Naked! Instructional Photo: Up Dog Diagnostics

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Today, we're taking a detailed look at Upward Dog (Urdhva Mukha Svanasana in Sanskrit)  to hopefully help make it more comfortable.  Similar to our deep dive into Down Dog, I've made these photo collages with some graphics to more easily see adjustments and compare/contrast. Again, this isn't about right or wrong; but your body may thank you a few years down the line for paying attention to some of these anatomical nuances.

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Viewer discretion is advised. You are responsible for knowing your limits! Remember to always listen to your body and make decisions that work for you. Skip anything you want, and take breaks when you need to. If something hurts, stop. Remember, more is not better, it's just MORE.

1) This is where I'm at with Up Dog right now. My upper spine is naturally pretty rounded (kyphotic) and my elbows tend to hyper extend, so most of my efforts are focused on instructions from photos #5 and 6. Also, my wrists have had tendonitis in the past, so I have to pay attention to my knuckles, making sure to press down the base of all my fingers as I press up. This is generally a good practice to avoid wrist issues, so I recommend it, the same way we pressed the knuckles down in Down Dog.

2) These top two photos are often what I see for people's first attempts at Upward Dog. Again, "wrong" isn't such a helpful word. When I see this in class, the more interesting word that comes to mind is "OUCH!"  In the top left photo, my hands are pretty far forward of my shoulders, which makes it harder to straighten the elbows since it'd require flexibility for a huge backbend. In both of the top pictures, my shoulders are crunching way up to my ears and my neck is nowhere near comfortable.

You might try scooting the hands slightly farther backward, as in the bottom right photo, so that when you straighten your arms, your hands or wrists are more or less underneath the shoulders. As in the bottom left picture, try to press your shoulders down your back, or think about lifting your chest up to the ceiling, to create healthier alignment for the upper body.

3) This photo is the same concept as above, but shown from the front. It's easier to see from this angle the difference this makes. The top photo, there's an acute angle of space between neck and shoulder. In the bottom photo, there's a lot more space, and I've drawn arrows to indicate that the shoulders are pressing down, but also that the collarbones are widening! Also, the difference is subtle, but you might be able to see that parts of my hands and knuckles are peeling off the mat in the top photo. Lifting the chest helps me to press down my knuckles, especially the base of the index and thumb, to protect my wrists.

4) Next, let's focus on the lower back and abs. Upward Dog can cause pain in the lower back over time if you're not using your abdominals for support. In the top left photo, I'm doing my best to demonstrate something I see in class a lot (although my flexibility is limited): lower back is crunching and dropping down pretty low, abs aren't engaged, and the upper back is reaching backward instead of up. For some who have more flexibility in the lower back, Up Dog starts to look like an "L" shape with a sharp curve in the lower back.

Dare I say: scoop your abs in and up? (Yes, and I'll never stop saying it. "She scooped her abs" will be on my tombstone.) Some teachers say your knees HAVE TO BE UP. That kind of simplistic, "all-or-nothing" advice bores me. For some people, lifting the knees isn't an option, and I'm okay with the knees being down as long as the abs are contracting so you don't dump in the lower back! The bottom photo demonstrates the same thing, but I've straightened my legs so my knees lift off the mat. You don't have to pull your abs in so much that your hips start to lift dramatically to the ceiling, but engaging your abs and lifting the chest makes this shape more about the "UP" than the "CRUNCH", and the shape resembles more of a banana than an "L" (again, you can't see it as well on me, but you can Google this stuff).

5) My elbows hyper-extend, so I'm good at demonstrating this, and I see it in class all the time. "Future you" called and said their elbows and wrists hurt. Try giving a tiny bend to your elbows. Instead of the elbows making a broken line with the "eyes of the elbows" falling forward, a tiny bend will start to straighten out the arm and rotate the "eyes" a bit more inward. If you have hyper-extended elbows, making this adjustment might feel weird, like you're intentionally bending your elbows. You are. But in doing so, you're protecting your joints, so you'd adjust your intention in Up Dog from "I am going to straighten my arms all the way now," to "I am going to straighten my arms almost all the way to the point that they still feel a little bent to me but it's actually fine."

6) This is a bit more of an advanced cue, so give yourself some time to work up to it. Once you get a feel for pressing the shoulders down, you might try experimenting with reaching the chest forward at the same time. This is particularly difficult for me because my spine is so curved. In the top left photo, I'm just pressing shoulders down and lifting my chest up. Even here, my shoulders are still tending to roll forward toward each other like they do in everyday life. 

As in the right photo, one little trick is to bend your elbows a little BACKWARDS, then start to pull your elbows back toward your ribs as you reach your chest forward. Without moving your hands, it's like you're trying to drag your hands backwards on the mat to pull the chest forward, shoulder blades moving towards each other on the back. Then, once your collarbones are nice and open, keep that effort as you slowly straighten your arms. In this bottom left photo, you can see a difference in my shoulders: my shoulderblades are not only pressing down, but wrapping back towards each other to open my chest.