Changes in Latitude

Strengthen weak latissimus dorsi (the lats) and feel your shoulders open for Upward Dog and Pendant Pose.

By Julie Gudmestad

Every Olympic year, I find myself marveling once again at how each sport shapes its athletes’ bodies: the bulging thighs of sprinters and cyclists, the lean mass of marathon runners, the powerful necks of wrestlers and male gymnasts, the broad shoulders of swimmers. Television coverage of the 2004 games in Greece devoted lots of attention to the swimmers, and that got me thinking about the latissimus dorsi—about why this muscle is so pronounced in swimmers and how it relates to yoga.

While the lats aren’t often mentioned in yoga classes, and most yoga students don’t look like swimmers—you know, the telltale triangular-shaped torso, rounded upper back, and tendency to stand with the palms of the hands facing backward—the lats do support the torso and shoulders in some yoga poses. And perhaps most important for yoga practitioners, tight, short lats can negatively affect your posture and significantly limit the range of motion in your shoulders.

Lat Facts
You have one lat on each side of your back, just under the skin. These broad, flat muscles originate on the upper posterior pelvis and on the lumbar and lower thoracic vertebrae (the vertebrae of the lower and lower middle back). The lats’ long muscle fibers then extend diagonally up and out across the back and through the armpit to the inner upper humerus (the upper arm bone).

Just as with any muscle, when the lats contract, they try to pull the bones to which they attach closer together. If your shoulder is flexed—that is, if your arm is up in front of you or overhead—contracting your lats will pull the arm and torso together, creating shoulder extension. This is what happens when you do a chin-up, row, or swim freestyle. The muscles are also worked when you do lat pull-downs—reaching overhead to grab a bar, then pulling it toward your chest—in a gym. (I don’t recommend the variation where you pull the bar behind your head. Most of us already carry our heads too far forward, and this variation can exacerbate that tendency.) The lats are also worked if you start with your arms up and out to the sides (shoulder abduction), then pull them in toward your sides, much like you do when you swim breaststroke (shoulder adduction).

Although you infrequently pull your arms down against resistance in yoga, you do employ a lesser-known action of the lats—lifting your torso by planting your hands at your sides—in a number of asanas such as Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (Upward-Facing Dog Pose) and some arm balances in which the torso is kept relatively upright, including Bhujapidasana (Shoulder-Pressing Pose) and Lolasana (Pendant Pose).

In Upward Dog, for instance, if your lats aren’t strong enough, your torso will sag toward the floor and your shoulders will hunch up by your ears. Try the following exercise to feel the lats’ action for yourself. Sit on the floor with your spine erect and your legs straight out in front of you in Dandasana (Staff Pose). Place a block at its lowest level next to each hip, and put a hand on each block. Press your hands into the blocks, straighten your elbows, and lift your torso so your hips come off the floor.

Page 1 2 3

See All Anatomy Articles »