CARS
Watch in Full
Ready to go?
Move through a full set of CARs with Matt now:
About CARS
What are CARs?
Controlled Articular Rotations, a.k.a CARs, are a series of sequential, rotational movements that promote healthy joint articulation. You can break each word down, to understand it more easily:
Controlled = Slow, precise movement
Articular = Joints. The intersection of bones and the connective tissue that moves them.
Rotations = Circular motion
Essentially, CARs takes EVERY joint through a full, controlled, pain free, range of motion, every day. In doing this, we are able to:
1. Maintain our joint health, and 2. Self-Assess our body’s preparedness for moving.
Why do CARs?
The best answer to this, is a question: Why do you clean your teeth?
Hopefully, your answer to that is “to keep my teeth healthy.” We all understand that by not doing this, we risk our teeth rotting or dying – it’s what drives us to do it without thought, every day.
Our articular and capsular tissue – which is the deepest layer of soft tissue in our joints, work in the same way as our teeth. In order for these tissues to stay healthy, we must look after them daily, too.
Just like our muscles – which get sore and damaged after hard training sessions or games – our joint tissue gets damaged in the same way.
In recovery, our muscles receive their nutrients for growth and repair from a high level of blood flow, but our joint tissue does not have that much blood flow. So, the usual method for repair doesn’t work for these tissues.
Moving through CARs daily helps the joint tissue access the essential nutrients needed for growth and repair. No blood flow required!
How do I prepare for CARs?
Because we are trying to move 1 joint at a time, in isolation, it’s important that no other movement occurs. To isolate movement, each CARs rep should begin with ‘irradiation’ – the generation of whole body tension, as follows:
- Inhale deeply, and exhale slowly.
- As you exhale, create tension by squeezing your torso and holding a small amount of breath. Imagine filling a bucket in your belly with tension and letting it spill into the rest of your body.
- Continue to breathe but keep breaths shallow so that you do not lose tension or control. Move through your CARs.
Why is it so important that your joints are maintained, and that these tissues are healthy?
First and foremost, all movement comes from your joints. Your muscles contract, in response to neural signals that come through the brain, spinal cord and then directly into the CAPSULAR tissue of the joint. This happens at every joint, for all movement. From your head to your toes.
If your joint tissue is unhealthy, or poorly maintained these signals become jumbled and movement has to come from somewhere else – a compensation.
Not ideal, right?
Healthy joints make all movement easier, and helps to mitigate risk of injury in the process. That 50 metre sprint, that back post leap to head the winning goal, and the ability to pass and share the ball, all become easier, when your joints function like they are supposed to. It all starts with CARs!
What should CARs feel like?
The number one thing here is that CARs should never be painful. We aren’t trying to push our range, or work-out here so pain is a no no.
There are a number of feelings that you may experience, that are 100% safe and should be expected:
- Clicking
- Popping
- Cracking
- Stretching
All of these sensations are fine, as long as they don’t hurt. You may even feel a slight warmth run through the tissue of the joint you’re moving, too.
What your CARs feel like is super important. It’s how we are going to assess the health of our joints.
First, if you feel any pain make note of it, reverse your motion a little and continue on. Never push into pain.
Second, if you notice sensations that aren’t necessarily painful but are uncomfortable and occur on the closing side (inside angle) of your movement, like squashing or pinching, that is your first indicator that there’s an issue.
A closing angle sensation like this, is indicative of a lack of space within the joint to move efficiently. It’s your body telling you that it’s not ready to move there. If your body isn’t ready to move, extensive movement is difficult, and the tissues will fatigue quickly.
Ever wonder why your hip flexor always gets tight when you play? Check your hip CAR for closing angle pain.
The best part about CARs is that once you identify something that isn’t moving well, you’re now empowered to do something about it!
THE CARs
Neck CAR:
Leading all motions from the chin, move in order as follows:
- Take the chin to the chest.
- Move along the chest, rotating until the chin hits the shoulder.
- Take the chin toward the sky, bending the neck as if to drop the ear to your back.
- Continue to rotate the chin, extending the neck as if to look above.
- You complete the rotation the chin arrives at the other shoulder, reversing the first two steps.
- Reverse the entire sequence to complete 1 full CAR.
Shoulder CAR:
Throughout this CAR, keep the arm straight and elbow locked.
- Raising the arm above your head, palm facing in, to flex the shoulder. Do not allow the back or ribcage to follow.
- Rotate the bicep and thumb inward toward the body’s midline.
- Reach the arm behind you whilst keeping the shoulder blades pulled down. Continue this motion until the back of the hand is resting on the side of the hip and the pinky is facing forward.
- Reverse the entire motion. Reaching behind you first.
- Rotate the shoulder, spinning the bicep away from the body and reaching the hand up.
- Continue reaching up, while bringing the arm overhead and back to the start position.
Global Spine CAR:
Take an ‘A’ Frame stance, by separating the feet until your body resembles an ‘A’.
- Cross the arms over the chest and place the chin on the chest. Imagine your lower body, up to the ribcage, is stuck in concrete and cannot move.
- Create a bend in your upper back by bringing the chest down towards your pelvis, without the pelvis moving backward.
- Rotate the ribcage and chest towards a hip, keeping the pelvis as still as possible.
- Laterally flex the spine, taking the elbows and shoulders down toward the hip you have rotated to.
- Begin to extend the spine by lifting the top shoulder and pushing the chest upward.
- Rotate the ribcage and chest all the way to the opposing hip.
