Cow Face Pose (Gomukhasana): Instructions, Tips, & Modifications

Cow face pose (gomukhasana in Sanskrit) is an excellent posture that opens the shoulders and stretches the glutes. If this seated pose asks greater than your knees and hips can absolutely ship, the upper-body portion of the pose remains to be an incredible stretch that may be practiced wherever from a scorching bathe (the nice and cozy water helps put together and heat up the deltoids and triceps) to the ready space of an airport, particularly earlier than a protracted flight.

Gomukhasana is an incredible bodily antidote to how a lot time the backbone spends in fixed flexion, be it hunched over a pc, trying down at a telephone, or seated behind the wheel.

Whether or not we notice it or not, life is a ahead bend. In the event you tackle this pose and think about it a every day vitamin on your shoulders, you’ll be able to create mobility and freedom in your chest and higher again in equal measure.

Cow Face Pose (Gomukhasana): Step-by-Step Directions

• Begin in tabletop place: Get on all fours, together with your fingers instantly beneath your shoulders and your knees instantly beneath your hips.
• Cross your proper knee over your left knee, and sit your hips again on to the ground, evenly distributing your weight on each butt bones. The edges of your ft or ankles needs to be on the ground, equidistant to both facet of your pelvis.
• Attain your left arm out to the facet and internally rotate it so your palm faces behind you, then bend your left elbow and work your left hand up your again with out pulling your left shoulder down decrease than the precise. Your left fingers ought to level up towards your neck, palm nonetheless going through behind you.
• Prolong your proper arm towards the ceiling, and hold your biceps near your ear as you bend your proper elbow and attain down your again towards your left hand. Clasp them if attainable.
• Maintain for a minute, then gently reverse the pose and change sides.

Suggestions for Doing Cow Face Pose

• Don’t fear in case your fingers don’t come collectively. “As an alternative, concentrate on reaching your arms in reverse instructions to activate your higher chest,” says Brent Laffoon, one of many instructors in BODi’s Yoga52. With time and observe, your fingers might finally transfer nearer to one another.
• As soon as within the pose, problem your self to create and keep a stage pelvis each facet to facet and entrance to again. Ideally each side of your waist are evenly lengthy and your shoulders are stage.
• In case your butt bones are uneven on the ground, sit on a blanket or a block. You are attempting to make an intrinsically asymmetrical pose symmetrical.

How you can Make Cow Face Pose Simpler

The basic pose is kind of difficult when it comes to steadiness and suppleness, however there are a couple of methods to change it to make the posture accessible for each physique.

• What makes this pose so difficult is how a lot flexibility is required in each the shoulder girdle and the outer hips concurrently. Take into account working in your higher and decrease physique individually earlier than doing the complete pose.
• Use a yoga strap as an arm lengthener. In case your fingers don’t contact considerably effortlessly, then toss the strap over one shoulder. As soon as your arms have moved as shut to 1 one other as they will with out forcing it, grasp the strap in every hand and work them towards each other.
• No strap? No downside. Laffoon says, “You may nonetheless get a very good stretch and actually really feel the distinction between your lively and passive vary of movement.”

How you can Deepen Cow Face Pose

• Within the basic pose, the hips aren’t really on the ground. To make cow face extra of a problem when it comes to steadiness, deliver your ft collectively beneath you and check out balancing in your heels.