Puppy

Hips high over the knees, chest melting toward the floor, arms reaching long. Chest, lats and shoulders.

· 2 min read

yoga · shoulder · lat · chest · thoracic · kneeling

The lesson

  1. 1

    Hips stay over the knees

    From hands and knees, walk your hands forward but leave your hips exactly where they are — high, stacked over your knees. This is the whole pose.

  2. 2

    Melt the chest, not the belly

    Let your chest sink toward the floor and rest your forehead or chin on the mat. Keep a little length in your low back rather than letting the belly drop.

  3. 3

    Arms straight and active

    Reach through straight arms and lift your elbows off the floor. Collapsed elbows take the stretch out of your armpits, which is where it belongs.

  4. 4

    The test

    A long opening through your armpits, the sides of your ribs and the front of your shoulders. If you mostly feel your low back, your hips drifted back toward your heels.

Puppy

How to do it

Start on hands and knees. Keeping the hips stacked high over the knees, walk the hands forward along the mat and let the chest melt down toward the floor, resting the forehead or the chin on the mat. Keep the arms straight and reaching, with the elbows lifted off the floor. Breathe into the sides of the ribs. Hold, then walk the hands back to come up.

Why it's good for runners

This is the only shape in the method that trains overhead directly. Down dog and the upward salute pass through the position, but neither one stays there long enough to change it. Everything else works the legs, hips and spine — but a kettlebell session spends its time with the bells racked in front of you and locked out above you, and both of those close the front of the shoulders and shorten the lats. Puppy reopens the line from the armpit down the side of the ribs, which is what lets you get overhead without arching the low back to fake the range.

Common mistakes

The one that matters: letting the hips travel back toward the heels. The moment they do, this becomes child's pose and the shoulders stop being stretched. Keep the hips high over the knees the whole time. Don't rest the elbows on the floor either — straight, reaching arms are what makes it work. And back off if you feel pinching at the front of the shoulder rather than length under the arm.

Related

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Thread the Needle

From hands and knees, sliding one arm under the body and resting on the shoulder. Rotation through the upper back, plus the back of the shoulder.

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Reverse Warrior

Warrior II legs, torso reaching back and up. The side body from hip to fingertips, in one standing shape.

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World's Greatest Stretch

Deep lunge, elbow down toward the instep, rotate open and reach up, then straighten the front leg. Three positions, one shape.

Back to Yoga poses