- Reverse your rotation in order to return to the start position.
- Reverse the entire sequence complete a full CAR.
Scapula CAR:
Imagine you have placed your hands on a ledge at shoulder height, in front of you. You cannot lift them off the ledge or push the ledge down.
- Shrug your shoulders as high as possible towards the ears.
- Keep your shoulders shrugged and try to initiate protraction, moving the shoulders forwards.
- Now, aim to keep your shoulders in as much protraction as possible whilst lowering them down
- Keep the shoulders as low as possible, retract by squeezing the shoulder blades together, as if trying to squash your spine.
- Whilst keeping your ‘squeeze’, elevate the shoulders back toward your start position.
- Reverse the above steps to complete a full CAR.
Elbow CAR:
Keep the wrists and hands as still as possible throughout.
- Begin with the arms, palms forward.
- Bring the palm up towards your shoulder, bending the elbow.
- Turn the palm over to face out, keeping your elbow bent.
- Return the hand down, straightening the elbow.
- Turn the hand over, back to the start position.
- Reverse all steps to complete a full CAR.
Wrist CAR:
Place both arms at a right angle with the elbows touching the ribs and the forearm facing up. Maintain this position throughout.
- Bring the palm up toward the elbow.
- Keeping your palm as high as possible, move the fingers out, away from the body.
- Begin lowering the hand as if trying to pull the fingers underneath your forearm.
- Continue to follow this rotation round, keeping your base position still and return the wrist to the start position.
- Reverse all steps to complete a full CAR.
Segmental Spine CAR:
The base position for this car is “four point kneeling”, on your hands and knees. Make sure the spine is flat to begin:
- From a flat back, initiate movement from your pelvis, lifting each segment of the spine as sequentially as possible.
- Continue this lifting, tracking up the spine, vertebrae by vertebrae, rounding the back until you reach the head. At the end, you should resemble an arch shape.
- Reverse the motion, lowering each vertebrae sequentially down the spine until you reach the pelvis and resemble a bow shape.
- This is a full CAR.
Hip CAR:
There are three different ways you can do the Hip CAR. It is not necessary to do ALL three, just one.
Standing:
Stand side on to a wall, placing your hand on the wall for balance. Take the leg closest to the wall through the following motion:
- Bring the knee up toward the chest. Push through the standing foot to ensure the back does not round.
- Keep the knee as high as possible and move knee and ankle out to the side whilst keeping the pelvis still.
- Go as far as possible. Internally rotate by pulling the heel up and behind you.
- Feel the glutes engage as the knees meet.
- Reverse the motion, lifting the knee behind your body.
- Take the knee and ankle, together, out to the side whilst keeping the pelvis still.
- Externally rotate the hip, by bringing the heel underneath the knee.
- Return the leg to its first position, in front of the chest to complete a full CAR.
4 Point Kneeling:
On your hands and knees, keep the wrists, elbows and shoulders in line with each other, and the knees and hips in line with each other as well. Once in position, brace your torso to keep the spine flat. Then, move one hip as follows:
- Lift one knee off the ground slightly, enough so that you can slide a credit card underneath. Keep the spine flat and pull the knee toward the elbow, flexing the spine.
- Keep the knee as high toward the elbow as possible, then move the knee and ankle, together, out to the side. Keep the pelvis still, facing the ground. Go as far as possible without the pelvis following.
- Internally rotate the hip by pulling the heel up toward the ceiling. Feel the glutes engage as the leg comes behind the body, parallel to the ground.
- Lower the knee ‘through the gate’, to tap the ground next to the opposing knee.
- Reverse the last motion, bringing the knee back up toward the ceiling behind the pelvis. Keep the back flat and elbows straight.
- Take the knee and ankle, together, back out to the side whilst keeping the pelvis as still as possible. Try not to lean out to the opposing side.
- Externally rotate the hip, by bringing the heel underneath the knee, but trying to keep the knee as high as possible. Return the leg to its first position, in front of the chest to complete a full CAR.
Knee CAR:
- Seated, resting against the wall if required.
- Hook one arm under the knee of the same side.
- Keeping your ankle still, try to rotate from the shin bone, to bring foot and shin to face across your body.
- Keeping your shin bone rotated, straighten the knee as far as possible.
- Reverse your rotation to bring the foot and shin to face away from your body.
- Bend the knee back down.
- Reverse to complete a full CAR.
Ankle CAR:
In the same as the knee CAR, keeping the shin as still as possible throughout:
- Pull the toes and foot toward the shin.
- Pull the toes across your body, to invert the ankle.
- Slowly point the foot, allowing your toes to come away from your shin.
- As the foot points, start to rotate the foot away from the body.
- Once the toes are facing away, begin to pull the foot back up to where we started.
- Reverse this full sequence to complete a CAR.
Toe CARs:
Keep the big toe knuckle, pinky toe knuckle and heel on the ground throughout the CAR sequence.
Starting w/ toes down:
- Lift ONLY the big toe. Hold off the ground briefly, and lower. Repeat 3-10 times.
- Lift ONLY the small toes, leaving the big toe down. Hold off the ground briefly, and lower. Repeat 3-10 times.
Starting w/ toes up:
- Lower ONLY the big toe. Hold on the ground briefly, and lift. Repeat 3-10 times.
- Lower ONLY the small toes, leaving the big toe up. Hold on the ground briefly, and lift. Repeat 3-10 times.
Watch in Full
Ready to go?
Move through a full set of CAR’s with Matt now:
