what's the best way to cue movement in yoga?

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On the one hand, teaching movement seems simple: just tell people to arrange their bodies in a particular way (i.e. a yoga pose), and that’s it! What more is there to think about, right?

And this can certainly be true to an extent! But on the other hand, if we take a closer look at how we tell people to arrange their bodies in space, we realize there are actually a number of choices we can make about the specific movement instructions, or cues, that we give.

It turns out that different ways of phrasing movement cues can have different effects on how our yoga students hear, interpret, and carry out these directions. In fact, the options to consider with regard to cueing are quite broad, making this subject a much more rich and nuanced one than we often realize (or are typically taught about in our yoga teacher trainings).

There are several angles we can analyze movement cueing from. Today we’ll take a look at one specific aspect of cueing – and one that tends to be a hot topic in the yoga, movement, and fitness worlds these days: internal and external cueing.

What’s the difference between these two types of cues, why does this distinction matter, and which should we use as yoga teachers?

Note that much of the discussion featured here will use insights from athletes because they’re the population most of the relevant research has examined. Toward the end of the piece I’ll shift gears and explore how this research might apply specifically to yoga.

TWO CUEING STYLES

Let’s start by defining the concepts of internal and external cueing.

An internal cue is one that places the focus of attention on an individual’s body, body part, or muscle as they move. For example, if we’d like our yoga students to transition from chair pose (utkatasana) to standing (tadasana), an internal cue might be “straighten your legs.”

By contrast, an external cue is one that directs attention to what’s happening outside the body. External cues ask us to focus on the effect our movement has. They generally involve an external object or surface. If we’d like to direct our yoga students to transition from utkatasana to tadasana, an external cue could be to “push the floor away.”

Another example is teaching scapular (shoulder blade) alignment in plank pose. We traditionally like yoga students to protract their scapulas in this pose, which means that they move their scapulas away from their spine.

An internal cue to achieve this alignment in plank pose would be to “broaden your shoulder blades,” which would place the focus on body parts. An external cue would be to “lift the back of your heart toward the ceiling,” which would place the focus on the external environment.

Another external cue idea I find effective in plank involves tactile feedback. Place a yoga block on a student’s upper back, and cue them to “lift up into the block.” This places the focus on an external object (and one that the student can physically feel!), rather than on rearranging body parts relative to one another.

plank pose with external movement cue — Left: “Broaden your shoulder blades” (internal cue)
Right: “Lift up into the block” (external cue)

WHY DOES THE INTERNAL VS. EXTERNAL DISTINCTION MATTER?

Although these subtle differences in focus might seem relatively inconsequential on the surface, sport science research has revealed that these two types of cueing actually have significantly different effects on athletic performance. Granted, yoga is not an athletic pursuit. But we can still glean some pertinent insights for yoga teaching from what sport science research reveals about why these different effects exist between internal and external cueing.

Internal cues help improve what’s called the “mind-muscle connection,” which increases neural drive to muscles. In a physique training context, this may translate into enhancements in muscle growth (or hypertrophy in exercise science speak!). The muscle hypertrophy seems to be related to our ability to activate more muscle fibers of the target muscle. When more muscle fibers within a muscle are active, those additional portions of the muscle can be stimulated to grow. Therefore, when muscle growth is a goal, internal cues may be especially helpful.

However, internal cues may also create less efficient movement. The idea is that when we hear an internal cue, our attentional focus is guided to our body, and this makes us more directly conscious of the movement in question. If our conscious mind is paying more attention to the movement, this can actually interfere with the automatic coordination our nervous system would otherwise carry out reflexively. This can result in movement that is clunkier and less efficient.

(Side note: a sneaky way to sabotage someone’s sports performance is to direct their focus internally. For example, you might ask, “Hey, did you do something different with your wrist on that last shot?”)

While internal cueing does support muscle growth goals, there are other athletic performance measures that research has shown to be negatively impacted by internal cues and the less efficient movement they create. These include strength, speed, jump distance, jump height, and accuracy (such as shooting a basketball through a basketball hoop). Research has actually revealed that external cues are superior to internal cues for enhancing all of these aforementioned athletic goals.

This is probably because external cues guide the focus of attention away from the body and the movement taking place. When our focus is placed on the effect of our movement rather than on the movement itself, we can “get out of our nervous system’s way,” so to speak. This allows our nervous system to do its automatic, reflexive job of coordinating our movement on its own, without our conscious interference. This results in more efficient movement.

EXTERNAL CUEING IS TRENDY, BUT IS IT ALL WE NEED?

If you’ve learned about internal and external cues before, you may know that external cueing tends to be the style with the most “hype” these days, thanks to the allure of performance enhancement. Many sports coaches and athletic trainers champion external cues while discouraging the use of internal cues. In my experience, this tendency has spilled over into the yoga world as well. (At least the parts of the yoga world in which cueing styles are discussed at all, which doesn’t seem to be a large portion of the yoga world, I know!)

