CARs: the Best Exercises for Joint Health

Now that everyone is inside and practicing social distancing, it is a great time to start (or continue) working on your joint health! One of the best ways to do this is to perform CARs— “Controlled Articular Rotations”— and if you’ve seen me at the office, you probably already know what I’m talking about. CARs, as defined by Functional Range Conditioning, are “active, rotational movements at the outer limits of articular motion".  Simply put, this is moving your joints through their entire range of motion.

When looking at these movements from the outside, they just look like fancy joint circles; but when done properly and with intent, they are one of the best things you can do for your joints. Some of the benefits of CARs include:

Maintaining Joint Health

By moving joints through their entire range of motion (ideally every day), you bring lubrication and nourishment into the joint, maintaining joint health and even alleviating discomfort caused by arthritis. Also, moving in this way increases your brain’s ability to control that joint, improving joint strength.

Maintaining Joint Range of Motion as You Age

Using your joints is the only way to make sure they stay healthy. The adage, “If you don’t use it, you lose it,” definitely applies for joint health. Utilizing CARs every day can help ensure you are able to use your joints in 30 years.

Improving Athletic Performance and Decreasing Risk of Injury.

CARs help to improve your joints’ ability to do what they need to do. This means we can load that joint more efficiently which, over time, leads to higher athletic performance. Also, if a joint is unable to do what it needs to do, you will have to compensate and use other joints that may not be capable of doing that movement correctly. These compensations are a major cause of lost performance and injury. If we can make sure our joints are doing what they are designed to do, we will have healthier joints and improved performance.

Assessment of Joints

One of the main reasons I give these exercises to my patients is because they serve as a self-assessment for how your joints are functioning. This gives you detailed information of when and where the joint is bothering you and serves as a tool to know when you need some help.

Example: If you have closing angle joint pain (pinching pain on the closing side of the joint), this is a sign that you probably need some help, because the joint is most likely pinching into itself. M2 Chiropractic can help by using adjustments or soft tissue work to improve the joint motion.  

Here is a video showing you my daily CARs routine. Performing these movements every day is the best way to ensure lifelong joint health → https://youtu.be/e0mYKAx7ibA

When performing these CARs, we want to focus on a few things:

  • Use about 50% of your maximum intensity throughout the movement.

  • Make sure we are only moving the joints for the specified movement. Compensations lead to less movement in the desired joint, which makes the movement less effective.

  • DON’T PUSH THROUGH CLOSING ANGLE JOINT PAINS! These are pains that you feel as you move toward the joint and are generally caused by the joints smashing into themselves. This will irritate the joints if done repetitively.

  • Complete 3-10 of these per joint, per day.

I hope this information is beneficial for you, and if you have any questions about CARs or your specific issues, feel free to contact us—we would love to help!

If you want to learn more about this or other joint focused exercises, join Nathan Barbosa’s Kinstretch class (https://instabio.cc/PhysioFixKWN).

Stay healthy out there!

-Dr. Matt

Matt MorenoM2 Chiropractic