Supported Upward Bow Poseसालम्ब ऊर्ध्व धनुरासन
Sālamba Ūrdhva Dhanurāsana — an intermediate backbend that works the chest, shoulders, spinal erectors.
1–3MINUTES HELD
One line on the timetable. Supported Upward Bow Pose is held 1–3 minutes, with the breath moving throughout — and no set practice here is built around it — it is held on its own.
SOURCE·YogaPath sequence data — stay times as taught·one breath ≈ 5 s at an even pace·REVIEWED JUL 2026
How to do Supported Upward Bow Pose
Read all of it before starting, and read the cautions further down before starting at all.
Place a bolster or a tightly rolled blanket across the mat and sit just in front of it.
Lie back so the bolster supports the spine behind the shoulder blades, knees bent and feet flat.
Take the hands beside the ears and press the elbows towards the ceiling to open the shoulders.
Either stay here with the head resting back, or press up onto the crown and then to straight arms with the bolster still supporting you.
Come out by tucking the chin, lowering onto the bolster and sliding forward until the back is flat.
Hold: 1–3 minutes. Keep the breath moving throughout — if you are holding it, the pose is too much for today.
Muscles worked
Where the effort and the lengthening land. Primary groups do most of the work; secondary groups assist or are stretched.
What Supported Upward Bow Pose does
Described mechanically — what the movement does to muscle and joint. Not a list of conditions it treats, because a pose does not treat conditions.
- Delivers the chest and shoulder opening of the full wheel with the prop carrying the arch.
- Extends the thoracic spine where the bolster sits, rather than at the waist.
- Lets long holds happen without the arm strength the unsupported pose demands.
Supported Upward Bow Pose is one of 43 backbends in this library and one of 60 poses rated intermediate. Poses that extend the spine and open the front of the body — chest, hip flexors and abdomen.
Who should skip Supported Upward Bow Pose, or change it
- Disc injury or spondylolisthesis — keep the prop low and never press up.
- Neck injury: place a folded blanket under the head so it is not hanging unsupported.
- Shoulder impingement, which the overhead arm position can aggravate.
- High blood pressure or glaucoma with the head below the heart for long periods.
- Later pregnancy, where lying back over a prop for long is not recommended.
General information only — not medical advice. Some asanas are unsuitable during pregnancy, injury or specific conditions. Learn from a qualified teacher and stop if anything hurts. If you are pregnant, recovering from surgery or managing any health condition, ask your doctor before starting a practice, and learn the pose itself from a qualified teacher who can see you move.
Common mistakes in Supported Upward Bow Pose
What tends to go wrong, and the specific correction — not "engage your core".
MistakePlacing the bolster under the low back, which concentrates the bend exactly where it should not go.
FixSlide it up so the edge sits behind the shoulder blades, at the level of the bra line.
MistakeLetting the head hang with nothing beneath it and the throat straining.
FixSupport the head on a block or folded blanket until the neck is comfortable.
How the energy figure on a yoga timetable is reached
- Nobody has measured a single asana in a metabolic cart, so no per-pose figure is published here — not by this site and not by anyone.
- The pose is matched to the nearest style of practice in the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities. Supported Upward Bow Pose sits at code 02150, yoga, Hatha, 2.5 MET.
- That MET value is put through the standard ACSM relationship for a stated reference adult of 70 kg.
- The result is the cost of a practice of that kind for as long as you practise — not the cost of holding this one shape.
- Scale it to yourself: the relationship is linear in body mass, so multiply by your own weight in kilograms and divide by 70.
kcal/min = MET × 3.5 × kg ÷ 200
= 2.5 × 3.5 × 70 ÷ 200
= 3.06 kcal per minute
The same practice, hour by hour
Read it the way you would read a timetable: pick the length of session you actually sit down for, and that is the figure.
| Time practising | 10 min | 20 min | 30 min | 45 min | 60 min |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 31 | 61 | 92 | 138 | 184 |
SOURCE·2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities·code 02150 · 2.5 MET · 70 kg reference adult·REVIEWED JUL 2026
The whole activity dataset, including everything that is not yoga, is at BurnLab.
Asked before class
How do you do Supported Upward Bow Pose?
Place a bolster or a tightly rolled blanket across the mat and sit just in front of it. Lie back so the bolster supports the spine behind the shoulder blades, knees bent and feet flat. Take the hands beside the ears and press the elbows towards the ceiling to open the shoulders. Either stay here with the head resting back, or press up onto the crown and then to straight arms with the bolster still supporting you. Come out by tucking the chin, lowering onto the bolster and sliding forward until the back is flat. Hold for 1–3 minutes.
What does Supported Upward Bow Pose work?
Primarily the chest, shoulders, spinal erectors, with the hip flexors, quadriceps, abdominals assisting or lengthening. In mechanical terms: delivers the chest and shoulder opening of the full wheel with the prop carrying the arch.
Who should not do Supported Upward Bow Pose?
Disc injury or spondylolisthesis — keep the prop low and never press up. Neck injury: place a folded blanket under the head so it is not hanging unsupported. Shoulder impingement, which the overhead arm position can aggravate. High blood pressure or glaucoma with the head below the heart for long periods. Later pregnancy, where lying back over a prop for long is not recommended. This is general information, not medical advice — if any of these apply to you, ask your doctor and learn the pose with a qualified teacher rather than from a page.
Is Supported Upward Bow Pose suitable for beginners?
Not as a first pose. Supported Upward Bow Pose is rated intermediate here: it assumes a working base of strength and range, and a teacher who has watched you move. Build up through the backbends poses marked beginner first.
How many calories does Supported Upward Bow Pose burn?
The honest answer is that nobody has measured a single asana. The 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities publishes MET values for styles of yoga, not for individual poses. Supported Upward Bow Pose sits closest to Compendium code 02150, yoga, Hatha, at 2.5 MET — about 92 kcal for 30 minutes of that kind of practice for a 70 kg adult. Holding one pose for a minute is a rounding error either way.
The rest of the backbends on the wall
More backbends — first at the same level, then the rest of the family.
Asana names are traditional. Every step, benefit and caution on this page is written for YogaPath rather than reproduced from any book, studio or other library — see how this site is written and what it is written from. General information only — not medical advice. Some asanas are unsuitable during pregnancy, injury or specific conditions. Learn from a qualified teacher and stop if anything hurts.
SOURCE·Published asana references·asana names, alignment and cautions as taught·REVIEWED JUL 2026
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