Should We Lock the Elbows? How to Engage Arm Muscles in Elbow Extension During Handstands and Side Planks

If you’ve ever been told in a yoga class to “lock your elbows,” “straighten your arms,” or “push the floor away,” you might have wondered: How am I supposed to lock my elbows and still engage my muscles? And even more confusing: Should I be locking them at all?
This is a surprisingly common question—one that sits at the intersection of anatomy, physiology, and the way yoga teaching cues have evolved in modern practice. To understand what healthy elbow extension actually looks and feels like, we need to explore not only the structure of the elbow joint but also the difference between passive and active stability in weight-bearing postures on the arms.

Why This Question Matters
In movements like side plank, handstand, plank, or even downward-facing dog, the arms become our legs—they carry our weight, absorb force, and connect the floor to the torso. Just as you wouldn’t stand passively in your knees without muscular support, you also don’t want to rely solely on the end-range bones of your elbows to hold you up.
But at the same time, the arms do need to fully straighten in many of these poses. So how do we straighten the elbow without collapsing into it?
To answer that, let’s begin somewhere familiar: the knees.

A Helpful Comparison: The Knee as a Model for Understanding the Elbow
Think of your knee joint when you're standing. Your knees are straight, but they aren't hanging in hyperextension. A set of muscles—quadriceps, hamstrings, and deep stabilizers—are quietly engaged to keep you upright against gravity. This effort is not dramatic. It’s subtle, steady, and almost subconscious.

Now imagine lying down in Savasana. Gravity is no longer pulling your knees into extension, and the muscles that held you upright can let go. There's no need for joint stabilization because you’re not weight-bearing.

Now consider Utkatasana (Chair Pose). In this bent-knee position, other muscles activate to stabilize and hold the knee at a different angle. The relationship stays the same:
when a joint is loaded, muscles must support the joint—regardless of its angle.
This same principle applies to the elbow.

Where Confusion Begins: The Language of Modern Yoga Cues
Over years of yoga instruction, phrases like “lock your elbows” or “straighten your arms” have become shorthand for what teachers actually want:
Clear, organized, stable joints that efficiently transfer force.
But the word lock can be misleading. Many practitioners interpret it as:
pushing the joint to its maximum end range
leaning into the bone structure for support
disengaging the surrounding muscles because the skeleton is “doing the job”
This is what we call passive locking—and while it’s technically possible, it comes with consequences.

What Actually Happens When You Passively Lock the Elbow
The elbow joint has a bony end point—a “stopper”—that limits extension. Because bone shape varies from person to person, some elbows appear to hyperextend more than others. This variation is normal.
In weight-bearing postures like handstand or side plank, it is possible for some people to rely almost entirely on this end-range bone-on-bone position to hold themselves up. It may feel easy. It may feel stable. But here’s what’s really happening:
The muscular system isn’t participating fully.
The elbow becomes a rigid, isolated hinge instead of part of an integrated chain.
The shoulder and wrist must overwork to compensate for lost muscular support.
The connective tissue of the joint absorbs more force than it needs to.
Because the arm is a long kinetic chain—from fingertips to shoulder—the elbow becomes a “weak link” when it is passively locked. You lose the ability to transmit force smoothly and safely through the arm.
This is why passive locking may feel efficient in the moment but can lead to strain over time.

The Solution: Active Locking (or Active Extension)
The alternative is active locking—a much healthier and stronger way to straighten the arms.
Active locking means:
The elbow is straightened
Muscles around the joint engage to stabilize it
The wrist, elbow, and shoulder remain connected
The whole arm and hand participate in supporting your weight
The joint is still in extension, but it’s not hanging on the bones.

Think of it as the difference between:
Standing with hyperextended knees while daydreaming (passive)
Standing tall, grounded, and ready to move (active)
Same joint position, but a completely different system of support.

How to Find Active Engagement: A Simple Experiment
Let’s return to a scenario where you can feel the muscles clearly—the bent-arm position.
Imagine yourself moving through Chaturanga. When your elbows bend, your arm and shoulder muscles fire up. You feel the strength. You feel connected. You feel stable.
Now straighten your arms again. The goal is to maintain some of that muscular tone instead of “switching off” just because the arms reached straight.
Here’s an exercise you can try:
Stand comfortably and extend one arm out to the side.
Bend the elbow slightly.
Ask a friend to try bending or straightening your elbow while you resist both movements.
Notice the muscular activation around the elbow joint as you stabilize it.
That feeling is what you want in handstand, plank, downward dog, and side plank.
This experiment teaches the nervous system a key skill:
Muscles can and should activate in elbow extension—straight does not mean passive.

Putting It Into Practice in Side Plank and Handstand
Both handstand and side plank ask the elbow to act like a stable, load-bearing hinge.

In Side Plank (Vasisthasana)
Press the floor firmly but avoid collapsing into the bottom elbow.
Feel a gentle “hugging in” around the joint—like you’re resisting both bending and hyperextending.
Connect through the wrist, elbow, shoulder, and ribs so the whole side body participates.

In Handstand
Think of pushing the floor away with active hands, not by jamming the elbow straight, but by activating the triceps and surrounding muscles.
Maintain a sense of “spiral stability”—external rotation from he shoulder blade in the upper arm and spreading through into the palm.
The elbow stays straight but alive.

In both poses, you might notice that bending the elbow even a tiny bit requires strength. Straightening the elbow actively should feel similar—not difficult, but muscularly awake.

The Bigger Picture: Arm Stability Comes from Three Places
In reality, elbow engagement is just one piece of the stability puzzle. In handstands especially, three joints create the foundation:

1. Wrist Stability (Hand to Arm Connection)
Your wrist distributes force from the floor into the forearm. Press through the fingertips, engage the forearm muscles, and stay responsive rather than rigid.

2. Elbow Stability (Arm’s Midpoint Connection)
Active extension keeps the arm from collapsing inward or bowing outward, and maintains continuity between wrist and shoulder.

3. Shoulder Stability (Arm to Body Connection)
The shoulder girdle—scapula, rotator cuff, and surrounding muscles—supports the upper body and organizes the torso above the arms.
When these three areas work together, your asana practice becomes not only stronger but safer and more integrated.

So… Should You Lock Your Elbows?
Here’s the clearest way to say it:
**Yes, straighten your elbows in weight-bearing postures.
No, do not passively lock them.**

Fully straight elbows are important for structural integrity—but only when supported by muscular engagement. Passive locking disconnects your wrist and shoulder, loads your connective tissue unnecessarily, and limits your capacity to develop arm strength.

Active locking = active stability.

Passive locking = passive collapse.
Straight is not always locked.

In Summary
Straight arms are not the enemy—passivity is.
You can and should engage the muscles around the elbow while the elbow is straight.
Think of stability as a full-body conversation, not an isolated joint action.
Use the knee analogy to understand the basic principle: every loaded joint needs muscular support.
Your practice will feel stronger, more integrated, and more sustainable once you shift from passive reliance on bone structure to active, muscular engagement.