5 tips to Recover from Joint and Muscle Pain from Exercise
The best recovery starts with three words, “Controlled Articular Rotations,” CARs for short. They were created by Dr. Andreo A. Spina, founder of Functional Range Systems.
5 Ways to Use Controlled Articular Rotations (CARs)
- Do CARs with acute injuries
- Do CARs with chronic injuries
- Do CARs pre-workouts
- Do CARs post-workouts
- Do CARs EVERY SINGLE DAY
Why are Controlled Articular Rotations (CARs)
Your brain keeps the score.
In short, CARs are the way for you to listen through movement and keep the dynamic range of motions you do own. Because the less you articulate, aka move a joint in its FULL design, the faster you lose control of your joints.
An acute injury shocks the body abruptly and suddenly. However, using CARs to move the joint slowly and controlled with the active ranges of motion of the acutely injured joint where there is no pain is highly necessary. Ever heard of the phrase, “use it or lose it?”. Well, it’s an actual scientific phrase meaning your brain is fed information from every joint in your body. That information is available “workspace” or “joint space” that is actively available and used consistently.
Here is an example, hold up your pointer finger. Now see those little lines or creases? Yeah, that’s where your finger joints are. Now bend aka “flex” each line until your finger is curled down into a hook shape. Awesome, now unbend “extend” each line back up into the upright or “pointing position”. Awesome! Now I want you to imagine keeping your finger splinted in this good position for 30 days.
Then, after 30 days, you take the splint off and try to do the same movements. Again, your finger wasn’t hurt as a perfect moving finger; however, let’s say this was an experiment to test to see what your brain thinks about your finger.
Now because your finger was locked in the same position for 30 days, the finger joints were feeding the information to your brain that they did not move, so when you remove the splint and try to move your finger, it will be stiff and difficult to move!
So, What does that have to do with an acute injury? An acute injury is an insult that abruptly and suddenly happens to the tissue or joint. The best way to resolve the injury requires you to begin to move that joint as much as possible unless there’s a break, such as a complete break in the bone or fracture. Moving the joint immediately re-establishes the connection to the brain so that it can regain it’s full range of motion again.
