Cobra stretch: a backbend for your chest and lower back

The cobra stretch, also called cobra pose, is a backbend done lying on your front: you press up through your hands and lift your chest while your pelvis stays on the mat. In the app it belongs to the Chest Opener session, and its stated aim is to open the chest and lengthen the front of the body. It is also a real backbend for the lower back, which is why it deserves a little more care than a stretch you can do in your chair.

What the cobra stretch is designed to do

A day at a screen tends to fold you forward: shoulders in, chest closed, upper back curved. The cobra goes the other way. As you lift, the front of your body lengthens from the hips to the chest, the chest widens and your back arches. That includes the muscles across the front of the chest, such as the pectoralis minor, which pulls the shoulder blade forwards.

Cobra or sphinx?

The app has both. The sphinx is the gentler backbend, resting on your forearms. The cobra goes further, up on your hands. If the cobra feels like too much, the sphinx is the natural step back, and it comes just before the cobra in the Chest Opener session.

The cobra in the app is also not the same as yoga’s upward-facing dog. In the steps above, your elbows stay slightly bent and your pelvis stays on the mat. It is a lift of the chest, not of the whole body.

What it should feel like

A stretch across the front of the chest and stomach, and a sense of your back muscles working as you lift. Your lower back will feel the arch, but it should feel like effort and stretch, never like pinching. Following the breath in the steps, in as you press up and out as you lower, keeps the movement smooth. If you feel sharp or pinching pain in your back, or anything running down a leg, come down and stop.

Mistakes that break the steps

• Straightening the arms. The steps keep your elbows slightly bent. Locked, straight arms push you into a deeper backbend than the exercise asks for.
• Lifting the pelvis. It stays on the mat. Once it comes up, you are doing a different pose.
• Dropping down. The last step is to lower slowly as you breathe out, not to fall back onto the mat.
• Chasing height. Nothing in the steps asks you to go as high as you can. Lift your chest as far as is comfortable today.

Will the cobra stretch fix a hunched back?

It is tempting to think a backbend can undo the hunch. The evidence is less tidy.

• Posture and pain. Writing in a physiotherapy journal, researchers have pointed out that the common belief that back pain comes from sitting or standing “incorrectly” lacks strong evidence, even though a large industry promises to correct posture (Slater et al., 2019). It is a viewpoint rather than a trial, but it matches the reviews covered in our page on the rounded upper back.
• Changing the curve. A meta-analysis of ten randomised trials found that exercise programmes reduced the angle of the upper back curve, the thoracic kyphosis, in the seven trials that measured it. The trials were small, and the authors suggested that strengthening seemed more relevant than stretching for the upper back (González-Gálvez et al., 2019).

So the cobra is a useful counter-movement for a body that spends the day folded forward, but on its own it is not a posture fix. For the upper back, see upper back stretches and posture exercises. For what braces and straps can and cannot do, see do posture correctors work?

Is the cobra good for lower back pain?

There is no trial of the cobra stretch on its own. It is a classic yoga pose, so the nearest evidence is the research on yoga. A Cochrane review of 21 trials with 2,223 people with chronic low back pain found that yoga brought small improvements in pain and function compared with no exercise, below what the authors judged clinically important, and probably little or no difference in function compared with other back exercise. Yoga also had more side effects than no exercise, mostly increased back pain: about 43 in 1,000 people, against 9 in 1,000 with no exercise, though the certainty of that evidence was low (Wieland et al., 2022).

That last point is a fair reminder for any backbend. Some backs are comfortable being arched and others are not. If the cobra makes your back or leg symptoms worse, it is not the right exercise for you at the moment, and lower back stretches or child’s pose may suit you better. For the wider picture, see lower back pain from sitting.

Who should be careful

• Leg symptoms that ease when you bend forward. If pain, numbness or pins and needles in your buttocks or legs come on when you stand or walk and ease when you sit or lean forward, that is a typical pattern of spinal stenosis, a narrowing of the space for the spinal nerves. An NHS physiotherapy leaflet explains that standing straight can narrow that space, while bending forward widens it (NHS Fife). Ask a physiotherapist before doing backbends.
• Sciatica. Pain running from your bottom down the back of one leg, often with tingling or numbness, needs its own advice (NHS).
• Recent back surgery or injury. Check with the team treating you first.
• Pregnancy. Lying on your front gets harder as your bump grows. Ask your midwife or a physiotherapist about floor exercises on your front.
• Osteoporosis or a spinal fracture. The UK consensus statement on exercise for osteoporosis recommends spinal extension exercise to help posture, and specialist advice for exercise after a vertebral fracture (Brooke-Wavell et al., 2022). Ask a physiotherapist which backbend suits you.
• If it hurts, stop. The NHS advises stopping exercises and stretches if your back pain gets worse, and seeing a GP (NHS).

In Bavelu, the cobra sits in the Chest Opener session after the gentler sphinx, and the whole session is designed and filmed by physiotherapists. The rest of the session is listed above, and the full guided video is in the app.