7 Yoga Cues to Leave Behind

As a yoga teacher with a yoga therapeutics background, it can be challenging to take classes from other yoga teachers. Sometimes my mind is accepting and I can move through a yoga class without judgment of a teacher’s cues, without thinking about the recent article I read against said cue, and without reaction.

But other times, I am less resilient to remain in the present. Other times, I watch teachers give hands-on adjustments to students and it makes me cringe. Other times, I think about how I am going to write a blog post on this :)

So here are 7 common yoga cues I’ve heard recently that should really be re-considered.

Disclaimer: Don’t take my word for it, LISTEN TO YOUR BODY. Don’t blindly trust a cue you hear in the yoga room without feeling how it ricochets throughout your body both in the moment and over time. 

1. Square Your Hips (Warrior 1)

This cue is commonly given during Virabhadrasana I or Warrior 1 pose. No one ever really seems to have square hips, and I’ve consistently seen teachers put their hands on a students’ hips and try to rotate them towards the front of their mat. I cringe and I just ask WHY!?

All I know is why not. In Warrior 1, the back foot is planted at about a 45 degree angle on the ground, meaning we are in a closed kinetic chain. When we try to “square” the hips when the foot is in this fixed position, it can cause unnecessary soft tissue strain on the medial (or inner) parts of the knee, ankle, and the hip, as well as unnecessary compression on the lateral (or outer) parts.

Just for some context about why this may be a problem: The most common mechanism of injury for an ACL tear is twisting the knee over a planted foot. The most common mechanism of injury for a high ankle sprain is dorsiflexion and external rotation of the foot (re: the back foot is at 45 degrees-ish in this pose) with a fixed tibia (shin).

The load of your body during yoga is not going to tear your ligaments. Let’s get rid of that fear. But this type of repetitive rotational force of the leg over a fixed foot certainly is not beneficial for the body. Why then are we obsessed with squaring our hips? You tell me.

2. Soften Your Glutes (Bridge Pose)

This one I’ve never been given a proper reason for throughout any of my yoga training, yet I hear it everywhere. In bridge pose, we are bringing our hips into extension. The primary muscle for hip extension is your gluteus maximus. To come into bridge pose without the use of gluteus maximus requires extensive hamstring activation, and frankly is not a functional movement pattern for common activities such as walking. To not use the glutes to help with bridge pose can further put undue strain on the lumbar spine (low back). So please, use ‘em if you got ‘em!

3. Take a Deep Breath In

I am all for breathing. I am all for the marriage of breath and movement into a fabulous dance. However, when I look around the room at people taking a deep breath in, this usually consists of recruiting overactive neck musculature to expand the thoracic cavity (the chest) to let in more air. Beyond already overused neck muscles such as sternocleidomastoid and the scalenes, people often recruit even more accessory muscles to help them get as deep of a breath in as they can. Often, this is often done as a short breath as well. 

While it may feel good to take a deep breath in and out, the pace at which you are taking this breath may determine if it is fueling your body or leaving you less calm than when you began.

Recommendation? Take a slow breath in. Take a slow breath out. Notice what muscles you use to bring in breath. Are these muscles that typically cause you discomfort throughout the day? If so, how might you redistribute your muscle recruitment during breathing? 

4. Tuck Your Tailbone

Why are we always tucking our tailbone? This tailbone tuck brings us into a posterior, or backwards, tilt of our pelvis. It often also leads to us hanging out on the ligaments in the front of our hips instead of engaging and stabilizing the muscles around our hips. Yet this cue is still out there on infographics and in classes alike. It can also lead to a TON of unnecessary tightening in the pelvic floor muscles around the anus, which has its own host of issues. This lengthening in the back of the pelvis may feel beneficial for some people in some poses, but it’s likely not a full on “tuck" of the tailbone that is really helping here. 

Question why you are using this cue (To flatten the low back? Are you sure you should be flattening the low back?), which poses you use it in, and which students you use it for. Even “send your tailbone towards the floor behind you” may be a better cue in a pose like chair pose… but again it depends. 

5. Shoulders Down

While we spend a lot of our life with our shoulders up towards our ears and may not notice it, what effect does this constant “shoulders down” cue bring to our bodies? I spoke about this with the Dean of my Physical Therapy program last week, since he teaches shoulder biomechanics, examination, and management in our curriculum. When your arms come overhead, ideally your scapula (shoulder blade) tilts backwards, moves superior (up towards your ears), and upwardly rotates (the bottom of the triangle that is your scapula goes out towards the side). 

Therefore when you bring your arms over your head, it is proper shoulder mechanics for your shoulders to rise a bit towards your ears. This is due to scapulohumeral rhythm, or the movement that your scapula should make as you raise your arms overhead. Moral of the story: Is bringing the shoulders “down” when raising the arms overhead really best for the shoulder?

6. Parallel your Feet to the Sides of Your Mat (Tadasana)

This one may need to go for several reasons. 

We naturally have torsion, or a twist, in our shin bone (tibia) and our thigh bone (femur). The amount of this torsion varies person to person and is a result of our childhood development. Placing the feet parallel to the sides of the mat may not be anatomically beneficial for everyone’s bones and could cause unnecessary stress to joints higher up the body. (Think: Your feet are connected to your knees are connected to your hips are connected to your pelvis to your spine to your shoulders to your neck.) 

Further, your hip socket likely does not face the same way as the hip socket of the person next to you. We have skeletal variation in the way our hip socket (acetabulum) faces, which determines the way our femur orients to our pelvis. 

The muscles of the hip function best in the natural plane of the hip, determined by your very own hip socket. How to find this? March in place then see where your feet naturally land. This is the plane where your muscles are best able to support your body, because they do so all day as you walk in this plane! Turning your feet forwards may therefore put you at a muscular disadvantage. So try placing your feet in a new position and see how that feels in your body.

7. Flatten Your Low Back

I fear we are afraid that this curve in our low back is the root of our back pain. Maybe some people could use finding a little less lumbar lordosis beneficial for their low back, but many people could also use finding a little more lumbar lordosis beneficial for their back … especially when we sit in chairs with our pelvis tucked under us and our low back curved all day. Something I like to do in bridge pose is instruct the pose with a “flattened low back” then instruct it with a tiny arch in the low back (ribs relaxed down). I then allow people to choose which felt better in their body for the 3rd bridge pose. 

In Summary, your body is your best teacher.

Yoga teachers — challenge the cues you give. Why do you give them? Did you hear them somewhere else? Do you know why you are using this cue? It is an honor to instruct someone in the movement of their body. Movement is medicine. Make sure you know what you are prescribing.

Yogis — challenge the cues you follow. Does this cue make your body feel more free? If not, does moving your body a little differently feel better? Do you take classes from very dogmatic teachers? Has this served your body well? You know your body best.