Do you know the benefits of Downward Facing Dog yoga posture? Yoga tests the bounds of human flexibility and agility with complex poses and practices. Still, you don’t have to twist your body into knots or learn complicated poses to reap the benefits of yoga. In fact, simple yoga poses can bring your body plenty of great benefits.
This is the case with Downward Dog. This deceptively simple yoga pose has tons of health benefits for beginners and more experienced yogis. We’ll talk about the benefits of downward facing dog in the rest of this post!
5 Benefits of Downward Dog Pose
It’s easy to get into Downward Facing Dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana), but it requires strength and endurance to hold this pose for a sustained amount of time. Downward Dog engages all parts of the body so it brings positive changes to multiple areas of the physical self.
1. Creates Strength In The Arms and Shoulders
- Downward Dog puts most of your body weight on the shoulders and the arms. If you are looking to build up strength in the upper portions of your body this is a great pose to try out.
- Make sure to properly align yourself in this posture, and you’ll have toned arms in no time. You can even increase wrist strength and prevent carpal tunnel.
2. Builds Up Bone Density
- Another great benefit of Downward Dog is increased bone strength. When you put more weight on your bones through exercise, you increase their density naturally.
- Exercise reshapes and reworks bones to handle the physical force of exercise.This is especially important in old age. After a certain period of time, you start to lose bone mass.
- So you want to build up your skeletal structure as much as you can with practices like yoga!
3. Increases Blood Flow
- Downward Dog forces you to put your head below your heart. This positioning of your body allows blood to rush into your head. It also creates better circulation overall.
- When your blood is able to flow more easily to all regions of the body, you feel more energetic and healthy. You can even better regulate blood pressure when you have smoother blood flow.
4. Can Alleviate Your Back Pain and Improve Your Posture
- Back pain is a common problem in modern society. As workers become more and more sedentary, back stiffness and bad posture have decreased spinal mobility and increased pain. Downward dog can help with this though.
- When regularly practiced, this yoga pose will realign your back. It also stretches out your muscles in problem areas and keeps the spine more supple.
- Downward Dog mostly helps with upper back issues though. So if you have lower back pain try looking into other yoga poses.
5. Improves Foot Strength
- Feet are essential for everyday life. They get you from place to place and help you perform many exercises. In particular, if you like to run or walk you should try Downward-Facing Dog.
- This pose strengthens muscles in the foot and stabilizes your ankles. With these benefits, you are less likely to be injured during a hike or a jog. You can also perform better during these on foot activities.
Summary of Yoga Downward Dog Pose
In yoga, we love to stretch and strengthen our muscles with a downward facing dog pose. This is one of the most popular poses in yoga because it stretches your arms, shoulders and back while strengthening your core. It's also a great way to relieve stress and find peace after a long day at work!
There are plenty of ways to make this yoga pose more challenging as you go along – try lifting one leg up in the air or reach your hands closer to your feet for even more of a challenge! You'll feel refreshed after just doing 10 reps on this move.
Free Printable Yoga Poses for Beginners PDF
Want an easy way to remember the names and poses of 15 of the most common postures? Download our yoga pose cheat sheets you can easily reference in the future.
How to Do a Downward Facing Dog Posture - Video Guide
Here is a quick video to ensure that your posture is correct, the 360 view is nice to see all angles so you can be sure to nail the yoga pose!
Read More About Yoga:
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- Get 5 Fantastic Yoga Blends for Your Diffuser
- 10 Yoga Questions Answered for Beginners
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