Master Downward Facing Dog: Strengthen Key Muscle Groups

As the name implies, there is a similarity between the downward facing dog and a common habit of our favorite furry sidekicks. Also called Adho Mukha Svanasana in yoga words, this pose is akin to how a dog stretches itself by leaning back onto the legs and lengthening its spine (svana). And this full-body technique will benefit you just the same!

The downward dog is one of the most commonly practiced yoga techniques, cued often in vinyasa yoga, flowing into other poses, but also effective all on its own! But most importantly, the goal isn’t ultimately the downward dog pose, but how it makes us feel and progress in our yoga journey, or life in general.

It’s a tricky one, but follow along with the instructions and tips in this guide, and you’ll get it down pat!

Muscles Worked

A yoga-based pose, downward facing dog still requires various muscles to perform it correctly. Here are brief descriptions of the muscles you’ll use during this technique.

Arms and delts

Anytime your body is being supported by your arms, you’re recruiting the triceps and deltoid muscles. Both muscle groups have a combined three heads, one on the anterior, another laterally, and the third on the posterior or backside of the body.

With the arms extended, your triceps resist elbow flexion, allowing you to support your weight. The front deltoids are engaged when the arms move forward in front of the body.

Trapezius

Traps too have three components – upper, middle, and lower fibers. Individually, they lift the scapula, pull it back, and retract it. The upper fibers are most prominent during a downward facing dog when the arms are in an overhead position.

Core

Finding their role in every total body movement, your core and abdominal muscles stabilize your trunk, and help you to maintain balance, and force efficiency, to keep you in the inverted ‘V’ position.

Leg muscles

Don’t expect much physical gains but the quads, glutes, hamstrings, and calves do bear some of your weight. Not to mention, the calf raise component during a more advanced variation where the toes are dorisflexed which activates the rear lower leg muscles. Then you have the inner thighs or adductor muscles which should be used to keep the lower body in stable and strong position.

How To Do Downward Facing Dog

In this section, we break down the downward facing dog technique with step-by-step instructions. So be sure to follow along closely, and check out the video demonstration below to hear all the important form ques. 

Steps

Note: The following instructions and demonstration are the quick and easy steps to get into a downward facing dog position. If you plan to progress in your yoga journey, we recommend learning additional pre-pose techniques. This will make your yoga practice more enjoyable, productive, and sustainable. 

1. Get down on your hands and knees in a tabletop position. Your hands should be roughly shoulder width apart, shoulders slightly forward past the wrists, with arms fully extended, knees directly under the hips, and back neutral. Turn your hands slightly outward so your elbows are pointing straight behind you, not completely out to the sides. 
2. While you’re in this position, you may feel the natural need to do a cat-cow pose, to stretch your back and abdomen. It’s a great choice before hopping into the downward dog. We’ve included a video example of cat-cow below. 
3. From your hands and knees, squeeze your hands together, without physically moving them inward, to activate your chest. 
4. Now curl your toes under and press your feet into the ground bringing your knees into full extension, while lifting your hips up and back. In this position, your arms should be aligned with your torso in a straight line from your hands to your butt. Bring your gaze down so you’re looking down at the floor, or at the back of the room through your legs.
5. Accentuate the extension through your spine by lifting up through the pelvis and pressing the full hands into the floor. Externally rotate your arms, to create space between the shoulder blades. Lift the heels, and pretend to squeeze the inner thighs together. 

Congrats! You just did the downward facing dog!

Here’s a short video demonstration of cat-cow pose. 

Tips

• Take some time and find the right knee and foot position to ensure you are doing the downward facing dog with the correct technique. 
• One way people find the optimal feet to hands distance is to get into a plank.
• You should be able to transition between a plank and downward facing dog without moving your hands and feet.
• If you cannot keep your spine straight during the downward facing dog, do it with your knees bent until you gain more flexibility.
• Your heels do not need to be touching the ground.
• Do a few reps of a cat-cow pose to warm up the spine before the downward dog.
• Consider easing into the downward dog by incorporating pre-movement techniques beforehand.
• You need a comfortable and non-slip surface to do this technique safely and effectively.
• Press down into the floor with the entire hands (palms and fingers) to get the most efficiency from the movement.

