Downward Facing Dog | Building Strength Through the Archetype of the Pose

Why we teach power over flexibility at Mount Yonah Gym

Hello Everyone! Today Tim and I want to share our approach to one of yoga’s most fundamental poses: Downward Facing Dog. We’re not going to give you the typical rigid alignment cues you might have heard elsewhere. Instead, we focus on strength, mobility, stability, and the archetype of the pose—not forcing your body into arbitrary alignment standards.

Forget what you think you know about “perfect” alignment – let’s talk about what actually works for your body.

The Problem With Conventional “Alignment”

Walk into most yoga classes and you’ll hear the same cues for downward dog: “heels to the floor,” “walk your feet closer to your hands,” “straighten those legs!” This obsession with flexibility-based alignment has turned one of yoga’s most powerful strengthening poses into a passive hamstring stretch – and frankly, it’s missing the point entirely.

At Mount Yonah Gym here in Northeast Georgia, we take a different approach. We work with the archetype of the pose – the essential shape and energetic pattern that makes downward dog what it is – while building strength and mobility rather than chasing flexibility standards that might not serve your individual body and could even cause harm.

A Simple Experiment: Understanding Tension vs. Relaxation

Before we dive into the pose itself, try this experiment with us:

Straighten out the fingers of your right hand
Using your left hand, grab your four fingers (not your thumb) and bend them backwards, towards your face (the opposite direction of making a fist)
Keep your right wrist from bending
Notice: In order to bend the fingers back as far as possible, you need to relax the muscles of your right hand completely. If you tense up the muscles of your right hand, resisting the leverage of your left hand, your range of motion is a lot smaller.

What this shows: In order to extend our muscles as far as possible, we need to keep them relaxed – we need to keep them from contracting.

This is why the conventional approach to downward dog is backwards. When you’re actively engaging your upper body to hold yourself strong in the pose, trying to simultaneously relax your hamstrings enough to get your heels to the floor creates a conflict. You end up either compromising your strength work or forcing flexibility – neither of which serves you well.

The Economy of Action Principle

All actions expend energy, and this expenditure must be managed effectively. In other words, we should always look for the most effective way to perform any action.

This is what we call the Economy of Action – and it’s a cornerstone of how we teach at MY Gym.

Following this principle, when performing Downward Facing Dog, we choose to target upper body strength as opposed to the flexibility of the hamstrings. Why? Because:

You get more functional benefit from the strength work
The pose maintains its integrity as an active, powerful position
You avoid the tension-relaxation conflict we just demonstrated
You build the foundation for more upper body strength demanding movements
Your body gets stronger in a sustainable, progressive way

How We Teach Downward Dog at Mount Yonah Gym

Start From Plank!

This is non-negotiable in our approach. Here’s how to enter down-dog from the plank pose:

Begin standing in your Mountain pose with feet at hip-distance apart
Inhale, sweep your arms up toward the sky into our Extended Mountain pose
Go momentarily in a slight back bend
As you exhale, fold forward
Bend your knees enough for your hands to touch the floor
Now walk your feet back in plank pose
From plank, lift your butt as high up as you can into downward dog

Why this matters: This entry gives you the ideal placement for both hands and feet before you even lift into the pose. No guessing, no adjusting – you’re already where you need to be.

Hand Placement: Create Your Foundation

From your plank position, your hands are already perfectly placed. Keep them there!

Press your palms down firmly and press the hands into the floor as if you’re trying to push the floor away from you. Spread your shoulder blades apart. This creates incredible stability and strength through your arms and shoulders.

This is active work, not passive stretching. Your hands are the foundation of this pose, and they need to be engaged and powerful.

Foot Placement: Stability Over Convention

Here’s where we really diverge from traditional teaching: Don’t move your feet forward trying to get your heels closer to the ground.

Instead, you can spread your feet a little bit further apart than hip-distance. This gives you a more stable base and often feels much more comfortable because it respects your anatomical proportions.

The Key Action: Stick Your Butt Toward the Sky!

This is our favorite cue, and it completely changes how the pose feels. Instead of just “lifting your hips,” we want you to stick your butt toward the sky and raise your hips as high up as you can.

This action:

Engages your core powerfully
Extends your spine
Takes pressure off your shoulders
Makes the pose feel more active and strong rather than passive
Honors the archetype of the pose – that inverted V-shape with energy reaching upward

The Revolutionary Truth About Heels (Again!)

It’s perfectly okay for your heels to not touch the floor.

Let us say that louder for the people in the back: YOUR HEELS DON’T NEED TO TOUCH THE FLOOR.

