Shoulder CARs

External video — Shoulder CARs by Functional Bodybuilding.

How to do it

Setup: Standing tall, one arm out to your side at shoulder height, the rest of your body still.
Execution: Take at least 8-10 seconds to complete one full circle — count it the first time to calibrate your own pace. Hit two checkpoints every circle: at the top, your arm brushes past your ear; at the bottom, it reaches down and slightly behind your hip. Complete the full circle through both checkpoints, then reverse direction and repeat.
Common error: Turning it into a brisk, loose arm-circle warm-up — if a full circle takes less than 8 seconds, or you can't feel real tension at the ear checkpoint and the behind-the-hip checkpoint specifically, it has become a warm-up swing, not this drill.
Feel: Steady, controlled tension everywhere in the circle, including at both checkpoints — never a swung, momentum-driven arc. Any pinch, especially in the left shoulder, means shrink the circle until it's gone, even if that means missing a checkpoint.

Slow, maximal-size circles at each shoulder, actively driven through the full ring rather than swung — quality of control matters more than speed.

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