Yoga Pose Inversion Videos

Rather than clasping your hands in plough pose to do this, try using your rhomboids!

So that you can feel when you are balanced on your shoulders you can practice some simple rolling exercises.

So that your neck is under less stress in shoulder stand and plow pose you can do these poses with your torso lifted relative to your head.

Practice some sort of active back bend for the neck either before or after these two poses, using the back bend as a counter pose for the forward bend.

The sequence of preparation exercises leading up to dolphin pose ideally makes it easier to learn and also, hopefully, gives you a better feel for your body.

I've included instruction for both the "forearms parallel" version as well as a "hands clasped" version of dolphin pose.

Although a little bit harder on the neck, since the neck has to potentially bear more weight, tripod headstand can be a little bit easier to learn since flexibility isn't such a limiting factor.

In this video I go over neck and shoulder preparation exercises and then actually inverting into tripod headstand with some exercises that you can practice to help you gain control of your body while upside down.

Not recommended for people with neck problems or blood pressure problems.

Here's a couple of suggested fixes, one to get around tight hamstrings, and another to build awareness of the ribcage and thoracic spine so that the student can recognize when their thoracic spine is straight and when it isn't. Plus an exercise that introduces you to pressing your head.

Some simple tips for creating a stable foundation when doing a few different types of headstand.

Exercises including rolling out so that you can fail safely, back against the wall headstand, L-shaped headstand with feet on the wall. Plus some counterposes for decompressing the neck.

Learn shoulder actions, hand actions and hand positioning for headstand prior to going upside down. Learn to feel and control these actions without weight on your head.

My suggestion is to watch a portion of the video and then practice the exercise just watched, to the point you can do it without thinking about how to do it.

Then repeat for the next section.

Expanding the ribcage to give your shoulder muscles a stable foundation.

Here we look at jumping into handstand so that you end up with your back facing the wall. We also look at getting around some common problems when kicking into handstand.