Internal and External Rotation of the Upper Arm bones in Yoga Made Simple!

What are downdog shoulders supposed to look like anyway!? Let’s take a look at one action of the shoulders…

Internal vs External Rotation of the Upper Arm Bones in Yoga

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Internal Rotation (IR) = movement of a body part towards the center-line of the body (i.e. midline)

External Rotation (ER) = movement of a body part away from the center-line of the body (i.e. midline)

What's a midline? Just imagine a line that divides you right down the middle.

Why is ER even important? ER gets the humerus (upper arm bone) back to safety in the glenoid (shoulder joint).This allows the shoulder to occupy a strong and safe position. Working from a place of safety can help prevent injury caused by misalignment (i.e. rotator cuff tear, pain in the neck and shoulders, impingement and others)

Even more simplistically, just observationally, can you notice in the photos that the IR causes a look of congestion around the neck vs ER which allows for spaciousness?

Move towards ER in Downward Facing Dog (side note: downdog has the same arms as handstand (i.e. arms in the overhead plane) so learning correct shoulders in a more accessible pose can set you up for success for harder poses later on!



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