Former yoga teacher in Wellington New Zealand
This variation of cobra pose (Bhujangasana) focuses on stretching the chest, arms and shoulders. It has the added benefit of taking pressure off your wrists and creating a much smaller backbend which can be gentler on the spine.
Do you stand with your feet together or apart in yoga? It does make a difference, particularly on movement in the hip joints among other parts of the body!
Many yoga poses in the sun salutation sequence put weight on the hands and wrists. This includes down dog, plank, chattaranga (lowering to a press up position) and even cobra pose. That can be demanding on the wrist joints. This
Balance is a common theme in yoga. Not just balancing on one foot or your hands, but balancing movement and effort. For example, we always do movement on each side of the body. And we also balance one type of
Last week we looked at using your glutes or buttock muscles in backbends to help protect your lower back. Squeezing your glutes or squeezing your thighs towards each other helps protect your back because it keeps the lumbar or lower
In every class we do several sun salutations. A sun salutation is a sequence of yoga poses that include down dog, plank, cobra and often lunges. In the middle of that sequence is a small backbend, called cobra pose. It’s
Cobra pose shows up in just about every yoga class as an essential part of sun salutations. It’s easy to be lazy and just lift your chest off the floor not getting any benefit from the pose. But if you
Using your leg muscles in backbends like cobra can help prevent back pain and protect your back. Try these steps to see if you notice a different feeling in your lower back and belly. Lie down on your belly with
Cobra pose is common to just about any yoga class. Often people focus on using their arms to press their chest away from the floor and fold backwards. But there are so many more muscles involved as you can see
Every class always has a few sun salutations which combine several yoga poses. Cobra, or bhujangasana, is one of those poses that we often flow through quickly. But it’s quite a useful pose for stretching the front of the body