By Rachel Land for Yoga Medicine.

Many yoga teachers seek out advanced education in anatomy with the specific aim of working with students one-on-one. And they aren’t wrong; examining the anatomical structure and muscular function of the hip joints helps teachers understand and work with individual variations, injuries, chronic conditions and specific goals. But there are three other, perhaps surprising, outcomes of anatomy training that also empower teachers to be more helpful for students in group settings.

1. More effective sequencing for balance, resilience & longevity

Understanding how a joint functions—both on the yoga mat and in life—means that, as teachers, we can craft sequences that support better joint function, in a couple of ways.

Firstly, appreciating normal ranges of motion in each movement plane, and how those ranges are reflected in the poses we teach, helps us set the textbook versions of poses aside to better prepare with prop options and pose variations that meet our students where they are at. Recognizing how many yoga poses and transitions challenge normal ranges of motion automatically leads to a more inclusive and accessible class environment.

Also, familiarity with common patterns of over- and under-use means we can focus on poses and transitions that encourage under-used muscles to awaken and engage, and over-used muscles to refresh and relax. All of this makes our classes more enjoyable in the moment, and also more supportive of long-term health and resilience in these crucial weight-bearing joints.

2. Meaningful solutions for student challenges

Every teacher has had the experience of student struggling with a pose during class: feeling something they don’t want to, like pain or compression, or not feeling the desired sensation at all. Outside of having a generic “modification” of that pose as back-up, many of us leave our initial teacher training with little else to offer, other than saying “back out of anything painful”.

But once we understand the joint actions and loads in a given pose, we are much more able to find alternatives or provide nuanced alignment cues that help. Knee discomfort in pigeon? Try taking bodyweight off the knees in butterfly (baddha konasana) or a supine figure 4 stretch. Not feeling a hip flexor stretch in high crescent lunge (ashta chandrasana)? Try lifting your pubic bone and lengthening your low back.

Yoga poses are often complex, with multiple actions occurring simultaneously. In-depth anatomy training helps us unpack what’s going on in each joint; instead of memorizing cues and pose “modifications” and hoping for the best, we are able to hone in on the part of the pose that is important for our intention, and find meaningful alternatives that help struggling students achieve that aim.

3. Deeper understanding of the purpose and background of verbal cues and teaching rules

Most of us leave our first foundational teacher training with some basic verbal cues in our repertoire—things like “hips hug the midline” in standing lunges, or “turn your hips toward the long edge of the mat” in side-facing poses like warrior 2 (virabhadrasana II). We probably also memorize a few simple sequencing “rules”— for example, placing forward-facing poses like warrior 1 before side-facing poses like warrior 2, or being cautious in transitions between “closed hip” poses like warrior 3 (virabhadrasana III) and “open hip” poses like half moon (ardha chandrasana).

And all goes well until a student asks you to explain what you mean by that cue, or unpack exactly why that sequencing “rule” is important. It’s one thing to repeat what you were told in teacher training, and another thing entirely to be able to explain the what, why and how behind the theory, let alone determine which of cues and rules you find relevant and which you don’t.

The time we spend in advanced anatomy training visualizing the layers of the hip joints, palpating the muscles that surround them, and learning to activate them both in isolation and in cohesion truly pays off in this regard. We gain multiple ways to communicate the cues relevant to our sequences, including a felt experience of that action in the body. And we take a step back to view the big picture of how this joint functions outside of the confines of yoga practice, providing the discernment we need to decide when, and if, commonly repeated “rules” apply. The deep understanding we gain means that we can set aside cookie-cutter cues and sequences, and teach in a more informed, intelligent and purposeful way.

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Hip: Anatomy, Dysfunction, & Application Yoga Teacher Training
Bali, Indonesia | October 10-17, 2025

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