Takeaways
It’s mostly a shoulder pose. For most people the limit isn’t arm strength or the back but the shoulders, which reach overhead, turn out and push at once.
Never come into it cold. Warm up with Cobra, Locust, Bow and, best of all, Upward-Facing Dog.
Think string of pearls. Lift your chest and lengthen your tailbone so the whole spine shares the arch instead of hinging in the low back or neck.
Keep the knees in line with the hips. Press through the big-toe mounds and inner heels and drag the heels apart, rather than just squeezing the glutes.
Come down on the back of your head. Tuck the chin first, and choose Bridge on days Wheel isn’t happening: no shame, no harm done.
Wheel Pose at a glance
Sanskrit: Urdhva Dhanurasana (urdhva = upward, dhanus = bow, asana = pose)
Also called: Wheel, Upward-Facing Bow Pose
Pose type: big backbend, pressed up from the back onto the hands and feet
Stretches: the whole front of the body: the front of the thighs and the hip flexors, the belly, the muscles between the ribs, the chest and the front of the shoulders
Works: the glutes, hamstrings and inner thighs; the muscles along the spine; the muscles between the shoulder blades; the arms and shoulders
Props that help: two blocks and a wall, a block or a strap for the thighs, a folded mat
A big pose and an open mind
Wheel Pose, Upward-Facing Bow or Urdhva Dhanurasana, is one of my very favorite mood-boosting poses. It’s a full-body experience from the tips of your toes to the crown of your head, and all that opening through the front of the body lifts your energy and your mood. If you know how Bridge Pose feels, Wheel takes that feeling times 10.
The most important thing to bring into Wheel (besides lying down on your back) is being open to possibility. Your body might be ready for a big backbend today, and it might not. You might get where you want to go and you might not. You might be frustrated, you might be triumphant, and all of that is part of the pose. So before you place your hands, take a deep breath in, let it go, and ask yourself: what if?
For the record, Wheel took me a couple of years of regular practice to feel solid, even though I could do it as a kid. That’s normal for a pose this big.
What Wheel asks of your body
Wheel needs openness in the whole front of the body, from the hip flexors and the belly to, more than anything, the shoulders. It also needs strength in the legs, the pelvis, the muscles along your spine and your arms, plus enough stability in the joints of the spine to keep the arch even.
Is it your arms or your back?
“I just can’t lift up” is one of the most common things I hear about Wheel, and most people blame their arms. If you practice a stronger style of yoga and put weight on your hands regularly, it’s generally not a strength issue. A quick check: if you can hold Downward-Facing Dog for a minute or longer, your arms are probably fine.
It usually isn’t your back either. If you trace the line from the tailbone along the spine to the head in many people’s Wheel, the backbend isn’t much deeper than a Cobra would be if you flipped them onto their belly. If you can do Locust and Bow without trouble, your spine is probably not what’s stopping you.
The shoulders are probably the most important part of the Wheel Pose equation.
What Wheel really asks for is shoulder mobility. Your arms reach overhead, turn out and push, all at the same time, and that combination is where most people get stuck. The other piece is trust in yourself.
Before you try Wheel
Never come into Wheel cold. It activates the entire body and stretches the whole front of it, so a few sun salutations and one Locust aren’t enough of a build-up.
Before Wheel, take a few smaller backbends, like Bow and Locust two or three times each and a few extra Cobras (there’s a whole lesson on Cobra Pose if you want to refine yours). Add shoulder and chest openers, like Locust with your hands clasped behind you, and open the front of your hips and thighs with lunges or upright Pigeon. Side bends help too.
My favorite preparation for Wheel is Upward-Facing Dog, by far. It strengthens your arms and shoulders, teaches you to draw your shoulder blades down your back, and pushes your heart forward so the backbend goes into your upper back. That’s everything Wheel asks for. Bridge is usually offered as the alternative to Wheel simply because you’re already on your back, but many people feel almost no upper-back bend in Bridge. It mostly lifts the hips.
Upward-Facing Dog: the best preparation for Wheel, with the shoulders down and the heart forward.
Your wrists get ready in the same poses, since tabletop, Plank and Up Dog put them at the same angle as Wheel. For a gentle forearm stretch, come into tabletop with your fingertips pointing back toward your knees and softly shift your weight forward and back.
