Ep 78: Upward Facing Dog: Not As Simple As It Looks!

Transcript

Monica: 0:00

Let's take a deeper look into one of yoga's most commonly practiced poses, upward facing dog. You'll find it in nearly every Vinyasa class, and it's often sequenced right after chka. But for many students, this pose isn't just hard. It can hurt or even feel inaccessible for a number of reasons. So let's talk about it.

0:28

Welcome to the Essential Conversations for Yoga Teachers Podcast with me. I'm Monica Bright and I've been teaching yoga and running my yoga business for over a decade. This is the podcast for you. If you are a yoga teacher, you're looking for support. You love to be in conversation, and you're a lifelong student. In this podcast, I'll share with you. My life as a yoga teacher, the lessons I've learned, my process for building my business and helpful ideas, tools, strategies and systems I use and you can use so that your business thrives. We'll cover a diverse range of topics that will help you, whether you're just starting out or you've got years under your belt and you wanna dive deep and set yourself up for success. I am so glad you're here. Listen, I don't take myself too seriously, so expect to hear some laughs along the way. Now let's do this together.

Monica: 1:37

Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Monica, and I'm so glad you're here. Here is where we get real about yoga's role in helping students with conditions and injuries and what you can do to help them find relief while they're in your classes. In this episode, I wanna take a deeper look into one of yoga's most commonly practiced poses. Upward facing dog. You'll find it in nearly every Vinyasa class, and it's often sequenced right after toga. But for many students, this pose isn't just hard. It can hurt or even feel inaccessible. So what happens? Well, they typically still practice it, but because it hurts or it doesn't feel quite right, they end up jamming themselves through the transition. Think about it, if you're working with a student who has chronic back pain or limited lumbar extension or restricted. Ankle planter flexion. This pose can become a recipe for discomfort or even worse, a potential injury. So let's talk about it. Upward facing dog is often taught as a heart opener, a hip opener, or a backend. But let's get more specific. Here's what this pose requires, biomechanically. It requires full lumbar spine extension, so in your low back it needs to be able to arch deeply. It requires some shoulder extension, but it's really paired with scapular retraction, drawing the chest forward and up. It also requires hip extension. Since the legs stay long behind you, and if you are a strict alignment teacher, ankle planter flexion, that's pointed toes with the weight bearing on the tops of the feet. This is a lot, especially for new students and injured and aging students whose movements might be limited. Upward facing dog requires mobile joints strength and the ability to control movement through transitions. This pose seems simple enough. I mean, when I was learning to practice this pose, no teacher ever really broke it down for me, and in my teacher training when we were covering pose breakdowns, we didn't spend much time on this one. I wanna take some time to focus on four specific limitations that might make this pose feel miserable for some students. The first is ankle planter flexion, and I don't think we talk about this enough. If a student cannot comfortably point their toes, maybe due to stiff ankles, a prior injury. Or tightness in the front of the ankle, then they probably won't be able to place the tops of their feet on their mat. And weight bearing makes it even more of a challenge. Plant flexion is the action of pointing the toes and lengthening the top of the foot in upward facing dog. The. Entire pose relies on having weight through the tops of the feet, which requires full plantar flexion and healthy ankle mobility. But some students, especially runners, cyclists, or anyone who's had an ankle sprain or foot surgery can have stiff anterior ankles or poor mobility in the joint. If they can't comfortably press into the tops of their feet, it affects the engagement of their posterior chain as well. If a student can't fully plant our flex meaning point their feet, then they will try to curl their toes under instead. Their knees may also hover off the map, but their feet are. Barely connected, and they will often grip with their toes, which can lead to straining or cramping in the tops of the feet or the shins, instability in the lower body, and a tendency to shift too much weight into their wrists and low back to compensate for their limited ankle movement. Then they compensate by becoming over-reliant on their arms and shoulders. They will tend to dump their pelvis down, which results in a lumbar hinge, and sometimes they can experience a lack of groundedness or a floating feeling in their legs. You might see their thighs lifted, but the ankles struggling, or you could see them pushing into their toes instead of the tops of their feet. The next area of concern is students who come to class with chronic low back pain. the alignment required to practice upward facing dog adds load or weight to the lumbar spine while it's in extension. If someone has disc issues, facet joint sensitivity, or general hypermobility in their spine, This pose can compress those already sensitive structures. Think about the student with certain conditions like a disc herniation, spinal stenosis, SI joint dysfunction, facet joint inflammation, scoliosis, or even non-specific low back pain. Again, upward facing dog places the lumbar spine in deep extension under load For many students with back pain, this type of movement can be uncomfortable, especially because they're locked in, Meaning the floor prevents them from moving and it can irritate injuries and conditions students already come to class with. Here's how you can see it's a problem for your students. You might see them wince or. Fake the pose, barely lifting their chest, or they race through it really fast to lessen the time they spend in the shape. You might notice that their glutes are overly engaged. In an attempt to protect their back, if you notice them clenching their glutes excessively, it can also have an effect on their SI joint. You can see them shrug their shoulders up towards their ears to offload spinal effort, or maybe you notice they hold tension in their jaw, their neck, or they hold their breath and they might even avoid the pose altogether and go straight to downward facing dog. Avoiding is not a bad idea, especially if they feel a dull ache or a sharp pinch in their low back, or discomfort that lingers into later parts of the class, or even fear, hesitation or tension every time the pose is queued. This is a nervous system response and it's just as important as any physical response. Okay, let's move on to lumbar extension and what happens when it's limited. Some students simply can't extend through the lumbar spine due to structural restrictions, past surgeries, or habitual postural patterns. Instead of a smooth curve through the spine, they hinge at the thoraco lumbar junction or force the lift through their arms. Limited lumbar extension