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Learn how to do Adho Mukha Svanasana, a yoga pose that resembles a dog bending forward. Find out the benefits, tips, preparatory and follow up poses, and contraindications of this asana.
- Downward-Facing Dog Pose Basics
- Cautions & Contraindications
- How to Do Downward-Facing Dog Pose
- Beginner’s Tips
- Common Misalignments
- Teaching Down Dog
- Downward-Facing Dog Variations
- Why We Love This Pose
- Preparatory and Counter Poses
- Anatomy
- GeneratedCaptionsTabForHeroSec
Pose type: Inversion Targets: Lower Body Benefits: Perhaps the most widely recognized yoga posture, Downward-Facing Dog Pose (Adho Mukha Svanasana) is equal parts strengthening and stretching. It strengthens your wrists, arms, and shoulders; it stretches your wrists, hamstrings, and entire back body. Because the posture lengthens your spine, it cou...
Avoid this pose if you suffer from an injury to your wrists, shoulders, or ankles, or if you have high blood pressure.
Come onto your hands and knees. Bring your hands slightly in front of your shoulders, pread your fingers wide, press down through your knuckles, and tuck your toes.Exhale as you lift your knees and reach your hips up and back. Keep your knees slightly bent as you press the backs of your thighs toward the wall behind you and reach your heels toward the mat.Breathe here. As you exhale, bend your knees and lower yourself into Child’s PoseKeep your knees bent if you experience strain or tightness in your hamstrings and low back.Let your heels feel heavy as you let them sink toward the mat. It’s perfectly okay and quite common for them to remain lifted off the mat.Reach your sit bones toward the wall behind you where it meets the ceiling.If you have tight shoulders, place your hands slightly wider than your shoulders and turn your fingers slightly outward.If you have stiff shoulders or hamstrings, Down Dog may feel exceptionally challenging. Tight shoulders can cause you to round your back or shift your body too far forward in the pose. Lift your hi...If you’re flexible or hypermobile, you’ll want to bring awareness to your shoulders to avoid collapsing. Push the mat away from you and draw your shoulders blades away from your ears. Allow some sp...Remind students to notice if they’re hyperextending their elbows. You can cue them to keep a microbend in their elbows or suggest they press their inner upper arms away from one other until they ca...Rizopoulos likes to remind students of the parallels between practicing this pose and being human. “As you find the alignment of this pose, see if you can find alertness and relaxation in the rest...Bent-Knee Downward Facing Dog
If your hamstrings feel tight or you experience low back pain, bend your knees a little or a lot. This can also help if you feel a strain in your lower back.
Downward Facing Dog Against a Wall
Bring your hands to the wall, shoulder-distance apart, and walk your feet back so your hips bend at 90 degrees. Your hands can be in line with your hips or higher on the wall. Look straight down at the floor.
Downward Facing Dog With Heels Against a Wall
If you have tight hamstrings, bring your heels against a wall and keep a slight bend in your knees. Rest your heels against the wall. If you’re in a class, you can keep a rolled blanket at the back of the mat and use that as support for your heels.
“I’ve had two mind-blowing revelations while practicing this pose. The first was when a teacher ever-so-gently put her thumb and forefinger between my shoulder blades and opened them. Such a small adjustment opened my shoulder blades and moved my hunched shoulders away from my ears,” says Tamara Jeffries, Yoga Journal‘s senior editor. “The second r...
Warm up for Adho Muka Svanasana with stretches for the hamstring and spine. You can follow Down Dog with almost any pose, although if you find yourself exhausted afterward, let yourself sink into Child’s Pose.
Adho Mukha Svanasana is part arm balance, part inversion, and part restorative pose that stretches and strengthens various parts of the body, explains Ray Long, MD, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon and yoga instructor. In the drawings below, pink muscles are stretching and blue muscles are contracting. The shade of the color represents the forc...
Learn how to practice Adho Mukha Svanasana, one of yoga's most widely recognized poses, with tips, anatomy, and video. This inversion strengthens your core and improves circulation, while providing a delicious, full-body stretch.
Learn how to do Downward Dog Pose, a common yoga pose that stretches and strengthens the whole body. Find step-by-step instructions, beginner tips, variations and benefits of this pose.
Oct 14, 2022 · Learn the alignment, benefits, and variations of Adho Mukha Svanasana, a quintessential yoga pose that stretches and strengthens your whole body. Find tips on how to shift your weight back, rotate your arms, and breathe in Down Dog.
Jul 16, 2021 · Learn how to do Downward Facing Dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana), a basic and essential yoga pose that stretches the hamstrings, calves, and arms. Avoid common mistakes such as sinking your heels, banana back, or turning your feet out.
Jul 14, 2023 · Adho Mukha Svanasana, as it is called in Sanskrit, is named after the similar position a dog takes while stretching. When you attain the final pose, your upper body resembles a dog (svana) in a stretched-out and relaxed position, while burying its face (mukha) downwards (adho).
Learn how to do Adho Mukha Svanasana, a yoga posture that replicates a dog bending forward. Find out the benefits, tips, contraindications and follow up asanas of this pose by Sri Sri Yoga teachers.
