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The new yoga fad in America is "Turbo Dog." This is an interesting experiment in yoga alignments. It is good to try new things and find out for yourself what works and what doesn't. Do not take my word and do not take the word simply because it comes from a "yogi celebrity." Find out for yourself.

With that said, many people are coming to Eyes of the World, having been to other yoga centers and they start doing Turbo Dog alignments because such and such a yoga celebrity claims it is a really good thing for opening the shoulders.

You should definately try Turbo Dog, but not for very long. Without looking at your scaupla and humerus, I would strongly caution most practitioners against experimenting with Turbo Dog for very long . A rare few people can turbo without injury, but they are a fraction of the population. Most people get hurt with this alignment.

We have different bone shapes and most people do not have the bone shape required for safe Turbo Dog.

We will see why most people are getting injured with this alignment idea. Simply put, Turbo Dog it is a supraspinatus, subscapularis, labrum, rotator cuff disaster for most people's glenohumeral joint. Bending the elbows in particular will transfer the load to the most vunerable and least stable point of the shoulder joint.

A martial arts black belt master might tear off someone's arm precisely using the Turbo Dog movement. The martial arts idea is to rip it right out of the socket where the joint is weakest.

The problem is that Turbo Dog is being given to large numbers of people indescriminately and large numbers of people will suffer with this alignment concept.

-hands flat, fingers spread, grounded, index/third finger forward

-bent elbows, swinging towards each other

-external rotation at the glenohumeral joint

-strong engagement of the latissimus dorsi

- rounding of the upper thorasic back (not seen well in photo)

The idea is that this move really opens the shoulders and upper thorasic back.