You swim, bike, run, squat, press, pull, and all the other fitness things you have been trained to do. You train your muscles to keep you strong for a long and happy life, but what happens when the deeper stuff on which those muscles rely breaks down? What happens when the joint can no longer support the load you place on the muscles? You do all the fitness things you have been trained to do, but what are you doing to maintain the health of the joints themselves?
When I go to my dentist, Dr. Roberson always asks, “Have you been brushing your teeth at least twice a day?” I always answer (sometimes half truthfully), “Yes!” We understand that brushing our teeth a couple times a day maintains the health of our mouths. Moreover, we understand that failing to brush our teeth for many years leads to mouth problems.
So what is “brushing your teeth” for your joints?
Taking your joints through their safest, greatest, pain-free range every day: Controlled Articular Rotations (CARs).
CARs express the entirety of joints’ usable ranges of motion. What does this mean exactly?
Controlled: slow and smooth
Articular: joint-specific
Rotation: rotational manner
Joints rely on rotation as their fundamental motion (except the spine, but more on that in the future). Regularly exploring your joints’ maximum pain-free ranges in a rotational manner nourishes the tissue deepest to the bone, the capsule, and maintains the health of the joint at the fundamental, most important level. Exploring these ranges slowly and smoothly allows you to search for shaky, weak, unstable, and uncontrollable areas so you can address deficiencies with laser-sharp precision. When the joint foundation is healthy, bones have freedom to move, muscles have power to function, and you enjoy doing what you love for as long as you want.
Learn more about our movement classes here
