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Yoga poses

Chair Pose: A Standing Hold for Your Thighs and Glutes

Stand, bend your knees and sit your hips back as if onto a seat, arms reaching up. Your thighs and glutes hold you there, with your weight in your heels.

Strength · Glutes · Quads · Calves and ankles · 2 min read

Why it works: Chapter 23, Stiff people work harder for every stroke

How to do it

  1. 1

    Sit back, don't sink down

    Feet together or hip-width, whichever is steadier. Bend your knees and send your hips backwards, as if there were a seat behind you. The weight travels back, not straight down.

  2. 2

    Find your heels

    You should be able to lift your toes off the floor and stay balanced. If you can't, your hips haven't travelled back far enough.

  3. 3

    Knees follow your toes

    Your knees point the same way as your toes, side by side, neither falling in toward each other nor splaying out.

  4. 4

    Arms up alongside your ears

    Reach forward and up, palms facing each other, shoulders sliding down away from your ears. Hands at your chest is fine if your shoulders don't like it overhead.

  5. 5

    Long from tailbone to crown

    Let your tailbone drop and keep your ribs over your hips, so your low back stays long instead of arching to hold the chest up.

  6. 6

    The test

    Your thighs and glutes should be working and your breath should still be steady. If your low back is what you feel, come up a few inches and drop the tailbone again.

Watch for

  • Heels lifting. Your weight rolls onto your toes, your knees take the load and your glutes switch off.
  • Arching your lower back to lift your chest. Your back takes the strain your legs should hold.
  • Knees drifting in or out. The pressure moves to the side of the knee.
  • Shoulders shrugging up with your arms. Your neck tightens and your arms get heavy fast.

Questions

Is Chair Pose good for your knees?

With your hips back and your heels down, your thighs and glutes share the work and your knees stay over your feet. It should feel like muscle working, not an ache in the joint. If your knees hurt, sit back further, take your feet hip-width apart and bend less deeply.

What muscles does Chair Pose work?

The fronts of your thighs (the quads) and your glutes do most of it, with your calves and trunk holding you steady. Reaching the arms overhead adds your shoulders.

How long should you hold Chair Pose?

In the Pre-Run Yoga · 02 routine Chair comes twice, once before each side's warrior poses, for about 25 seconds: sit back on a breath out and stay until the timer moves you on. It is there to wake your legs up, not to test how long you can hold. There is no daily target: it comes when your training day has that routine.

Should your knees be together in Chair Pose?

Feet and knees together is the classic shape, and it asks your inner thighs to work too. Hip-width is steadier and easier to balance in, and either is right.