Quick Yoga Tutorial for Beginners: 4 variations of Cobra Pose (bhujangasana) | + Modifications

Transcript

[Music] welcome to General yoga I'm Jen and this video we'll go over a couple of varieties of Cobra pose and some of the Contra indications for all Cobra poses you're going to want to start prone laying face down on your mat hands go underneath the shoulders draw the arms in towards your torso elbows reach back towards your toes and the wing I typically like to teach Cobra I like to have my students engage the muscles in their low back and lift their heart center forward a little bit your gaze is towards the top edge of your mat so we're not looking straight ahead and cranking the neck being down towards the floor there are a few varieties of yoga where you want to press the hands down into the ground and the hips stay connected to the floor lifting up into Cobra here my arms are doing a bit more work if I lift on my fault but this is also a version of Cobra pose shoulders move away from the ears and those elbows are still reaching towards the heels and lastly some forms of yoga have you press all the way up to straight arms keeping the thighs connected to the ground so this is different from upward facing dog in the sense that upward facing dog you activate the legs and your legs are lifted so in a few contraindications for Cobra pose is osteoporosis and spondylolisthesis in both of those conditions we don't really want to do too much back extension if you have Spondylitis in the lower spine using the back muscles and only lifting the upper body should theoretically be okay if you have osteoporosis again this slight back extension should also be okay make sure you check in with any Physicians or providers you're seeing to make sure that this isn't contraindicated for you and your body if you're an expecting mom and you're in your second or third trimester co-propos is also contraindicated if you feel comfortable doing the more extended version of Cobra pose where your arms are straight you should be okay doing that if you want to get creative you can do Cobra pose at the wall it's another way to engage the back muscles with a lot less effort I'm gonna start facing them all hands again can come underneath the shoulders but in this situation you probably don't even need to use your arms at all think about engaging your core pressing the core towards the wall lowering the shoulders away from the ears and then gently lifting the Heart Center up just a little bit like you're sliding it up the wall feel those back muscles engage and then come back up thank you for watching this tutorial if you like this content please hit the like button and for more foreign [Music]