Half Lotus Poseअर्ध पद्मासन
Ardha Padmāsana — an intermediate seated pose that works the hip adductors, hip flexors, spinal erectors.
1–3MINUTES HELD · EACH SIDE
One line on the timetable. Half Lotus Pose is held 1–3 minutes each side, with the breath moving throughout — and no set practice here is built around it — it is held on its own.
SOURCE·YogaPath sequence data — stay times as taught·one breath ≈ 5 s at an even pace·REVIEWED JUL 2026
How to do Half Lotus Pose
Read all of it before starting, and read the cautions further down before starting at all.
Sit on a folded blanket with both legs extended forward.
Bend the left knee and tuck the left foot in towards the right groin, sole facing up or in.
Bend the right knee, cradle the shin, and lift the right foot onto the left thigh close to the hip crease.
Support the right knee on a block or cushion if it floats well above the floor.
Sit tall with the hands on the knees, hold, then rebuild with the legs reversed.
Hold: 1–3 minutes each side. Keep the breath moving throughout — if you are holding it, the pose is too much for today.
Muscles worked
Where the effort and the lengthening land. Primary groups do most of the work; secondary groups assist or are stretched.
What Half Lotus Pose does
Described mechanically — what the movement does to muscle and joint. Not a list of conditions it treats, because a pose does not treat conditions.
- Opens one hip into deep external rotation while the other stays in a gentler position.
- Builds the hip range that full lotus requires, without loading both knees at once.
- Sets the pelvis in a stable tripod that lets the spine stack vertically.
Half Lotus Pose is one of 29 seated poses in this library and one of 60 poses rated intermediate. Poses taken on the floor, where the pelvis is the base and the spine works above it.
Who should skip Half Lotus Pose, or change it
- Knee injury on the folded-up leg — skip and sit cross-legged instead.
- Recent hip replacement.
- Ankle pain in the raised foot: place the foot on the calf rather than the thigh.
- Any tingling or numbness below the knee — come out.
General information only — not medical advice. Some asanas are unsuitable during pregnancy, injury or specific conditions. Learn from a qualified teacher and stop if anything hurts. If you are pregnant, recovering from surgery or managing any health condition, ask your doctor before starting a practice, and learn the pose itself from a qualified teacher who can see you move.
Common mistakes in Half Lotus Pose
What tends to go wrong, and the specific correction — not "engage your core".
MistakePulling the foot up by the toes and twisting the ankle.
FixCradle the shin and lift the whole lower leg as one unit, foot flexed.
MistakeLeaving the raised knee hanging in mid-air for a long hold.
FixSlide a block or folded blanket under it so the hip can release instead of grip.
How the energy figure on a yoga timetable is reached
- Nobody has measured a single asana in a metabolic cart, so no per-pose figure is published here — not by this site and not by anyone.
- The pose is matched to the nearest style of practice in the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities. Half Lotus Pose sits at code 02150, yoga, Hatha, 2.5 MET.
- That MET value is put through the standard ACSM relationship for a stated reference adult of 70 kg.
- The result is the cost of a practice of that kind for as long as you practise — not the cost of holding this one shape.
- Scale it to yourself: the relationship is linear in body mass, so multiply by your own weight in kilograms and divide by 70.
kcal/min = MET × 3.5 × kg ÷ 200
= 2.5 × 3.5 × 70 ÷ 200
= 3.06 kcal per minute
The same practice, hour by hour
Read it the way you would read a timetable: pick the length of session you actually sit down for, and that is the figure.
| Time practising | 10 min | 20 min | 30 min | 45 min | 60 min |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 31 | 61 | 92 | 138 | 184 |
SOURCE·2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities·code 02150 · 2.5 MET · 70 kg reference adult·REVIEWED JUL 2026
The whole activity dataset, including everything that is not yoga, is at BurnLab.
Asked before class
How do you do Half Lotus Pose?
Sit on a folded blanket with both legs extended forward. Bend the left knee and tuck the left foot in towards the right groin, sole facing up or in. Bend the right knee, cradle the shin, and lift the right foot onto the left thigh close to the hip crease. Support the right knee on a block or cushion if it floats well above the floor. Sit tall with the hands on the knees, hold, then rebuild with the legs reversed. Hold for 1–3 minutes each side.
What does Half Lotus Pose work?
Primarily the hip adductors, hip flexors, spinal erectors, with the abdominals, ankles, lower back assisting or lengthening. In mechanical terms: opens one hip into deep external rotation while the other stays in a gentler position.
Who should not do Half Lotus Pose?
Knee injury on the folded-up leg — skip and sit cross-legged instead. Recent hip replacement. Ankle pain in the raised foot: place the foot on the calf rather than the thigh. Any tingling or numbness below the knee — come out. This is general information, not medical advice — if any of these apply to you, ask your doctor and learn the pose with a qualified teacher rather than from a page.
Is Half Lotus Pose suitable for beginners?
Not as a first pose. Half Lotus Pose is rated intermediate here: it assumes a working base of strength and range, and a teacher who has watched you move. Build up through the seated poses marked beginner first.
How many calories does Half Lotus Pose burn?
The honest answer is that nobody has measured a single asana. The 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities publishes MET values for styles of yoga, not for individual poses. Half Lotus Pose sits closest to Compendium code 02150, yoga, Hatha, at 2.5 MET — about 92 kcal for 30 minutes of that kind of practice for a 70 kg adult. Holding one pose for a minute is a rounding error either way.
The rest of the seated poses on the wall
More seated poses — first at the same level, then the rest of the family.
Asana names are traditional. Every step, benefit and caution on this page is written for YogaPath rather than reproduced from any book, studio or other library — see how this site is written and what it is written from. General information only — not medical advice. Some asanas are unsuitable during pregnancy, injury or specific conditions. Learn from a qualified teacher and stop if anything hurts.
SOURCE·Published asana references·asana names, alignment and cautions as taught·REVIEWED JUL 2026
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