Proper Yoga Cat Pose Hand Technique

Video Transcript

"Have your wrists ever started killing you after doing one too many down dog, up dog, reverse table or maybe a cat pose? It may be the way you're holding your hands. So let's see if we have proper hand placement. I'm going to come into cat pose. And I'm going to spread my fingers wide. I want my middle finger to come towards the front of the mat and my pinkie finger and my thumb to be as far apart as they possibly can be. So there's lots of width between each finger. I'm going to press down between the thumb and the forefinger and then again like these tree frog hands I'm going to try to pull the very center of the palm away from the floor. Now you want to make sure you don't put too much weight on the hands so you want to hold up with the rest of your body as well. Looking at your elbows, if your elbow creases are forward it's a less strong position for your shoulders. So pull the elbow creases forward, or towards each other. This is in cat pose. And you're going to have a stronger arm position and you'll find if you pull the weight off your wrists it will alleviate that wrist pain. The other thing, some people think that the more padding they put on their hands that the more that'll alleviate the wrist pain but it's actually just the opposite. You have to press down more with more padding. So in order to keep your wrists strong and healthy it's almost better even to do it on the floor. I'm Cindy Mastry. Namaste."