How to Do Cobra Pose to Relieve Lower-Back Tension

Cobra pose (Bhujangasana) is a backbend that stretches your chest and strengthens the muscles around your spine. It's often practiced as a warmup for more intense backbends or as an alternative to the more common upward facing dog (Urdhva Mukha Svanasana).

Snakes and serpents — or Bhujanga — have a sacred place in yoga lore. In some stories, Vishnu, the Hindu deity of creation, gives birth to the universe while resting on the coils of the cosmic serpent Ananta. In her book ‌Downward Dogs and Warriors‌, author Zo Newell notes that Patanjali, the sage credited with developing the Yoga Sutras, is either depicted as an incarnation of Ananta or a half serpent.

The spinal energy is also depicted as a snake, coiled at the tailbone, waiting to be awakened so it can travel through the energy centers of your body and to your brain. This energy — or Kundalini — is awakened through the practice of yoga and meditation, and the ascent to the brain is said to be the path to enlightenment.

In this way, when we embody the Bhujanga, we're embodying the energy of a powerful being believed to be the guardian of wisdom and enlightenment.

Read on for more information about cobra pose, how to do it, its benefits and its variations.

• ‌What is cobra pose?‌ It's a prone (lying on your stomach) spinal extension and a classic backbend. Cobra pose is often practiced as a warmup for other, more strenuous backbends, such as bow pose (Dhanurasana), camel pose (Ustrasana), wheel pose (Urdhva Dhanurasana) and upward facing dog (Urdhva Mukha Svanasana).
  
• ‌What is cobra pose good for?‌ Cobra pose warms up your shoulders and neck. It also strengthens your spine. "It feels amazing on my lower back, as I have L4 and L5 issues and scoliosis," certified yoga teacher, Sara Chesterfield E-RYT 500, tells LIVESTRONG.com.
  
• ‌Who can do cobra pose?‌ If you have a healthy back and can lie on your abdomen, you can likely do cobra pose, even if you're a beginner. It is not, however, recommended if you're pregnant, had recent abdominal surgery or have a back or spinal injury. Always check in with your doctor before trying new exercises, like cobra pose.
  
• ‌How long should you hold cobra pose?‌ How long you hold this yoga pose depends on the variation you're doing. Consider holding a static cobra pose for 15 to 30 seconds while maintaining a steady, even breath, or flowing up and down with your inhales and exhales (demonstrated below).

Your instinct might be to use your hands to press your chest away from the floor. However, the invitation in cobra pose is to find the backbend from pressing your hips and feet down and activating the deep intrinsic muscles that support posture and spinal movement. Practicing cobra with good form helps build and maintain strength in these deep core and back muscles.

We spend a lot of time being sedentary, as many of us have jobs that require us to sit at a desk. We sit when we drive our cars here and there and when we go home, we have our comfy sofas and chairs to sit in.

Unfortunately, our bodies were not made for so much sitting. When we sit for extended periods, we get stiff, and gravity pulls us into a slouching position.

Cobra pose is a gentle backbend that promotes good posture and counteracts some of the effects of sitting by stretching the front of your body, including your hips, psoas, abdomen, chest and shoulders.

Cobra is a soother for your entire spine, according to yoga teacher Tara Martell, E-RYT 500.

"It relieves pressure off the sciatic nerve, creating space for the low back," she tells LIVESTRONG.com. "It's also a wonderful posture for stress relief, and it provides a quick energetic shift. Taking the feet wider than the hips helps relax the low back."

Using your hands to lift your chest might feel "easier," but it undermines the intention of the pose, which is to warm up and strengthen your spine. Pressing with your hands can also cause uneven extension in your back and painful compression in your low back.

When doing backbends of any kind, there can be a tendency to lift your chin in an effort to find maximum extension. The problem is that jutting your chin upward inhibits the length and extension in your neck — which is also part of your spine.

It's common for your elbows to want to "wing" out away from your body. Engaging them toward your body is part of the muscle activation of the pose that facilitates the backbend. If your elbows are too wide with your hands close to your body, you might find your backbend is restricted.