Why Your Ability to Retract Matters in Chaturanga

Let's first understand two movements your shoulder blades are constantly making: protraction and retraction.

What exactly are protraction and retraction?

Your shoulder blades, or scapulae, aren't fixed to the back of your rib cage. They can glide across it in several directions.

Two of those movements are protraction and retraction.So let's break it down.

Protraction

Protraction is when your shoulder blades move away from your spine and around the sides of your rib cage.

Try this: stretch both arms in front of you and reach your fingertips as far forward as you can.

You'll feel your upper back broaden and your shoulder blades move apart.

That's protraction.

In weight-bearing, think of the action of pushing the floor away from you in plank.

The serratus anterior is one of the major muscles responsible for producing and controlling this movement.

Retraction

Retraction is when your shoulder blades move towards your spine.

Now pull your arms backwards as though you were performing a row.

You'll feel the space between your shoulder blades narrow.

That's retraction.

The middle trapezius and rhomboids are major contributors to this movement, with other muscles around the shoulder girdle assisting in controlling the scapula.

So, very simply:

Protraction → shoulder blades travel apart.
Retraction → shoulder blades travel towards each other.

Neither is a “good” or “bad” shoulder position.

Your body needs access to both.

And this is where Chaturanga becomes interesting.

What should happen in Chaturanga?

As you move from plank towards Chaturanga, your elbows bend and your chest moves closer to the floor.

Your shoulder blades need to stay controlled against the rib cage while your upper arms and torso change position.

You don't want to aggressively squeeze the shoulder blades together.

But you also don't want the shoulders to simply spill forward into uncontrolled protraction.

Think less:

“Retract my shoulder blades.”

And more:

“Can I control how far I move into protraction?”

That difference is important.

Your serratus anterior helps keep the scapula connected to the rib cage, while muscles including the middle and lower trapezius and rhomboids contribute to controlling scapular position.

The goal isn't to make one group win.

It's to create enough opposing control that the shoulder blade has somewhere stable to sit while the arms support your body.

So why does retraction strength matter?

Because you need the ability to pull in the opposite direction to control how far you move into protraction.

Imagine lowering a heavy object slowly.

The muscles controlling the descent aren't necessarily trying to reverse the movement. They're providing enough force to prevent gravity from taking over.

Something similar matters at the scapula.

If I have very little capacity to retract and stabilise my scapula, I have fewer resources available to control how the shoulder blade moves while I'm bearing weight.

That becomes particularly relevant in Chaturanga because I'm asking my upper body to support a significant portion of my bodyweight.

Retraction capacity gives me options.

I can protract.

I can retract.

And, crucially, I can control the space between them.

What if you're already living in protraction?

Think about how much time we spend pushing in yoga:

Plank. Chaturanga. Downward Dog. Arm balances. Transitions.

Outside yoga, many of us also spend hours with our arms in front of us, typing, driving or using a phone.

That doesn't mean the body becomes permanently “protracted.”

But protracted and forward-loaded positions can become much more familiar than loaded retraction.

Then you arrive in plank already pushing strongly through the floor.

The shoulders are forward. The upper back is broad.

And from there you begin lowering.

The problem isn't protraction itself.

The problem appears when you can't control how much further forward the shoulder complex travels as the load increases.

The body keeps using the strategy it knows best. More forward. More rounding. More load towards the front of the shoulder.

Where your back muscles matter

Your middle trapezius, lower trapezius, rhomboids and rotator cuff contribute to controlling the scapula and humerus while you're bearing weight.

Using these muscles as stabilisers isn't necessarily the same as developing their strength.

If most of your upper-body practice involves pushing into the floor, you're getting plenty of practice at pressing.

You're not necessarily getting the same exposure to pulling.

Rows, loaded retraction and external-rotation work allow these posterior muscles to actually produce force through movement patterns that Chaturanga itself doesn't train particularly well.

And then you bring that capacity back into the asana.

You aren't trying to turn Chaturanga into a row.

You're simply giving your shoulder more muscular options with which to organise itself.

The goal isn't more retraction. It's more control.

If your Chaturanga collapses forward, the answer isn't necessarily:

“Squeeze your shoulder blades together harder.”

The goal is to have enough capacity in both directions that your body doesn't have to default to one strategy whenever the load increases.

Strong protraction.

Strong retraction.

And the ability to control everything in between.

Because sometimes the capacity that improves an asana isn't found by repeating the asana.


And here's something I think is important for yoga teachers:

Your shoulder blades don't need to be aggressively "pinned back."

It's found by strengthening the movements the asana itself doesn't give you enough opportunity to practise.

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