refers to a mechanical limitation in the ability of the lumbar spine that's L one through L five, to extend or arch backward. It may be due to congenital structure, tight hip flexors, postural habits, spinal fusion conditions in the spine, or a past surgery. Traditional alignment in upward facing dog assumes that the lumbar spine can arch deeply while the pelvis is unsupported. Since the thighs and hips are taught to hover from the mat, if that range of motion doesn't exist, the back tries to compensate from the thoracic spine or the shoulders, which can create strain. The pose turns into less of a back bend. Their chest leans forward and their back stays relatively flat. Students may also push hard into their hands and shrug their shoulders and there's often an exaggerated bend at one segment of the spine instead of a smooth curve. You can actually see it. I've seen it in students practicing in wheel pose and bow pose as well. Once you get comfortable seeing this, you can spot it in other poses too. Even a standing back bin or onne. Asano with a back bin. A student might feel a sensation like blocked or jammed in the low back. They could feel effort without reward. Like they feel like they're doing a lot, but getting nowhere, or they might feel disconnected from their lower body. Here's a side note. I would like to emphasize that not all students will experience pain, so you shouldn't assume it's painful. You could ask them if you want or if you feel like they would be willing to talk with you. This is where understanding pain comes into play. We all experience pain in different ways and in different levels, and pain is multifactorial, so it cannot be reduced to a physical movement as the sole reason that pain presents. Start to notice if your students overuse their arms to, for lack of a better way to say it, fake their lift. Notice if they're hinging at the thoraco lumbar junction, whether thoracic and lumbar spine meet, and also look to see if they're restricting their breath due to tension and struggle. Finally, let's talk about some challenges with scapular retraction. Scapular retraction is the movement of drawing the shoulder blades back towards the spine. Think about hugging your blades towards the midline. Without shrugging up an upward facing dog, you want the shoulders behind the wrist, the chest broad and lifted, and the scapula gliding along the rib cage in a controlled way. The problem is most students lack either the strength or mobility to retract the scapular well under load. It requires coordination between the rhomboids, middle traps and serus anterior, All while the chest is expanding upward and the arms are bearing weight, when scapular control is missing the shoulders roll forward or shrug up towards the ears, compressing the neck, collapsing the chest, and adding strain to the wrist and low back. How can you spot this? You might see a student's shoulders in front of their wrists with their chest cad in, or elbows splayed out, and the arms loose. Their vertical alignment, their neck may look compressed, or their head is flung back without control, and finally their scapular wing out instead of sliding across the back. A student might feel tension in their neck or traps a sense of sinking between the shoulders instead of lifting through the chest. Difficulty holding the pose for more than a breath or two, or excessive pressure in the wrist or the base of the neck. Whew. So you see how upward facing dog is more complicated than just a simple transition pose between Ang and Downward Facing Dog. The mechanics of this pose require much more than some students can handle, and in most group yoga classes, you don't have the time to properly pause the class and teach this pose. So what can you do instead? Here are three options. If upward facing dog isn't accessible, teach Cobra pose. Cobra keeps the pelvis and legs grounded. It removes the demand for ankle plantar flexion with added load. It reduces lumbar compression because it's a smaller back bend, and it offers students more control over how much they extend their spine. You can even cue a baby Cobra with the hands under the shoulders. Light pressure and a slight lift, it still builds strength and awareness, but without the load. Number two, you could think about using props under their thighs. If a student wants to try upward facing dog, but struggles with ankle plantar flexion, you can offer to place a rolled blanket under either their thighs or their shins. It offloads pressure from the feet and can help to support better spinal alignment. Number three, you could teach a hovering cobra or a Sphinx flow if you wanna build towards upward facing dog. But you see students are not quite there. Explore dynamic flows like sphinx rolls or hovering Cobra to warm the spine and practice back bends with less compression. Now say you're teaching group classes. How can you teach options without singling? Anyone out. Don't assume that upward facing dog is a must do. It's not in your classes. You could say something like, if upward facing dog doesn't feel good on your back, your ankles or your shoulders, try cobra. Both are strong, smart choices and teach Cobra before saying this so that students understand what you mean. Or you can even weave in words along these lines. Choose the version that gives you space to breathe and resist practicing the one that forces you to clench your teeth. Remind students that harder isn't always better. Smart is better. Sustainable is better. Informed is better. What feels right is better. Theme a whole class around this sentiment or work it into all of your classes So students understand the type of teacher you are. So here's the takeaway. Just because upward facing dog is common doesn't mean it's appropriate for everybody. As a teacher, your power lies in recognizing that and offering options so that students know that they're available, whether it is ankle mobility. Chronic pain, limited spinal extension or scapular movement variability. You can make your teaching more inclusive by shifting your language from full expression to functional variation, understanding anatomy, biomechanics, and the effects yoga Asana have on the body helps you understand your students. It's so important for us to have this conversation so that you remember that students of all shapes, sizes, alignment, and abilities. Come to your classes and you can serve them all. You know that my goal is for you to love the yoga teaching life. It's important to understand movement and the issues students come to your classes with. I've added a link in the show notes for you to send me a quick text message about your thoughts on this episode. I won't know your phone number. It's just a neat addition to the platform I use that allows for this new and super easy way for you to communicate with me. Once you click on it, it will take you to your messages, but don't delete the code. That's how your message will get to me, and I would love to know your thoughts. Subscribe to the podcast so you're always in the know when a new episode drops and share it with another yoga teacher who you think would love to be in on these conversations. And finally, thank you for helping to spread the word about this podcast. Alright, that's it for now. Bye.