Part of the Yoga Framework mobility glossary — browse all 100+ terms.
Your hips carry you through everything: walking, sitting, training. The Hip CAR is the simplest way to check in with them. One slow, deliberate rotation takes the joint through its full range and shows you exactly where you’re stiff, weak, or compensating.
A CAR is exactly what it sounds like: you rotate the joint through its full controlled articular rotation range under your own control, no momentum. For the hip, that means tracing the biggest circle you can with your knee while keeping the rest of your body still.
The basic articulations:
- Flexion and extension
- Abduction and adduction
- External and internal rotation
The Hip CAR:
- Start standing.
- Bend the knee and draw the thigh diagonally across the midline of the body (adduction).
- Bring the thigh toward the belly or rib cage (hip flexion at end range).
- Externally rotate the hip while moving it away from the midline, out to the side as far as possible (abduction).
- Maintain abduction while internally rotating the hip into extension. Don’t let the leg drift back into adduction as you rotate.
- Reverse the circle, or repeat in the same direction.
Cues that matter:
- Don’t fold or hinge in the standing leg to cheat the range.
- Move slowly enough to own every inch. This is assessment, not exercise.
- Repeat daily. Your available range changes; the CAR tells you where you are today.
Once the Hip CAR feels smooth, try the Shoulder CAR — same concept, upper body.
Move within a pain-free range, and check with your physician before beginning any new mobility program.
A controlled articular rotation of the hip: one slow, deliberate circle of the joint through its full range, under your own muscular control, with no momentum. Flexion, adduction, external rotation, abduction, internal rotation, extension, then back to the start.
Daily. One to two slow reps per side takes about two minutes and tells you where your hips are today, since available range changes day to day.
Yes, especially at first. A stick or a wall keeps the standing leg quiet so your effort goes into the working hip instead of staying upright. Less wobble, more honest range.
That is the point of doing it. The CAR is an assessment, not a performance. Wherever one side ends sooner or compensates first, that is your starting point for training, not a failure.
