Which Way Should Your Shoulder Blades Go?

by Baxter

Let’s talk about the shoulder blades today. Recently, while evaluating my newest batch of teacher trainees during their teaching intensive, I was surprised to hear the instructions to “move the shoulder blades toward the pelvis” when the arms were in the overhead position, such as in Urdhva Hastasana. I heard it in Warrior 1, in Utkatasana, in Downward-Facing Dog, and virtually anytime my young wards had the arms overhead. And I flinched each time they uttered it, which just about every one of them did for the four classes they taught. Without naming names, I should mention “always move your shoulder blades down your back” is an instruction that I have heard on many occasions from very experienced teachers. These trainees did not hear me utter such words, but I realized that some of their instructors were still using this outdated understanding. This is too simplistic, as it is not what actually needs to happen for healthy movement of the arms overhead and it can actually restrict the mobility of the shoulder joint for most students.

If you look at photos of Mr. Iyengar in the classic “Light on Yoga,” you can see that he is not doing that. His shoulder blades are clearly moving towards his arms, not away from them. (I refer you to the following plates: 12, 23, 42, 91 and 96.) So what is going on here, or more accurately, what is going on with the shoulder blades when the arms go overhead?

When your arms are hanging at your sides, your shoulder blades have several common ways they move: sliding upwards is called elevation, such as when you shrug your shoulders; sliding slightly downwards, called depression, like when you tug the bottom of a shirt downwards; sliding them apart or side ways, called protraction or abduction, like when you give yourself a hug; and squeezing them together called retraction or adduction, like when doing the Cobra with a doorknob.

Shoulder Blade in Neutral (Mountain Pose)

In these four basic movements, the shoulder blades don’t rotate much. Instead, they slide around in the general way they sit on your back upper rib cage. But in addition to those movements, there are two more movements that require a bit more imagination on your part, since we can’t quite see what is going on under the skin and muscles. The first happens when you take your arms overhead, whether forward and up or out the sides and up. It is called upward rotation of the scapula.  There is usually a bit of elevation of the entire shoulder blade from its neutral position, like in Mountain Pose, and a bit of protraction. But more noticeable is the out and up swing of the shoulder blade that allows for the greatest reach of the arms overhead.

Rotating Shoulder Blade

The opposite action is required to get the arms back down to your sides, and is called downward rotation. It is likely that a bit of depression of the shoulder blade and retraction also accompanies this action.

My teacher Donald Moyer refers to the rotational movement of the shoulder blades as “traffic circles.” Depending on which way the arms are moving or how they are positioned on the body, the traffic around the outer edges of the circle will flow in one direction the other. As an example of how you might imagine this, you might start with your awareness at the lower tip of your right shoulder blade. You can likely reach around and feel this with your fingers of your left hand. When your arm goes overhead, the traffic flows up the outer edge, across the top edge from right to left, and down the inner edge back to the lower tip of the shoulder blade. You might have to imagine there is a central pivot point in the shoulder blade, and the traffic causes the shoulder blade to rotate around that point. Then the traffic flows in the opposite direction as the arm comes down to Mountain pose position.

You might be asking yourself if there are times when saying “move the shoulder blades down the back” would be appropriate? And the answer is yes. For instance, with new students who have hunched shoulder blades that are semi-permanently elevated and forward rounded, you might have to ask, show and encourage them to depress the shoulder blades in Mountain pose.  I will keep a slight feeling of downward movement even as the arms approach the 90 degree mark, such as in Warrior 2 pose. In Warrior 2, there is a bit of upward rotation of the blades, but mostly protraction or widening away from the spine. The downward movement is helpful for those with the tendency to hike the shoulders in these lower arm positions.

But so what if you draw your shoulder blades down the back when they are overhead? What’s the big problem? Well, as your arms and shoulder blades swing up, the upper arm bone, the humerus, rolls slightly outwards, so as to have a better contact with the shoulder blade. If you then pull the “shoulder blades towards the pelvis”, the shoulder blades start to downwardly rotate, the arm bone pulls down with it, and the shoulder joint gets narrowed and pinched, meaning that the soft, non-bone structures can get pinched in an unhealthy way. I dislike demonstrating this “wrong” way of doing it for my students, because it quite literally pinches my gleno-humeral joint.

Having a clearer understanding of how the shoulder blades change positions on the rib cage will be very helpful to you as you try some of the shoulder openers we share with you because so many of them work more effectively if you encourage the upward rotation, protraction and elevation of the scapulae I have shared with you here today (see Featured Sequence: Opening Tight Shoulders and future posts about the individual poses). 

Living Proof: Increasing Shoulder Flexibility

by Nina

Photo by Erin Collom

Last week, my friend Erin Collom (thank you, Erin!), a Bay Area yoga teacher, took some photographs of me doing some of my favorite stress management and anti-anxiety poses. It was kind of nerve wracking for me because I’ve never been photographed doing yoga before (I’m typically somewhere behind the camera). But I decided we needed an older woman on the blog, and I was the handiest one around, so....