Benefits of Downward Facing Dog

The advantages of learning this technique surely outweigh any potential negatives. It does a whole lot of good for the body and mind, and it’s also challenging and a good transition pose to other yoga practices.

Get a lovely stretch!

If done right, the downward facing dog should stretch your back first and foremost, followed by everything from your wrists to your shoulders, abs, and leg muscles. However, the back should be the focal point. The goal should not be to force a stretch in your legs.

Stretching has many benefits including healthier muscles, increased range of motion and flexibility, more blood flow to the area, reduced muscle soreness, and even stress relief. During downward facing dog you’re also strengthening the aformentioned muscles.

Strengthen all your muscles

The downward dog involves your push muscles, back, abdominals and obliques, hips, legs, and feet. There’s literally no muscle sitting out. While there is some muscular strengthening from movement (isotonic), you also benefit from static strengthening, where the muscles are not contracting, but support your weight in a contracted state.

Learn about the differences and benefits of isotonic vs isometric training here.

Form of inversion

Most exercises don’t involve hanging the head down, somewhat upside down. But what this does is increase blood flow and circulation to the brain possibly enhancing mental performance, while decompressing the spine and creating more space between the vertebra which may allow better disk hydration and hence greater spine mobility and reduced risk of injury.

Many experts also believe that inversion supports the lymphatic system, which helps the body cleanse itself. And this is said to only be able to occur via the movement of muscles, and breathing. Some other supposed benefits include improving back pain, and increasing torso strength and mobility too.

It’s important to note, however, that studies are limited and not conclusive on the potential benefits of inversion.

Ease your mind

Yoga has long been practiced for its stress-relieving effects. Most of us live every day without releasing the tension that we build up in our muscles due to mental stress, physical stress, lack of activity, and high intensity exercise. Bringing flexibility, and stretch into our daily routines can have a great effect on us. Not to mention, yoga technique are therapeutic alone.

May support better digestion

For the same reason the brain and spine may benefit from downward facing dog, so too may your digestive system. In normal conditions, the belly has to work a little to digest food against gravitational forces. Well, the increased blood driven to the stomach could possibly stimulate a healthier process.

Burn calories

Moving your body and using your muscles to resist your body weight is one way to burn calories. During this process, your body uses energy from stored food for fuel, and if you expend more energy than you consume, you’ll lose fat. Yoga is one way to contribute to the weight loss process if you’re not eating too much every day.

Try our yoga calories burned calculator to see how much energy you’re using during your sessions.

Drawbacks of Downward Facing Dog

If you want to try the downward facing dog, you could experience some of these negatives.

Not as easy as it looks

If you’re not decently flexible or fit, you may be in for a nice surprise. It’s harder than it looks both on video, and in your head. But… if you use a suitable surface, wear the right clothing, and follow the form instructions, you’ll have the best chance at nailing this technique. The good news is, if you can’t yet, you’re totally allowed to bend your knees. So keep practicing and you’ll master this staple pose!

Bad form is common and good form ignored

Without a proper understanding of basic exercise technique mechanics, or yoga experience, it’s too easy to do this exercise wrong. Not that its the worst thing you could do, but people try to force their heels down when they shouldn’t, or they don’t realize they have bad form. The downward dog should be a beautiful exercise that feels good, and encourages you do it more.

Common Mistakes When Performing Downward Facing Dog

If you want to get the most out of the downward facing dog, try to keep these bad habits out of your checklist.

Tucking in the tailbone

You want to lift the tailbone, not tuck it in. The latter will move the pelvis rearward and round the back in a convex shape which you don’t want. Rather bend the knees to bring the back into a better and safer alignment.

Forcing the heels down

We’re not all physically constructed the same, hence different heights, proportions, movement, etc. If your heels don’t naturally touch the floor, don’t force them. As you stretch, you’ll learn if it’s tight calves and hamstrings. But it could also be a shorter achilles tendon, or someone’s bone structure, and that’s fine, there’s nothing to do there. After all, the goal is not to stretch the calves, it’s to target the back.

