs straight. If your knees push backward past a straight line, that’s one point per leg.
- Trunk: With your knees straight, bend forward and try to place your palms flat on the floor. If you can, that’s one point.
For adults, a score of 4 out of 9 or higher is the conventional threshold for generalized joint hypermobility. Children are naturally more flexible, so the cutoff is higher: 6 out of 9 for anyone under 18, and possibly 7 or higher for girls. Joint flexibility also declines with age. In men, this decline typically starts in the mid-twenties. In women, flexibility often persists through the mid-forties before decreasing.
Why Some People Are More Flexible
Hypermobility isn’t about having extra joints or different bones. It comes down to the connective tissue that holds your joints together. Collagen, the main structural protein in your ligaments, tendons, and skin, gives those tissues both strength and stretch. In people with hypermobility, genetic variations affect how collagen and other connective tissue proteins are built, making ligaments and tendons more elastic than usual. The joint itself is structurally normal, but the “straps” holding it in place are looser.
This is why hypermobility often runs in families. It also explains why the trait shows up more in women than men. At higher levels of flexibility, the female-to-male ratio climbs dramatically, reaching roughly 8 to 1 among people who score 4 out of 5 on older assessment scales.
Signs Beyond Flexibility
Many people with hypermobile joints never experience problems. They’re flexible, and that’s the end of it. But for others, the extra range of motion comes with a recognizable pattern of symptoms that goes well beyond being bendy.
Joint pain that worsens with physical activity or repetitive use is the most common complaint. This pain tends to improve when you scale back activity, and unlike inflammatory arthritis, it rarely causes prolonged morning stiffness lasting more than 30 minutes. Over time, the repeated micro-injuries from joints moving along paths they shouldn’t can lead to chronic, widespread pain. Research shows that hypermobile individuals are about 40% more likely to report severe pain compared to the general population.
Recurrent sprains, strains, and joint dislocations are another hallmark. Some people experience subluxations, where a joint partially slips out of place and then goes back on its own. This can happen in shoulders, kneecaps, fingers, or other joints. You might also notice reduced balance and coordination. People with hypermobility often have poorer proprioception, the internal sense of where your body is in space, which makes them more prone to stumbling or misjudging movements.
Other physical signs include flat feet, knock knees, scoliosis, and skin that feels softer, thinner, or more stretchy than average.
When Hypermobility Affects More Than Joints
Connective tissue isn’t just in your joints. It’s in your skin, blood vessels, digestive tract, and throughout your organs. For some hypermobile people, this means symptoms that seem completely unrelated to flexibility.
About 60% of people with symptomatic hypermobility conditions experience some form of autonomic dysfunction: the nervous system that controls automatic functions like heart rate and blood pressure doesn’t regulate properly. This can show up as dizziness when standing, fatigue that rest doesn’t fix, and difficulty tolerating temperature changes. Digestive problems, including bloating, reflux, and sluggish gut motility, are common. Bladder issues, anxiety disorders, and chronic fatigue also appear at higher rates.
These systemic symptoms are more typical of two specific conditions: hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS) and hypermobility spectrum disorders (HSD). Both involve joint hypermobility as a core feature, but hEDS also requires specific skin findings, a family history, and other connective tissue signs to meet the formal diagnostic criteria established in 2017. HSD is the term used when someone has symptomatic hypermobility that doesn’t quite meet the full hEDS criteria. Both conditions can significantly affect quality of life.
What Your Results Mean
If you scored high on the self-tests and recognize yourself in the descriptions above, you’re likely hypermobile. For many people, that’s simply a trait, not a medical problem. Dancers, gymnasts, and musicians often benefit from extra flexibility.
The distinction that matters is whether your hypermobility causes symptoms. If you regularly deal with joint pain, frequent injuries, fatigue that doesn’t match your activity level, or any of the systemic issues described above, those are signs worth bringing to a doctor. Persistent pain and recurrent joint dislocations in particular suggest that your connective tissue laxity is creating real mechanical problems that can worsen without proper management. A clinician can formally score your Beighton test, evaluate you for hEDS or HSD, and help build a plan that typically centers on targeted strengthening exercises to compensate for the extra joint laxity.