When I saw this photograph of me doing Downward-Facing Dog, I was actually quite pleased. My alignment looks pretty good! Even my shoulders look good, which I wasn’t expecting. A well-balanced Downward-Facing Dog takes flexibility in both the legs (the hamstrings especially) and the shoulders. Back in the day, before I hit menopause, I had a lot of flexibility in both areas (some of it was natural and some of it was earned through consistent practice of the asanas over a period of years). But the hormonal changes brought on by perimenopause and menopause triggered a condition for me called a “frozen shoulder” that drastically limited my range of motion in my shoulder.

“Frozen shoulder (adhesive capsulitis) is stiffness, pain, and limited range of movement in your shoulder that may follow an injury. The tissues around the joint stiffen, scar tissue forms, and shoulder movements become difficult and painful. The condition usually comes on slowly, then goes away slowly over the course of several months or longer.” — from Web MD

The only quibble I have with that definition is that the “stiffness, pain, and limited range of motion” should be more like “extreme stiffness, constant pain, and drastically reduced range of motion”—yes, it’s that bad.  After getting over the first one, which was on my left side, I managed to get one on the right side as well. But through both of those, as painful as it was, I continued to do non-weight bearing shoulder openers to try to prevent the permanent formation of scar tissue and gain back as much of my former range of motion as possible. (I also did strength building, because the arm and shoulder muscles may become withered as a result of the condition.) And after the condition had cleared up, I continued to work with these shoulder openers because I noticed I still did not have the range of motion I had originally and I could actually feel the presence of lingering scar tissue. While I was not necessarily expecting that I would regain what I had lost, I thought it worth trying, and besides, who doesn’t need to keep stretching our shoulders as we go through the aging process?

This photograph made me realize how much I had accomplished. So I thought I’d share my story in the hopes that it would inspire those of you who have or have had a frozen shoulder as well as anyone with tight shoulders who wants to make some changes.

Tomorrow Baxter will be presenting a sequence for tight shoulders. Some of these poses are ones that he teaches on a regular basis. But others are ones that I suggested to him because I had practiced them on a regular basis while my shoulder was “frozen” and painful as well as after the condition cleared up, always holding them for at least 90 seconds. These included the three different versions of hands up/on the wall and the doorknob version of Cobra. So if tight shoulders are a problem for you maybe give these a try. (See Friday Q&A: Tight Shoulders for information about why people have tights shoulders and how it can be a problem in both asanas and everyday life.) I'm living proof that they actually do work!

Featured Pose: Reverse Prayer Pose

by Baxter and Nina

This pose from our office yoga series moves your shoulders into a position that you don’t take very often in your everyday life. Although this movement is not commonly needed, it’s still an important one because for the long-term health of your shoulders, you need to move them through their full range of motion. Unlike Prayer pose (Namaste) in front of your chest, Reverse Prayer pose (Paschima Namaskarana) takes your upper arms into internal rotation, creating an excellent stretch for your forearms that’s helpful for your elbows, wrists, and hands.

Although the classic version of the pose is difficult, if not impossible, for some people, a second variation, where you hold your elbows or forearms, makes the pose accessible to almost everyone.


This is an excellent counter pose for any work that involves the use of your hands whether it is manual labor or office computer work. And, as with all our office yoga poses, you can do it almost anywhere, in any attire. The pose also releases tension from your shoulders and collarbone area (an area where most people don’t even realize they hold a lot of tightness), providing physical relief as well as relaxation.


Those of you who have shoulder or arm injuries (such as, tennis elbow, carpal tunnel syndrome or rotator cuff injuries) should start by trying version 2. If you can do variation number comfortably, you can cautiously attempt version 1.


Baxter prescribes this pose for:

• stiff and tight shoulders
• tight forearms and elbows
• tight wrists and hands
• counter-pose for activities that require griping your hands
• stress relief of the shoulders and neck area (self massage!)

Instructions: For version 1, start by standing in Mountain pose, with your feet hips-distance apart. Bring your palms together into Prayer position (Namaste) in front of your chest, and press your palms together firmly. Take a moment to assess how flexible your wrists are in this position.

Now bring your arms behind your back, with your fingertips pointing toward the floor and elbows slightly bent. Then move your hands a few inches away from your lower back and spin your fingertips up toward the ceiling. Allow the pinky side of your hands to lightly touch your lower back. At this point your elbows are bent and your upper arm bones are turning in quite a bit. Carefully wiggle and wriggle your hands up along the line of your spine as high as you can comfortably go or until your palms come completely together. If your palms can come together, try to bring the thumb sides of your hands closer to each other (as they tend to get pulled apart).

