How To Do: Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana)

Bridge Pose is a beginner reclined back bend and chest opening yoga pose. It is one of the first back bending poses you learn as a beginner.

It will strengthen your legs, hips and core muscles while stretching your spine and improving your spinal mobility.

This versatile pose can be used as a static stretch or a dynamic exercise for the muscles involved.

Bridge Pose is one of the best poses to rejuvenate your body and relieve back and even knee pain after sitting for extended periods of time.

Try These Related Poses:

• Bound Angle Pose (Baddha Konasana)
• Cat-Cow (Bitilasana Marjaryasana)
• Low Lunge Pose (Anjaneyasana)

1. Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet hip with apart. Heels below the knees.
2. Reach your arms alongside your body until your fingertips touch your heels. Palms facing down.
3. On an inhale. Press down through the feet and hands and lift your hips.
4. Clasp your hands and press them into the ground as you lift your upper body.
5. Your body and hips should form a straight line from your chest to your knees.
6. Roll your upper thighs inward.
7. Broaden your collarbones, lift your chest, and position yourself on your shoulders as you roll them back.
8. Lift your chin slightly away from your chest to have the natural curve in the neck. This will help you avoid putting too much strain on your neck.
9. Squeeze your glutes to ensure that your knees are pointing straight ahead and are not falling open to the sides or inward.
10. Try and lift more with every inhale.
11. Hold for 5 breaths
12. To exit the pose. As you exhale, unlace your fingers, and slowly roll your spine down to the ground one vertebra at a time. Straighten your legs.

Modifications For Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana) :

• To support your lower back or if you struggle to keep your hips lifted, place a block under your lifted hips. Directly under your sacrum (Tailbone). Use the block on its highest or lowest setting.
• For more stability or if your shoulders are very tight you can keep your hands on the floor with the palms facing down instead of clasping the hands under your back.

Variations For Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana):

One Legged Bridge Pose (eka Pada Setu bandha Sarvangasana)

• Start in traditional Bridge Pose.
• Exhale and bring one knee toward your chest.
• Inhale and straighten the leg.
• You can lift onto the balls of your feet to lift your chest higher.
• Hold for three breaths and lower your foot on an exhalation.
• Repeat on the other side.

Challenge:

• For more of a workout try keeping your glutes relaxed and only use your thigh muscles to lift and support your hips.
• For an additional thigh workout, place a yoga block between your knees. This will help strengthen your inner thigh muscles.

Beginner Tips For Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana):

• To lift your hips higher, try pressing harder into your feet. This will also give you more stability.
• Take long deep breathes while in the pose. This will help you relax and maintain the pose longer.
• Keep your feet parallel to each other, don’t let them turn outward.
• Avoid pushing your hips too high. This can hurt your lower back.
• Make sure to keep your shoulder blades together as you bring your arms beneath your body.
• Keep a yoga block underneath your sacrum to release the lower back.
• Squeezing a block between your knees can help to keep your thighs hip distance apart and parallel.
• In a Vinyasa Yoga class you will practice multiple rounds of the pose to be able to lift the hips higher and bend the back deeper.

Beginner Mistakes For Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana):

• Don’t let your feet turn out, make sure to keep the parallel to the edges of the mat.
• Relax your glutes and press your inner knees toward each other.
• Make sure your knees are over your ankles, hip distance apart and pointing forward.
• Make sure to keep your core engaged for the duration of the pose.

Benefits of Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana)

• Bridges Pose improves posture and counters the negative effects of extended periods of sitting.
• It will relieve lower back pain.
• It stretches and opens the abdomen, chest, shoulders, and hip flexors.
• And strengthens the back, glutes, thighs, hamstrings, abdominals, and ankles.
• It will improve your spinal flexibility and mobility.
• Bridge Pose classes as an inversion as your heart is higher than your head. Practicing inversions relieves stress and anxiety calming your mind by suppressing the sympathetic nervous system (fight-or-flight) and promoting the parasympathetic nervous system.
• Bridge Pose also stimulates and massages the abdominal organs to improve your digestion.

Caution When Practicing Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana):

• Don’t turn your head left or right while in the pose as this can cause a neck injury.
• Never push your body to go deeper into a pose, always work within your own limits and abilities.
• Avoid Bridge Pose if you have a shoulder or neck injury.
• Take caution and move slowly if you suffer from neck, back or knee pain.
• Stop immediately if you feel any sharp pain.
• Don’t spend too much time in the pose if you suffer from high blood pressure.