Ah cobra pose, one of the first poses everyone learns to do in yoga. It is also on of the poses that is most often done incorrectly. It’s easy to hurt your back in cobra. Let’s go over some of the things that I see often.
1. Lifting the chest without lengthening the spine. It is important to protect the lower back and prevent pain. You don’t want to feel any pain in the lower back. Instead of focusing on lifting the chest focus on lengthening the spine by point the toes and pulling the crown of the head forward.
2. Straightening the arms before you are ready. Again this comes at the cost of your lower back. Often we think it’s not cool to bend the elbows so we press into our hands. I always do my first couple of cobras with bent elbows to warm up my back.
3. Pulling the shoulders up to the ears. This can create tension in the neck and shoulders. Slide the shoulder blades down the back, open the shoulders and pull your chest forward.
These are the three that I can think of. As usual let me know if you have any questions.
How do you bhujangasana?
This is a great, informative post! Thank you!