Lower back, upper back and shoulders

Seal Pose

A passive end-range back extension that fully opens your anterior chain: chest, abdomen, and hip flexors, providing deep fascial release without active muscle effort.

How to do it

1. 1

   Lie face down with your hands set wide

   Place them a little wider than your shoulders, roughly in line with your chest, with the legs long behind you.

2. 2

   Straighten the arms and let the pelvis drop

   Press up until the arms are straight, then let the hips and legs stay heavy on the mat. Nothing is being held by muscle here, the arms simply prop you.

3. 3

   Let everything else stop working

   Soften the jaw, the belly, the buttocks and the legs. This is a long passive hold, so the aim is a height you could stay at for minutes.

4. 4

   Choose your height before the timer starts

   A bolster under the pelvis brings the depth down, bending the arms brings it down further, and resting on the forearms is the version to take if straight arms are too much.

5. 5

   Stay 2 to 3 minutes, then lower and rest

   Come down onto your forearms first, then all the way to the mat, and rest face down for a few breaths.

What to watch for

Picking a height you can only tolerate for the first thirty seconds. Over two to three minutes, an extension you are barely holding turns into an ache low in the back, so start lower than feels necessary and come out if anything spreads further down a leg.

Ways to adjust it

• Bolster under pelvis
• Reduce arm extension
• Return to Baby Cobra if discomfort
• Sphinx instead
• Forearm support

If this one is too much today

Try the gentler version instead. It asks less of you and does much the same work.

• Sphinx: Classic

Seal pose is a backbend you rest in

Seal pose is a back extension you rest in rather than work at. The library files it as restorative with a passive load: you press up until the arms are straight, then let the hips and legs stay heavy on the mat, so the arms prop you and no back muscle is lifting. It opens the front of the body, the chest, belly and the front of the hips, and the hold runs two to three minutes.

Choose your height before you start. The authored adjustments are a bolster under the pelvis, less arm extension, and resting on the forearms. Any of them is a better version than straight arms you can only tolerate for the first half minute. Cobra: Seal Pose in the cobra family is the active cousin, held for 20 to 60 seconds and described as the deepest backbend in that family.

If straight arms feel like too much, Sphinx: Classic is the library's gentler alternative, on the forearms for 30 seconds to two minutes.

• Cobra: Seal Pose: The active version, held for a short time with the arms doing the lifting.
• Sphinx Pose: A low, supported backbend on the forearms that takes no effort to hold.
• Cobra Pose: A small backbend from lying face down, the gentlest way into extension in the library.

Before you try it

Move within a range that stays comfortable. Stop if this brings on sharp pain, dizziness, or symptoms that travel down an arm or a leg, and speak to a clinician before repeating it.

From the clinically authored Vinys movement library.