How to do the Downward Dog
Step by step
- Start on hands and knees with hands slightly ahead of your shoulders.
- Tuck your toes and lift your hips up and back toward the ceiling.
- Straighten your legs as much as is comfortable and press the floor away with your hands.
- Let your head hang relaxed and press your heels gently toward the floor.
The thing people get wrong
It is fine if your heels do not touch the floor - keep a long spine by bending your knees slightly rather than rounding your back to reach down.
Coaching cue
Push the floor away through your whole hand and lift your hips up and back into a long letter A.
Make it easier or harder
- Easier: Do it with your hands on a bench or wall instead of the floor to take load off the shoulders.
- Harder: Lift one leg a few inches while keeping both hips level.
Muscles worked
- Primary: Hamstrings, Side delts, Calves
What to do instead
Same job, different movement — useful if you don't have the equipment or it doesn't feel right today.
Daily Coach builds this into a real weekly plan. It picks the exercises for your equipment and experience, swaps around injuries you tell it about, and tracks what you actually lifted.