You don’t have to do Wheel badly over and over to eventually do it well.
Every other backbend, all the shoulder strength you build and all the work of turning your arms out prepare you for it.
How to come into Wheel Pose
Lie on your back with your knees bent, feet hip distance apart and pointing forward, or wherever they naturally land for your body.
Check your line. Your shoulders, hips, knees and ankles should be in one line, not on a diagonal with your torso on one side of the mat and your feet on the other.
Find your robot arms. Bend your elbows and point your fingertips up toward the sky. Press into your elbows to lift your chest, and wiggle your shoulder blades in underneath you.
Place your hands next to your ears, fingertips pointing toward your shoulders, fingers spread. Draw your elbows in toward each other. (If that doesn’t let you lift up, take your elbows wide at first, then bring them back in once you’re up.)
Inhale, and as you exhale, press down to lift up onto the crown of your head only. Lift your chest straight up like an elevator.
Pause on the crown of your head. Draw your shoulder blades down your back, squeeze their tips together and adjust your hands.
Inhale, and as you exhale, push up into Wheel and lift your heart.
Wheel Pose: hands and feet grounded, knees in line with the hips, the chest lifting.
The pause on the crown is optional; you can also press all the way up and find the shoulder actions on your way. Either way, your head is only for setting up. You don’t stay there.
The pause on the way up: crown of the head down lightly, elbows bent, shoulder blades drawing down the back.
To come down, tuck your chin to your chest, bend your elbows and lower slowly and softly onto the back of your head, not the crown. Then walk your feet out mat distance apart, knock your knees together and rest your hands on your belly. Notice the rush of breath and energy through the front of your body and your spine. That’s why we backbend.
Then neutralize your spine with windshield-wiper knees or a reclined twist. Child’s Pose right after a strong Wheel can feel like an intense forward fold, so stay on your back for a while first.
Your shoulders: the key to lifting up
When you reach your arms overhead, your shoulder blades naturally lift and turn out, with their bottom tips swinging out to the sides. So you bring in the opposite action before you even lift: with your robot arms, draw your shoulder blades down your back and squeeze them toward each other. Then, as your arms rotate out to place the hands, keep the feeling of your shoulder blades glued onto the back of your ribcage, and keep squeezing the muscles between them (your rhomboids) the whole way up.
Once you’re in the pose:
Plug the heads of your arm bones back into the shoulder sockets.
Hug the tips of your shoulder blades together while you broaden across your chest.
Roll your elbows back behind you to turn your arms out.
Hands and elbows
Where your hands and elbows go depends on how open your shoulders and wrists are, and on your bone structure. Not everyone can get the heels of the hands down at first, and your fingers may turn out to the side. That’s fine. Come into the pose and reset everything once you’re up.
Wherever your hands land, spread your fingers and press evenly through your palms, especially through the mounds of your index finger and thumb (Hasta Bandha). Your arm anatomy plays a part too: there’s more on why your arm anatomy decides your hand placement in every pose.
Your spine: the string of pearls
Picture your spine as a string of pearls. When you wear a string of pearls around your neck, there’s no kink at one point and no V-shape in the middle. It hangs in one even curve, with equal space between every bead. That’s what we’re going for in backbends.
Think string of pearls: equal space between every bead, no kink.
That’s hard, because most of us are stiff in the upper back (the thoracic spine) and very mobile in the neck and the low back. In Wheel, the flexible parts take the whole shape and form a hinge, usually at two or three joints in the low back and about two in the neck. There, the bones press against each other. Bone touching bone isn’t necessarily bad in itself; what you want to avoid is its effect on the discs in between.
So instead of throwing your head back to make up for a stiff ribcage, put your attention on your chest. Lift it up, up, up, and don’t think about your hips or your neck as much.
Lengthen your tailbone
Before you lift, slide your tailbone up toward your knees and feel your low back flatten toward the mat. That’s out of neutral on purpose: it counters the tendency to overarch. In the pose, keep sliding your tailbone toward your knees while your chest lifts. It can feel as if you’re taking some of the backbend out of the pose, and from the low back you are. Find what feels good for you somewhere in the middle.
Where to look
The further back you look, the more you take the backbend into your neck. If you have a lot of openness in your upper back, looking back toward your hands or even your heels can be totally fine. If you know your upper back is tight, keep your head in neutral and look back toward the top of your mat.