A more accurate approach to cueing is to understand that both types of cues have their unique benefits. We can choose which style to use based on the context of the specific movement, the specific individual, and their specific goals. Internal cues are not inherently less worthy because they create less efficient movement.

In athletic and physique contexts, internal cues can actually be quite advantageous if targeting a particular area of the body for muscle growth is a goal! And external cues can be very helpful if things like jump height or maximum strength are goals.

However, this is a yoga article on a yoga blog intended for yoga teachers and practitioners. And in that sense, the following question naturally arises: how often do we find these athletic goals that sport science focuses on in yoga? Do yoga teachers emphasize qualities like jump distance, muscle size, sprinting speed, or lifting heavy objects when they teach their students yoga on the mat?

I don’t think so! :) Thus, cueing specifically for athletic performance goals is probably not a relevant practice for yoga teachers. That said, we can still use what sports science research has revealed about internal and external cueing to inform our own yoga-based perspective on this issue.

In a yoga practice, internal cues are helpful because they encourage conscious awareness of our movements. When we consciously pay attention to our movements, we may learn more about our body, increase our awareness of our movement habits, and improve our proprioception. Internal cues might be especially well-placed during opening warm-up sequences if we’re interested in creating some initial awareness about something specific in our body, as well as throughout a class whenever the goal is to specifically cultivate more of a mindful presence to one’s body and how it’s moving.

External cues are also helpful in a yoga practice because they encourage movement efficiency and can therefore help foster more of a “flow state” on the mat. Suppose the goal in a given moment is to “tune out” and to move with our breath and the pace of the class in more of an automatic, reflexive way. Then external cues might help better facilitate this experience. Examples of contexts in yoga in which a flow state might be desirable are sun salutations and standing pose flows, where we’re continually moving from one pose to the next.

To further illustrate these cueing distinctions with an example that’s familiar to most yoga practitioners, here are some side-by-side comparisons for how a sun salutation might be taught using both internal and external cues. Neither style of cueing is correct or incorrect here – they can both be effective depending on the context!

Ultimately, internal and external cues can both play a positive role in the context of a yoga class. In fact, one interesting teaching exploration might be to provide a different attentional focus for different rounds of the same sequence. As the teacher, you could visually assess how each style of cueing resonates with your students. You could also invite the students to notice and reflect how practicing with different attentional focuses affects their own perception of their movements.

WHAT ABOUT TEACHING NEW MOVEMENTS?

Based on the internal and external cueing research, you might assume that when teaching yoga students new movements, internal cues would be superior to external ones. (I personally believed this myself until recently!) This is because learning a novel movement involves one’s conscious attention. Whereas external cues shift attention away from the body, internal cues facilitate more of a conscious focus on the body. It would therefore seem to make sense that internal cues could enhance learning because of this, and external cues might be better reserved for already-familiar movements because they’re known to enhance automaticity.

However, I recently asked my friend and movement educator Jenn Pilotti for her expert opinion on this topic, and her response surprised me! Jenn is extremely well-versed in motor control and motor learning research. She shared this perspective with me:

Both cues can be helpful [for learning new movements.] It’s likely that a blend of internal and external cues delivered in a thoughtful way will be most beneficial, and research actually supports this.
Generally people in the cognitive stage of learning benefit from more internally based cues. Once they move on to the associative phase, external cues tend to be more effective. Interestingly, however, research suggests people with an expertise in a specific modality or movement skill often use internal cues when they are exploring the movement on their own. All of this just means one style of cueing isn’t necessarily better for learning.

In a nutshell, Jenn said the answer to whether to use internal or external questions isn’t as simple as always using internal cues for beginners and always using external cues for people with a basic grasp of the skill. Just like teaching movements that are already familiar, it depends!

SO WHAT’S THE BEST WAY TO CUE MOVEMENT IN YOGA?

Although the official title of this blog post is “What’s the best way to cue movement in yoga?”, we can hopefully see that there really isn’t a definitive, black-and-white answer to this question. It’s certainly beneficial for us to understand what research suggests about the distinctions between internal and external cueing. But in a yoga setting, both cueing styles can have value, and intentionally using a mix of both might be the wisest approach to take – even when teaching new movements!

In addition to whether we use an internal or an external cue, further important questions remain, like the optimal number of cues to give and the optimal timing of those cues relative to the execution of the movement. But we’re unfortunately out of time to dive into such topics today. If you’d be interested in another blog post that explores these cueing questions and more, just let me know. Perhaps a follow-up post on this nuanced topic will be in our collective future!

REFERENCES

Schoenfeld, Brad J., et al. "Differential effects of attentional focus strategies during long-term resistance training." European journal of sport science 18.5 (2018): 705-712.

Winkelman, Nicklaas C. The Language of Coaching: The Art and Science of Teaching Movement. Human Kinetics Publishers, 2020.

Wulf, Gabriele. Attention and Motor Skill Learning. Human Kinetics, 2007.

Wulf, Gabriele. "Attentional focus and motor learning: a review of 15 years." International Review of sport and Exercise Psychology 6.1 (2013): 77-104.