Stay in the pose for approximately 30 seconds, working up to 2 minutes. To come out of the pose, carefully wiggle your hands down your back at least six inches or so before you release your hands down by your sides (this takes the tension out of your shoulders).


If you attempt version 1 and are unable to turn your fingertips up and keep them together, there may be too much tightness or tension anywhere from your shoulders to your wrists that prevents you from doing this safely. Choose version 2 instead.


For version 2, start by standing in Mountain pose, with your feet hips-distance apart. Take your arms out to your sides with your elbows bent to a 90-degree angle and your palms facing forward. Then spin your forearms forward and down (this is internal rotation) so your fingertips point down toward the floor. Bring your right forearm behind your back so the forearm rests on your lower back, then bring your left arm in as well, grabbing your left forearm or elbow with your right hand. Then spin your left hand around to grab your right forearm or elbow, as shown below.

Stay in the pose for 30 seconds, working up to 2 minutes. Then release your arms and repeat on the second side, bring your left arm behind your back first.

Cautions: If you have a history of shoulder joint dislocation, you should avoid the extreme internal rotation required by this pose. Or, if you want to try the pose, start with version 2. If you feel any dramatic movement in your upper arm bone, back off immediately. Likewise, if you have pain in your shoulder joint, elbow, or wrist. Those of you who have active rotator cuff injuries, carpal tunnel syndrome or tennis elbow should check with your teacher before practicing this pose.

Building Upper Body Strength the Easy Way

by Nina

It’s only natural, I guess, that when you start blogging about yoga, your friends are going to ask for your advice, even when you’re on vacation. Luckily for me, I love helping my friends and truly enjoy giving them short private lessons, and seeing their eyes light up when they realize there are some easy yoga solutions to their problems in one of my ideas of FUN.

This time my friend Carol asked me about her right shoulder and wrist, the ones she over-uses when she spends so much time in front of the computer moving her mouse around. She was under the impression that to protect her shoulder and wrist she should not use them very much, even when she was doing yoga. To baby them, in other words. I assured her that, to the contrary, to protect her shoulder and wrist she should be both strengthening and stretching her shoulders, arms, wrists, and hands. Then I gave her a quick private lesson to show her some easy poses she could do on a regular basis.

For her wrists, I showed her the wrist flossing sequence (see Featured Sequence: Wrist Flossing) that is so helpful for preventing carpal tunnel syndrome and other wrists problems. For stretching her shoulders, I showed her a passive backbend over a blanket roll, with her arms overhead and straight, using a strap around her upper arms to make it easier to stay in the pose for around three minutes. I also taught her the doorknob version of Upward Plank pose (Purvottanasana) because she could easily do this in her work place and it’s a nice counter-pose to sitting hunched in front of a computer (see Upward Plank variations). Of course there are many other shoulder stretches, many of which we’ve been covering in our office yoga series (Arm Circles, Eagle pose Arms, Cow-Face pose Arms, etc.).

But what about building upper body strength? I assured her that, no, she didn’t have to do handstands or arm balances, and there were many easy yoga poses that help build upper body strength. Then I quickly ran through a lot of suggestions for her that I thought I share with you today. Hopefully, in the near future, we’ll be able to explore some of these poses in greater depth.

Any pose where you put weight on your arms builds upper body strength, including Cat pose, Downward-Facing Dog, Upward-Facing Dog, Plank pose, Sideways Plank pose (Vasithasana), Upward Plank pose (Purvottanasana), and so on. If you are worried about putting weight on your wrists, you can use a wedge to change the angle of your wrists, do some of the poses with your forearms on the floor instead of just your hands (for example Downward-Facing Dog with forearms on the floor). You can even do Upward Plank pose standing a few feet away from the wall, with one hand on the wall, your outside leg in Tree pose, and your second out to the side or overhead (I swear, I will take a photo of this one of these days). One of my favorite upper body strengtheners, which I learned from yoga teacher Julie Gudmestad, is to move back and forth, several times, between Downward-Facing Dog and Plank pose.

Plank pose

Also, any pose where you hold your arms up or out to the side builds upper body strength, including Warrior 1, 2, and 3, Tree pose, Triangle pose, Extended Side Angle pose, Half Moon pose, and so on. Do you doubt me? Try keeping your arms in position instead of releasing them as you change from the first side to the second side of Warrior 2 (or any other pose). I bet you’ll find it’s harder than you expected.

There are so many possibilities that I once taught an entire workshop on the subject. Here is the mini practice I sent those students home with:

1. Cat pose

2. Downward-Facing Dog pose

3. Standing Forward Bend

4. Two Sun Salutations with Plank instead of Chaturanga

5. Sideways Plank pose (Vashithasana)

6. Upward Plank pose (Purvottanasana)

7. Child's pose

I hope this inspires you to incorporate some upper body strengthening into your home practice!