Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog)
adho = downward
mukha = face
svana = dog
Step by Step
Come onto the floor on your hands and knees. Set your knees directly
below your hips and your hands slightly forward of your shoulders.
Spread your palms, index fingers parallel or slightly turned out, and
turn your toes under.
Exhale and lift your knees away from the floor. At first keep the knees
slightly bent and the heels lifted away from the floor. Lengthen your
tailbone away from the back of your pelvis and press it lightly toward
the pubis. Against this resistance, lift the sitting bones toward the
ceiling, and from your inner ankles draw the inner legs up into the
groins.
Then with an exhalation, push your top thighs back and stretch your
heels onto or down toward the floor. Straighten your knees but be sure
not to lock them. Firm the outer thighs and roll the upper thighs inward
slightly. Narrow the front of the pelvis.
Firm the outer arms and press the bases of the index fingers actively
into the floor. From these two points lift along your inner arms from
the wrists to the tops of the shoulders. Firm your shoulder blades
against your back, then widen them and draw them toward the tailbone.
Keep the head between the upper arms; don't let it hang.
Adho Mukha Svanasana is one of the poses in the traditional Sun
Salutation sequence. It's also an excellent yoga asana all on its own.
Stay in this pose anywhere from 1 to 3 minutes. Then bend your knees to
the floor with an exhalation and rest in Child's Pose.This Asana focuses on Upper back
Benefits
- Calms the brain and helps relieve stress and mild depression
- Energizes the body
- Stretches the shoulders, hamstrings, calves, arches, and hands
- Strengthens the arms and legs
- Relieves menstrual discomfort when done with head supported
- Helps prevent osteoporosis
- Improves digestion
- Relieves headache, insomnia, back pain, and fatigue
- Therapeutic for high blood pressure, asthma, flat feet, sciatica, sinusitis
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