10 Most Common Yoga Form Mistakes You’re Probably Making Yoga is truly for every body. But doing yoga the “right” way, with an emphasis on proper breathing, alignment, and form, can help ensure you reap yoga’s benefits while keeping your body safe. “Alignment is very important,” says BODi’s Yoga52 instructor Micki Duran. “Yoga poses should help strengthen the body, not cause injury.” The proper yoga forms you see demonstrated in classic yogic texts and in programs like Yoga52 and Beachbody Yoga Studio were developed for reasons that go far beyond the aesthetic. “Even though the classical pose (and alignment) may be harder to do, that’s where you are safest,” says Dr. Loren M. Fishman, M.D., who studied extensively with B.K.S. Iyengar and has published research on yoga’s healing effects. “There is less strain on the ligaments, tendons, and cartilage in the classical pose than in other versions.” Duran says it’s normal to feel frustrated when you aren’t “mastering” yoga form fast enough or moving the way you want. She compares it to learning to walk: “You just learn, practice, and one day you get it.” But don’t rush it — that’s how injuries happen. Below is a list of some of the most common yoga form mistakes and how to fix them. Most seasoned practitioners have made the same yoga form mistakes you see demonstrated. “Your yoga poses may not look like the picture or anyone else in the class, but notice how they feel,” recommends Ann Swanson, M.S., C-IAYT, E-RYT 500. Yoga shouldn’t hurt, but you should still feel something. 1. Cupping Your Hands When on the Floor Ever notice your palms start to lift off the floor in poses like downward facing dog? “The wrists are a common site of injury, which can happen when we don’t distribute weight appropriately throughout the hands,” says Yoga52 instructor Odette Hughes. The fix: Flatten those hands. “Usually, simply bringing attention to your hands is enough to correct what’s happening,” says Hughes. “I ask students to keep their fingers spread apart and to press evenly from the pinkie side to the thumb side.” 2. Dipping Too Low in Chaturanga Chaturanga dandasana is a challenging, yet common pose, and it’s easy to go too low, especially in vinyasa flow classes where it’s repeatedly used as a transition. “This could trigger a shoulder injury by combining improper form and repetitive movements,” says Marie Grujicic-Delage, a Yoga52 instructor. The fix: Adjust your depth. “Lower only halfway down so your elbows form 90-degree angles — never go lower,” explains Grujicic-Delage. “Your shoulders should be in line with your hips and elbows.” If you can’t maintain that form, drop to your knees. 3. Straining Your Front Knee in Pigeon Pose Pigeon pose feels so good in the hips, but oftentimes we put the front knee at risk to feel more of a stretch. “Most teachers encourage students to position their front shin parallel to the front of the mat,” says Yoga52 instructor Brent Laffoon. If you can do that, great! But forcing it can strain the ligaments in your knee. The fix: Forget parallel if that causes pain. “Just pull the heel of your front leg in toward your groin, and let the thigh and knee point a little bit more forward,” says Laffoon. “You can still get a great stretch this way. In fact, if you have sensitive knees, this will give you an even better stretch.” 4. Rounding Your Spine as You Fold Forward During sun salutations and other sequences, you may be tempted to round your back as you fold forward toward your toes. “As a guideline, we want to fold from our hips and not from our backs,” says Hughes. “This puts a lot of pressure on the lower back while offering almost no stretch in return.” The fix: Find space elsewhere in the pose. “Usually, rounding your back tells me you have tight hamstrings, which is completely OK,” says Grujicic-Delage. “You just need to bend your knees.” Keep them bent as you come out of your forward fold, too. 5. Misaligning Your Knee and Ankle Many standing yoga poses involve lunging, and it’s common to see students’ knees cave inward or bow outward relative to the ankle. Your knee is a modified hinge joint, explains Swanson, so it can rotate slightly when flexed, as in a lunge or warrior pose. “When it rotates, it puts uneven pressure on the joint structures, which can cause damage over time,” she says. The fix: Stack your knee directly over your ankle. That way, “pressure on the joint structures is more evenly distributed, preventing potential injury,” says Swanson. “If you notice your knee always seems to fall in or out in a certain pose,” adds Hughes, “try taking up more space across the width of your mat.” 6. Scrunching Your Shoulders Up Around Your Ears Scrunching happens a lot in yoga because we tend to over-engage the upper trapezius muscles, says Swanson. “When raising the arms overhead like in warrior I or tree pose, people will often lift their shoulders too high, squeezing them toward their ears,” she says. It also happens in deep backbends like upward facing dog, where “it compresses the cervical (neck) vertebrae,” says Hughes. The fix: Relax your shoulders. In standing poses with the arms raised overhead, find a balance between squeezing your shoulders up and forcing them down. (“There is a middle way,” says Swanson.) If need be, widen your hands to shoulder distance. And in up dog, “press down a lot through both hands, keep your gaze forward instead of upward, and pull the top of your head upward to keep your neck long,” advises Hughes. 7. Compressing Your Lower Back in Backbends “Backbend” is a slight misnomer — there’s a lot more going on than the name suggests. So, when you’re solely focused on the bending part, you may end up feeling poses like camel or wheel in your lower back. “Any time you’re doing a backbend, it’s important to use your legs and core to lengthen the spine,” says Laffoon. This prevents you
