CARs (Controlled Articular Rotations)
- Michael Laporte
- May 13
- 2 min read
Everything you do in a day is movement. It's purpose? Acquisition.
Some examples of this… Everything related to your job - from the commute to the job characteristics - to acquire money. Lifting your coffee cup. Exercise to acquire more muscle or strength or cardiovascular health (or things like mental clarity!). Even words are just movements made by your vocal cords creating vibrations in the air to communicate to acquire something (friendship, agreement, affection).
Ultimately, that means movement, and maintaining or improving the ability to move, is important.
This leads to two thoughts:
The old adage: If you don't use it, you lose it.
At it's most basic, movement is a skill. If we don't practice the skill periodically, we lose it. It means that to maintain our capacity for movement, we must move into those ranges that we are capable of moving into.
"You can't move where you can't move"
This quote, from Dr Andreo Spina, seems obvious enough, but is powerful when you consider that we oftentimes don’t know where we can’t move because we don’t move there. Movement, therefore, offers us exciting learning opportunities.
Taken together, it stands to reason that taking time to engage in a movement practice that moves your body’s joints through their fullest range of motion would be beneficial for long term movement.
Enter CARs (Controlled Articular Rotations). CARs offer a great way to move into ranges and planes of movement that aren't typically "visited" during daily activities and fitness pursuits. They are an intentful movement practice to learn and control the range of motion, and improve the health and longevity of your joints.
If you would like to try CARs for yourself, see the video embedded in this article.
A few rules before trying:
DO NOT push through suspicious or painful ranges of motion - if experienced, back off the range of motion and try to find your way “around” the pain
Except when point 1 occurs, try to access as much range of motion as possible
Move with intent. Try your best not to allow other joints to compensate to make the movement “bigger”
1-2 reps (or 3-4 reps if you have more time) per joint
Happy CARs!
Michael Laporte
Physiotherapist
If you would like to book in for an assessment, related to CARs or otherwise, use the button below.
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