“Ugh! Not another Sun Salute!” thought Alice.
I really enjoy the flowing nature of a Sun Salute. How you move from one pose to the next in series as you breathe in and out.
But there is one pose in the series that really bothers me. Every time I do Upward Facing Dog my neck gets sore. All of the rest of the poses are fine. In fact most of them are quite enjoyable.
I wonder what it is about Upward Facing Dog. Am I doing it wrong or should it always feel like this? Perhaps I should talk to my teacher about it.
Alice did talk to her teacher and this is what she learned about how to make Upward Facing Dog an enjoyable part of the Sun Salute Series.
Be careful of your neck in upward facing dog.
What is Upward Facing Dog
Upward Facing Dog is one of the poses in the Sun Salute series. During the Sun Salutes you enter Upward Facing Dog from Chaturanga Dandasana. Inhaling you lift your body up off of the floor and enter into the pose.
How to do Upward Facing Dog
You lay flat on the floor with your hands under your shoulders and flat to the floor. Your fingers are pointing forward and spread wide apart. Your elbows are bent backwards and they are beside your body next to your ribs.
Your feet are flat to the floor with the toes pointing away from your hands. Make sure that your feet are hip width apart. That is about 6-8 inches.
Lift your torso up from the floor by straightening your arms. Suspend your body in a gentle curve from your shoulders to the top of your feet. When your arms are straight your shoulders will be over your fingers.
Bring your gaze down the nose towards the horizon.
Only your hands and the top of your feet should be touching the floor.
Now that you have successfully entered the pose it is time to have a look at how you can stress the neck muscles.
What causes injury to the neck in Upward facing dog
There are three misalignments that can cause stress to the neck muscles:
- Your body is sagging down between your shoulders.
- Your shoulders have moved forward in front of your chest
- Your head is lifted way up and you are looking towards the ceiling
Any of these thee will put a great deal of stress, tension and pressure on the neck muscles. Now that you know what will cause stress to the neck, let’s have a look at what can be done to prevent this from happening. Some of these corrections are pretty obvious, but one of them is not so obvious.
First let’s have a look at that sagging body and what we have to do to correct it.
1. Your body is sagging down
Your body is sagging down between your shoulders and your shoulder blades are up around your ears.
The correction here is to lift your torso up between your shoulders and to send your shoulder blades down your back away from your ears. You should also broaden your shoulders. Create a greater distance between your shoulders by moving them out to the sides of your body.
Now that you have your body lifted up between your shoulders, let’s deal with the shoulders that are in front of the chest.
2. Your shoulders are forward
You can correct this misalignment by bring the shoulders back above the torso. You bring the shoulder blades together so that the shoulders come back over the torso.
Next you take your shoulders out to the side creating space between the shoulder blades.
Finally move your chest forward between your arms. You accomplish this by imagining grabbing your bottom ribs with your hands and bring them forward between your arms parallel to the floor. This movement of the chest forward between the arms will cause the shoulders to move back and to move apart as well.
Now that we have the shoulders and the torso fixed up it is time to have a look at the head.
3. You are looking at the ceiling
A lot of people when they do upward facing dog lift there chin way up and look towards to the ceiling. This movement of the head will put a great deal of compression and strain on the neck.
To avoid this only lift the head slightly and bring it level with the floor. Your gaze is straight ahead, down the nose and towards the horizon.
But, I have very little upper body strength
Lots of people when they first start doing yoga have very little upper body strength. Upward facing dog requires a reasonable amount of upper body strength.
If you are finding it difficult to straighten the arms and lift the body off of the floor there is a modification that you can do that will enable to build your upper body strength and help you to avoid the misalignments that we talked about above.
As you start to lift your body off of the floor leave you knees on the floor. Straighten your arms if possible or leave them slightly bent.
Summary
Stress in the neck in Upward Facing Dog is caused by three things:
- Letting your shoulders move up towards your ears
- Letting your shoulders move forward in front of your chest
- Tipping your head up towards the ceiling
You can avoid injury to your neck by :
- Lifting your torso up
- Moving your shoulders back and down
- Moving your shoulders out to the side away from each other
- Looking towards the horizon.
Alice has implemented the changes that her teacher has recommended and now she is enjoying doing Upward Facing Dog.
Next Steps
The next time you are in Upward Facing Dog listen to the feedback from your body. If you are feeling compression and discomfort in your neck, review your alignment and make some of these adjustments.
Ask your teacher for some help with the pose as well.
