Yoga Anatomy

Your abs are (literally) at the center of everything. Here’s what you need to know to use them smartly and safely during your yoga practice—and the rest of the time, too. 

What exactly does this cue mean? And is it safe? Physical therapist and yoga therapist Jennifer Chang explains.

Physical Therapist and Yoga Therapist Jennifer Chang explains how this common, seemingly simple cue is overused…and can even cause harm.

Sometimes called “yoga butt,” Proximal Hamstring Tendonitis can hinder your life and practice. Here’s how to prevent it from happening to you and your students.

Ever notice how you tend to walk, lean, hunch, or otherwise propel yourself forward all the time? Your body needs more than that to remain flexible and pain-free. Here's how.

An exploration of the intention behind an anatomically incorrect instruction.

Most yoga practitioners can't seem to get enough of these poses. Yet a teacher with more than two decades of experience explores whether less is more.

The case for keeping it simple.

Because there's more to life than hip openers.

How to take care of one of the body's most critical joints, so you can remain pain-free on and off the mat.

How you engage your feet during asana practice is important for the health of your tootsies—and for establishing more balanced postures.

We trust our breath to keep us alive, to help us through panic or pain, and support our meditation and yoga practices. But that’s not all it can do. Here's how your body moves with your breath.

The way you move your shoulder joint is important for avoiding injury. Physical therapist and certified yoga therapist Rachel Krentzman breaks down how this commonly used cue can be dangerous—and tells you what to do instead.

Being upside down can shift how we view the world—literally and figuratively.

Many yoga instructors tell students to “anchor the sitting bones” in seated twists. But the key to healthy twisting is moving your pelvis.

Got back pain? Tight hip flexors could be to blame. Open them up with these four yoga poses that counterbalance the prolonged hip flexion of sitting for hours.

Use these poses to access this deep muscle, which is key for freedom and ease in the hips.

The word “flexibility” is often associated with yoga. But what does it mean to be flexible? In this four-week online course, Anatomy Trains founder Tom Myers walks you through the latest science on stretching.

Sit-ups are one of the least effective ways to strengthen the core.

Hamstring tears and strains are common among yoga practitioners, and overstretching can make it worse. Here's how to alter your practice to ensure a speedy recovery.

Many yoga teachers and students find Down Dog uncomfortable because they hold a fundamentally flawed understanding of how the shoulder joint moves.

While yoga isn’t about becoming more flexible, having a good understanding of what flexibility is, and why it’s important, can take your practice to the next level.

The vast majority of us tend to adopt this shoulders-hunched, neck-craned-forward posture regularly throughout our day thanks to our desk-bound jobs. Learn how yoga can reverse its effects.

How to protect your knees during your practice.

Your fascial system is as important as any other system in your body. Practicing yoga can keep it healthy—and even reshape it for better flexibility and stability.

New science tells us that our body’s connective tissue, or fascia, determines our baseline flexibility. But practicing yoga can change our muscles’ functional length and our joints’ range of motion. Here's how to use yoga to find a safe level of flexibility and stabilize your joints.

Stretch Your hamstrings, calves, back muscles, and glutes with Uttanasana.

Use yoga shapes to strengthen and stretch this important core muscle.

How your body finds its footing in balancing poses.

Well-trained abdominal muscles are pliable, not chiseled or hard, and adapt quickly to change.

Don’t miss these strategies for supporting spinal health and keeping pain at bay.

It’s no surprise to most that our feet are the foundation of our yoga practice. But dissimilar to the foundation of a building, our feet must also be flexible and buoyant. Below are some tips to support your foot health.

We all know our feet are the foundation of our yoga practice. But why exactly are they so important and how do they play a bigger role in our life? We set out to discover how much of an impact our feet have on our bodies and our mind.

Exploring how your knees move can lead to a balanced relationship between stability and vulnerability, on and off the mat.

Defining the ideal posture for each pose is not possible.

Plus, how to fix each to stay safe when you practice.

How to maintain an optimal (natural!) spinal curve to breathe better, stand taller, and sit longer—on and off your meditation cushion.

An increased awareness of the effects of gravity can help you figure out which muscles to use and which to release in order to move more deeply and more safely into a pose.