Don’t move your hands and feet trying to force your heels to touch the floor. This compromises your entire foundation and defeats the purpose of the strength work we’re doing.

Remember our finger experiment? When you’re actively engaging your upper body for strength, trying to simultaneously relax your calves and hamstrings enough to drop your heels creates that same counterproductive tension-relaxation conflict.

The Upper Body Focus: This Is the Game-Changer

This is where our approach fundamentally differs from conventional teaching: You’re working with your upper body here instead of targeting a hamstring stretch.

Conventional downward dog instruction often turns this powerful pose into a passive hamstring stretch. We’re reclaiming it as what it truly is: an active strengthening pose and an inversion.

What This Means in Practice

When you prioritize upper body strength in downward dog:

Your shoulders stay stable and engaged rather than collapsed
Your arms build real strength that transfers to other poses and daily life
Your core activates to support the inversion
You develop better body awareness of what “active” vs. “passive” feels like
You build progressively toward more challenging arm balances

This isn’t about ignoring your lower body – it’s about choosing where to direct your energy and attention based on the Economy of Action principle.

Archetype vs. Alignment: Understanding the Difference

When we talk about working with the archetype of the pose rather than rigid “alignment,” here’s what we mean:

The Archetype of Downward Dog:

An inverted V-shape
Active pushing through the hands
Hips reaching toward the sky
Energy moving in two directions (down through arms, up through the hips)
Core engagement
Strength and stability

Some Conventional “Alignment” Rules:

Heels must touch the floor
Feet must be exactly hip-distance apart
Specific hand positions or mudras
Legs must be straight
Everyone’s pose should look the same

See the difference? The archetype honors the essence and purpose of the pose. The alignment rules try to make every body fit the same mold – and that’s where we lose people.

Your downward dog doesn’t need to look like anyone else’s. It needs to feel strong, stable, and sustainable in YOUR body.

Remember: Downward Dog Is Still an Inversion

This is crucial: You want to use downward dog as a transition, not as a resting pose. When downward dog becomes a passive resting pose where you’re just hanging out trying to stretch your hamstrings, you’ve lost the essence of what makes this pose powerful.

Yes, it can feel restful compared to plank or chaturanga. But if you’re truly working with the archetype and engaging your upper body, you’ll feel it working. That’s good! That’s the point. Move on.

What You Should Feel

When you’re doing downward dog with our strength-focused approach, you should experience:

Active engagement through your arms, shoulders, and core
Strength and power rather than passive stretching
Stability through your hands and feet
Extension through your spine without strain
Energy moving through your body in multiple directions
Sustainability – you can move with strength and control from plank to down dog and back

You should NOT feel:

Collapsed or heavy in your shoulders
All your weight dumping into your hands or wrists
Strain or pain anywhere on your joints
Like you’re just hanging there waiting for it to be over
Frustration about your heels or any other body part not looking “right”

Daily Integration

This strength-based downward dog is perfect for:

Morning energizing sequences such as Sun Salutations
Creating full-body strength and stability
Breaking up desk work (great shoulder and core work!)
Transitioning between poses in your flow practice
Building toward more challenging arm balances

The Bigger Picture: Strength, Mobility, and Individual Bodies

Our approach at Mount Yonah Gym reflects our core philosophy: yoga should build you up, not break you down trying to fit someone else’s ideal.

We focus on:

Strength – building capacity and power in your body
Mobility – moving with control through your natural range of motion
Individual variation – honoring that every body is different
The archetype – understanding the essence and purpose of each pose
Economy of Action – choosing the most effective approach

We move away from:

Forcing flexibility that is passive, static and may cause harm
Rigid alignment standards that ignore individual skeletal and muscular differences
Making everyone look the same to fit the “pose”
Creating arbitrary rules about what’s “correct”

When you shift from chasing alignment to embodying the archetype, something magical happens. You stop fighting your body and start working with it. You build real strength. You develop genuine mobility. And you discover what your yoga practice can truly offer you.

Building Your Practice at MY Gym and Beyond

At Mount Yonah Gym, we are teaching this approach because we’ve seen how it empowers people physically and mentally. Instead of feeling like they’re failing because their body doesn’t match some arbitrary standard, our students build real strength, real mobility, and real confidence. If you’re in the area, come experience this strength-focused approach in person. Join us at Mount Yonah Gym.

May we all be well, adapt and thrive! See you on the mat!

-Tim and Vie

Mount Yonah Gym: Downward Facing Dog | Building Strength Through the Archetype of the Pose