I love Love LOVE Wheel Pose. Have since I was a kiddo. It is Day 14 (tomorrow’s) pose for Vivify Hot Yoga NM’s #vivifylucky17 and I’m honored to be leading this advanced posture 🙂
It is **essential** to warm up the body for Wheel. It is an advanced posture. Bridge and shoulder openers are great preparatory poses.
I offer you here a few snippets here, instructions, and a few of the benefits of this amazing posture.
- Basic Push Up into Wheel
- Drop Back into Wheel should be with supervision or using the wall to practice the drop back.
- The Wall walk is a great way to really open the shoulders which makes the pose so much easier, you aren’t fighting gravity the more compact you can become
- Revel in where you are in your practice and just keep at it. The benefits are many!
Benefits of Urdva Dharnurasana (Wheel Pose)
- IMHO the Ultimate Heart Opener, benefitting the body, mind and spirit.
- Stretches the rib cage and lungs, improving respiration
- Strengthens/lengthens/improves flexibility of the spinal column, consequently improving nervous system function
- Loosens tight hips and shoulders
- Strengthens the arms, wrists, legs, buns, and abdomen
- Stimulates the thyroid and pituitary, thereby counteracting life’s stresses
- Increases energy and counteracts depression.
- Therapeutic for asthma, back pain, infertility, and reducing osteoporosis.
- Precautions/contra-indications include previous back injury, carpal tunnel syndrome, cardiovascular disease or high or low blood pressure
Getting into Wheel.
- Lie flat on your back with your arms at your sides.
- Bend your knees, keeping your feet parallel and aligned with your hips.
- Draw your heels close to the edges of your buttocks.
- Reach your arms up overhead, bending your elbows and placing palms on floor at either side of your head, fingers pointing toward the body.
- Carefully pressing up, straightening your elbows and lifting your hips.
- If possible, walk feet toward hands or vice versa.
- The more you can get your wrists under your shoulders, the easier this pose becomes, but understand this might take time!
- Continue to breathe and lift hips.
- When you are ready to release, tuck the pelvis and slowly lower down, tailbone last to touch.
- Supta baddha konasana (supine bound angle) is a lovely release from wheel.
- Keep at it! Try to hold 5 breaths. Then go for 10 breaths…. The benefits are plentiful and there are so many fun variations.
