Do The Dog

The Downward-Facing Dog Pose is a yoga pose that is extremely beneficial for runners.

Runners often experience sore feet, bad backs and knees, tight hamstrings and hips. Others suffer joint pain, back problems, muscle pulls, tendinitis, and strains and sprains. Yoga helps increase range of motion, agility, flexibility, lung capacity, endurance and strength.

In Downward-Facing Dog Pose, your body forms a triangular pyramidal shape. The posture resembles a dog stretching after a nap. Do the Downward Facing Dog Pose as a warm-up of your muscles at the beginning of yoga practice. In many styles of yoga, this posture is repeated many times during any given yoga class. It provides a transition between poses. For many it is the first pose they learn as they begin to do yoga. Because the head is lower than the pelvis this pose is often classified as an inversion posture.

Begin from a position of all fours, lift your buttocks up toward the ceiling. Elongate your spine, and straighten your knees, and push your heels toward the floor as much as you can without forcing. Lift your wrists. Move the abdominal muscles in and keep them firm; drop your head toward the floor and let it hang loosely. Release after three breaths.

In the pose your body is in an inverted “V” shape with your sitting bones rolling up toward the ceiling. Lengthen your spine so that your tailbone extends up and away from the back of your pelvis. Aim your chest to your knees with an extended spine. Keep your arms and legs straight, lifting up your kneecaps with your quadriceps with perfectly straight legs. Your torso goes toward your legs so the head hangs freely and more toward the floor.

As your hamstrings become more stretched with practice, you should be able to get the heels on the floor without losing the spinal extension. Do not worry if your heels do yet not reach the floor. Keep the feet parallel and work on getting weight on the back part of the ball of your foot.

As you work in the pose, continually observe the distribution of your weight on each part of your feet, on your hands and your fingers. Keep equal weight on both sides of the body and in all parts of hand or foot.

In the beginning, place a block on its side under each hand as you do the pose. You will be able to feel a grounding of your heels more easily. This variation takes weight out of your arms and shoulders and allows you to be much more present in your legs in the pose. This variation is especially good if you are suffering from a hand, arm, or shoulder injury since it takes some weight out of those areas.

Over time extend the time in which you hold this pose. As you become able to work in the pose for longer periods of time you will gain in strength and in stretch.

Eventually you should be able to hold and continually work in the pose for at least five minutes.

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