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Urdhva Dhanurasana Sequencing Considerations

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Yoga Techniques and Fitness

Overview

In this lesson, we explore sequencing considerations for Urdhva Dhanurasana, including warm-up poses, preparation, and appropriate counter-poses.

Objective

Understand how to prepare the body for Wheel Pose and how to neutralize and balance the practice afterward.

What You'll Get

You'll get a roadmap for building toward this advanced backbend safely. For your own practice, you'll know which poses to include before attempting Wheel. For teachers and therapists, you'll learn the logic of progressing from simpler backbends to more complex ones, and why neutralizing (rather than immediately forward folding) protects the spine after deep backbending.

Sequencing Considerations

This is a fairly advanced backbend, requiring warm-up and preparation.
See Backbending section of Pose Categories for cautions and important alignment considerations.
As a backbend, fundamental preparation for Wheel includes general warm up plus opening shoulders and upper back, spinal muscles, quadriceps, psoas & adductors.
In general, backbends that are leveraged by arms or legs, such as Wheel, can be prepared for by first practicing backbends that require spinal muscles for the action (such as Salabhasana).

Shoulder Opening can be integrated into standing poses (as above) or seated poses (shown below).

Consider King Arthur’s Pose and Lunge variations for lengthening quadriceps and psoas.

Anjaneyasana

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