Your legs: knees in line with the hips
Your feet are your other contact with the earth. Set them up in your own neutral, the way you stand in Tadasana (Mountain Pose). Toes straight forward is how the skeleton in anatomy class stands; depending on your bone shape, your neutral may turn out a little. Spread your toes and find Pada Bandha for a broad, stable base.
Should you squeeze your glutes?
That’s the biggest question I get about Wheel (and Bridge). Your gluteus maximus, the big butt muscle, extends your hips together with your hamstrings and the adductor magnus, so it’s going to contract anyway when you lift up.
The catch is that it also turns your thighs out. Your knees splay, your feet turn out, and the back of your pelvis closes off. A lot of people tell me they don’t do backbends because of a pinching or compression in the low back. The first thing to check is whether the knees are splaying.
The glutes will work anyway. Your job is to keep the knees from splaying.
How to keep your knees in
You counter the outward turn with your inner thighs (the adductors) and with the muscles on the outer hip that roll your thighs in:
Press down into your big-toe mounds and your inner heels. This switches on the inner seam of your legs.
Press strongly into your heels and try to drag them apart without actually moving your feet. This switches on the outer-hip muscles that roll your thighs in.
Slide your tailbone toward your knees a little more.
A block squeezed between your thighs gives you instant feedback. A strap around your thighs works the other way around: you press your legs out into it.
Then notice your feet as you lift. They tend to turn out the moment your glutes kick in. If yours do, walk them back into your neutral.
Modifications, variations and alternatives
A modification keeps the pose and changes the support. A variation keeps the pose and adds something. An alternative is a different pose with a similar effect.
Common mistakes and how to fix them
You throw your head back
Looks like: the gaze goes far back toward the heels, the neck takes the bend and the upper back stays flat.
Try: keep your head near neutral, look toward the top of your mat and send your attention to lifting your chest.
Your knees and feet turn out
Looks like: the knees splay wide as you lift, the toes swing out to the sides and the low back pinches.
Try: walk your feet back to neutral, press through your big-toe mounds and inner heels, drag your heels apart, or squeeze a block between your thighs.
Your low back takes the whole bend
Looks like: a V-shaped kink in the low back while the ribcage stays still.
Try: slide your tailbone toward your knees and lift your chest up, up, up. The straight-leg variation helps you feel it.
You get stuck on the crown of your head
Looks like: you can’t press up from the crown, and your neck is carrying the weight.
Try: tuck your chin and come down softly onto the back of your head. Next time, try the blocks at the wall. If there’s any risk of slipping and landing on your head, Wheel isn’t your pose right now. It might be later.
Wheel just doesn’t come, or doesn’t look like the pictures
Looks like: your arms won’t straighten, or your Wheel looks more like a square or a rectangle than a big arch.
Try: remember that the pose is about how it feels, not how it looks. The shape depends a lot on your bones: where the bones of your spine bump into each other, where the thigh bone meets the back of the hip socket, how your shoulders move. Pinpoint what’s stopping you (quick compression in your low back in Cobra? your arms? your shoulders?), work on what you can and accept what you can’t. Wheel may not be for every body, just as some of us will never fold completely in half, and that’s okay.
Who should be careful
Low back and neck. Hinging and compression show up here first. Lift your chest, lengthen your tailbone and keep your head near neutral. Pinching or nerve pain on only one side of the back is worth having checked.
Wrists. Every wrist has a stopping point. If you feel it as compression at the top of the wrist, more stretching won’t change it. Use the blocks at the wall or a folded mat.
Pregnancy. The belly is already stretched, and Wheel stretches it even further, including the strip of connective tissue between the six-pack muscles. You can skip Wheel for a few months, or take Bridge, Cow or Tiger instead. It’s your choice.
Anyone who isn’t warmed up, and anyone at risk of slipping and landing on the head.
Related poses
Bridge Pose: the same set-up, and the place to stay on days Wheel isn’t happening.
Upward-Facing Dog: my favorite preparation for Wheel.
Bow Pose: a smaller backbend that warms up the same front body.
Two-Legged Inverted Staff Pose: a very advanced variation, with the forearms on the floor instead of the hands.
Dancer: Wheel is a good warm-up for it, especially if you still have energy left.