Use these exercises to experience a different kind of strength and ease in your body.

No matter how often you practice, and how deeply you twist, the answer is probably no. Here is the anatomy lesson and exercises every yogi needs to experience more ease both on and off the mat.

It's important to protect your wrists in any yoga pose—but Wheel Pose is notorious for causing wrist pain or soreness. Here’s how to be mindful of the risks to your wrists.

Are common cues in standing poses wreaking havoc on your knees, sacroiliac joint, and lower back? Follow this anatomy advice to find better alignment from the ground up.

Strong, supportive glutes are key to a safe, pain-free yoga practice. Here’s what you need to know about the glute muscles (the gluteus maximus, medius, and minimus), plus four poses that make them stronger.

Yoga teachers are constantly telling students to "engage, "activate," or "turn on" certain muscles. New research suggests there are more effective ways to activate proper muscular engagement.

Learn what muscles are activated when you jump back to Chaturanga or Plank Pose, and how to do it safely.

Tom Myers explains what it means to practice with a "neutral" pelvis and spine, why it's important, and how to know when you're there.

Start to understand, lengthen, and strengthen your teres major—a little-known muscle that can be the key to protecting your shoulders when you go upside down.

Fascia is a buzzword in the yoga world right now. Here’s everything you need to know about this connective tissue—and how to use the knowledge to deepen your yoga practice.

Understanding how you move your body using the three anatomical planes can help you get stronger, prevent injuries, and feel more balanced and grounded.

You can rock Plank pose, but did you know that your diaphragm might be your secret weapon when it comes to strengthening your core?

Here's how to strengthen and gain mobility in your upper back

The trendy go-to remedy for a tight IT band—foam rolling—can actually do more harm than good. Here’s why, plus 3 yoga poses that’ll help you keep this thick fascial tissue healthy.

When an asana is out of reach, yogis frequently blame their flexibility. But Bernie Clark explains that one pose simply doesn’t fit all. So he’s laid out a road map for getting to know your own unique anatomy and determining what actually is stopping you from doing a given pose.

Flexible and strong, hamstrings are key to a healthy, happy yoga practice. Here's what you need to know in order to lengthen and strengthen these muscles.

Senior Yoga Medicine teacher Rachel Land created our Yoga for Flexibility Challenge but explains why it’s not all about about “stretching.”

There’s a myth that a strong muscle is a tight one, and a flexible muscle is weak. It seems counterintuitive, but identifying and strengthening weak areas can actually help tight areas release their grip. Your challenge for this week is to address one or two of your dormant areas with targeted strength work. Share your progress on social media with #YJflexichallenge for a chance to be featured on our @YogaJournal Instagram page!

Standards are nice—they make it much easier to learn how to guide students into the large number of poses taught in yoga classes, but unfortunately students are not standardized.

With so many teaching styles—not to mention so many variations on the same cues and ever-changing thinking on what’s safe and not—it can be tough to know which cues to listen to and which ones to ignore. Enter this guide: an incomplete roundup of the good, the bad, and the just plain funny.

This joint plays an important role in knee and foot health, balance, and more. Here’s what you need to know about your ankles.

Senior Yoga Medicine teacher Rachel Land breaks down the anatomy of fascia and four effective ways to keep it fit through yoga practice.

Want to unleash the true potential of your middle? 
Turns out crunches—yes, the exercise you’ve avoided for years in favor of holding Plank—are key to a stronger core and more stable yoga practice. Discover how they can serve you in every pose.

The shoulder girdle is the most mobile and arguably the most vulnerable joint 
in the body. Here’s what you need to know to prevent injury.

Senior Yoga Medicine teacher Rachel Land says don’t worry if you’ve never considered the health of your fascia before. As a yogi, you may already be taking good care of it anyway. Here, she outlines what it takes.

Maintaining flexibility and stability in the hip joints is crucial for lower-back health and cultivating overall freedom and ease in our bodies.

When done properly, twists have the potential to help your low back feel great. Here are three poses to help you relieve low back pain.

Ray Long, MD, explains the anatomy of twists and how to support the action with proper muscular engagement to prevent low back pain.

You can learn to consciously utilize muscles, like the psoas, that tend to do their own thing, and when you do, it can transform your yoga practice.