Bad shoulder position

Slouching over and letting your head into your shoulders is the wrong way. The delts and scapular area should be set properly with proper arm placement and involved to make the exercise most efficient. 

Wrong hand positioning

When pushing your hands into the floor, you should focus on shifting the weight onto your thumbs, index and middle fingers, not the pinkies or palms only. This will create a better position for your shoulders and it’s more efficient.

Not bending the knees

While you will need to lengthen the legs to lift the tailbone and stretch the back, you are free to keep the knees slightly bent.

Internal shoulder rotation

Remember that these three words are something you seldom ever wanted to do during any exercise. Turning the shoulders inward toward the chest can cause impingement issues, and it doesn’t make for efficient technique. Instead, turn your biceps slightly out to open up the delts and create a safer position.

Feet too close or wide

Your feet should be roughly the same distance apart that they are in a plank. That’s why it’s good to start the movement from a plank, especially if you’re a beginner. But, you may find the need to adjust your footing slightly.

Variations of Downward Facing Dog

You can find so many different variations of the downward facing dog. Unfortunately, there are too many to list here, however, we picked some favorites for you to try!

Single leg downward facing dog

Also called Eka Pada Adho Mukha Svanasana, this single leg downward facing dog variation stretches the hamstrings, engages more core muscles, and trains your balance.

Steps

1. Assume the basic downward facing dog as shown in the primary example in this guide. Your feet should be fully planted on the mat.
2. Press down into the left foot, and lift the right heel as high as you can while keeping it fully extended. Point the toes straight down. You should feel a nice stretch in the left hamstring. Keep your gaze down toward the floor, or back toward your feet.
3. Hold then switch legs and repeat.

Tips

• Inhale as you lift the leg and exhale as you drop it down.
• Keep your shoulders and hips square, avoiding allowing the body to rotate in either direction.
• For a more advanced technique, great for training balance, lift one leg, and the opposite arm.

Knee to elbow

If you want to take the previous variation a step further, hence increasing the benefits, you can introduce more movement.

Steps

1. From the three legged, or single leg downward facing dog with one leg extended in the air, bend the knee and bring it into the same side elbow. Keep your core tense and spine neutral. 
2. Lift the same leg back up into extension or the three legged dog, now pull the knee into your opposite elbow. 
3. Do several reps, then switch legs. 

Twisted dog 

Here’s a simple, but challenging variation you should also try. It will wake up your obliques, and give you a releasing stretching in the waist. 

Steps

• From the basic downward facing dog position, move your feet closer to your arms and simply reach one hand back and grab the opposite ankle. Rotate your upper body to face the same side as the leg you’re grabbing. Return to the starting position, then reach with the opposite hand to the other ankle. 

Make sure to keep your spine lengthened.

Bent knee dog 

From the inverted downward dog position, bend one knee so that your toes are pointed at the ceiling. Reset, and repeat with the other leg. 

Downward facing dog on blocks

Prop your feet or hands up on some blocks to vary the angle and lessen the difficulty of the downward facing dog. Elevating the hands, for example, creates more space in the upper body like shoulders, back and neck. It also helps maximize space on the mat during vinyasa flow!

Steps

1. Prop your hands up on blocks and find your downward dog. 
2. Keeping your toes on the mat, lift your heels high, and extend your spine by raising your hips up above your shoulders. 
3. Now exhale, bend your knees, tighten your core, press into the blocks and hop your feet forward in between your hands. As you jump, keep the hips higher than the shoulders.
4. Inhale, stand halfway up keeping your hands on the blocks, exhale, fold your upper body into your lower body, then inhale, and stand all the way up reaching your arms overhead with hands together. 
5. Finally, exhale and bring your hands to your heart. 

FAQs

Below we included a few common questions and answers regarding the downward facing dog pose. 

Wrapping Up

Congrats on mastering the downward facing dog pose! But if you haven’t yet, don’t worry you’re not alone, it’s by no means an easy exercise for most people. But this common yoga class pose should be learned as it’s a fundamental technique and you’ll probably be called to do it. The tips, tricks and variations in this guide are going to help you utilize the downward dog effectively, build more confidence in your yoga journey, and enhance your life!

---