FLIP DOG DILEMMA

If you practice or have been to a modern vinyasa or power yoga class, then you know flip dog is a popular pose called out toward the middle or end of yoga class as an option. I have yet to be in a class where the instructor explains what flip dog is or how to get into it.

So how do you do the pose? And is it worth it?

RISK VS REWARD

If you’ve practiced with me, you know I am not an “only one way to do a pose” kind of teacher, but more of a “one or two ways not to do the pose.” The way NOT to do a pose is in a way that presents a high risk of injury. While I don’t think flip dog poses a massive immediate threat on the shoulder girdle, I do think the way many people approach it presents a higher than necessary risk to the gleno-humeral joint (shoulder), without any real reward that would outweigh the risk. This is an important distinction. Within the physical practice of yoga, or anything else worth the effort in life, there is an unavoidable risk. But we weigh the potential benefits and make the choice to proceed. We do this every time we drive a car or board an airplane. When we sign a contract or a lease. When we chose to love someone. Hell, when we get out of bed in the morning.

The risk is there, but the potential for life-changing gain is worth it, so we take that risk.

Back to flip dog. What is the risk and the potential gain?

This pose (or the variation I show you) has the potential to be an incredible stretch for the Pectoralis muscles and a solid shoulder strengthener. For many, the kind of opening felt in this pose feels really good because we often spend much of our time hunched forward.

The way most people execute the pose we call “flip dog” is like a reverse tabletop, but on one hand and with that hand turned out. To me, the extreme extension of the shoulder is fine when bearing weight on both hands and fully activating the posterior shoulder muscles (around the shoulder blades). But take away one hand and enter the pose from down dog, and most people wind up punching the head of the humerus (arm bone) forward, putting pressure in the anterior (front) part of the glenohumeral joint capsule. Ligaments there keep the arm bone snuggled into the shoulder socket. Putting pressure on them starts to destabilize those ligaments. Over time, this could cause a knocking of the arm bone in the shoulder socket, resulting in all sorts of soft tissue damage.