Exercise Of The Week- Half Kneeling Level 2 Shoulder CARs

Exercise Of The Week- Half Kneeling Shoulder CARs w/Cervical and Hip blocks

CARs, or Controlled Articular Rotations, make up the foundation of the FRC system. Essentially you are taking a joint through the outer limits of it’s ROM, utilizing tension to increase mechanoreceptor activity and therefore build control and joint resilience. Through the use of irradiation (tension), we make sure that no other part of the body moves, therefore ensuring that you capture as much range of motion as possible in that one particular joint.

Unless a particular individual is a stellar mover and has no extensive injury history, they will at some point begin to compensate. This isn’t a bad thing. It merely tells us that the individual lacks the specific movement requirements, which gives us insight into what we need to attack. 

*It should be stated that the majority of clientele I work with are baseball athletes. Different populations will present different limitations and area’s that they excel in.

For these reasons I have begun utilizing Half Kneeling Shoulder CARs with added constraints in just about every athletes program that I work with.

What Does It Do?

FR has addressed this issue by breaking CARs down into three separate levels. Level 1 is the basic CARs everyone learns at their first seminar, and is the first thing recommended for daily use. With most individuals, there are positions and movements in each joint that restrict the movement, and to prevent unwanted movement, we change the environment, put constraints upon the individual so that they must self-organize and produce a clean movement. 

Addressing the fact that I work with baseball players in Florida, where the season tends to run almost unmitigated yearly, I implement shoulder CARs for every one of our athletes in order to maintain active ROM and get the nutrients to their joint capsule.

Invariably a lot of them (if not all), begin to elicit compensations, most of which are quite common, and some expected. We see anterior humeral glide due to lack of IR and extension. We also see extension of the lumbar due to lack of shoulder flexion.

To facilitate the learning process, make the exercise more effective, and to also save my sanity, I began implementing these blocks to prevent excessive movement. CARs aren’t about creating MORE ROM (that’s the job for PAILs/RAILs), but rather take what movement we have and make it as badass as possible.

Blocking the knee with a foam roller or yoga block provides a stable base through which the pelvis can maintain sagittal competency.

Blocking the head helps prevent any cervical motion, maintain good alignment of the head over the thorax.

Blocking the head helps prevent any cervical motion, maintain good alignment of the head over the thorax.

Setting up in a half kneeling position allows for the head, thorax, and pelvis to stay stacked over one another. This is necessary in preventing any unwanted motion to occur in adjacent joints and instead allow the individual to focus purely on glen…

Setting up in a half kneeling position allows for the head, thorax, and pelvis to stay stacked over one another. This is necessary in preventing any unwanted motion to occur in adjacent joints and instead allow the individual to focus purely on glenohumeral articulation.

This exercise serves a few purposes:

  • Using the yoga block gives the athlete feedback on proper cervical alignment, and prevents excessive movement

  • The foam roller prevents pelvic movement and helps maintain better lumbopelvic positioning by helping the athlete maintain posterior pelvic tilt. This optimizes lumbopelvic positioning, which influences what happens in the t-spine and shoulder girdle. 

  • Reaching with the opposite arm allows for better posterior expansion of the thoracic, and helps facilitate scapular protraction. By doing this, we put the glenohumeral joint in an optimal position to maximize the benefits of this drill.

  • Lastly, one unintended benefit is the helping promote posterior pelvic tilt, hugely beneficial for our baseball population since the large majority of them display large amounts of anterior pelvic tilt. 

Key Coaching Cues

The beauty of adding constraints is that proper execution keeps people honest. If any cervical motion occurs, the yoga block falls to the floor. By reaching the opposite arm forward and “glueing it to the wall,” I allow for posterior expansion of the thoracic spine as well as proper scapular motion on the ribcage. This prevents any t-spine extension, rotation, or lateral flexion from occurring. The foam roller simply keeps them stationary and in a good posture.

The goal here is to be as lazy and efficient as possible. It allows me to manage the weight room better without having to constantly correct and over coach certain athletes,, and it saves the athlete from hating the sound of my voice.