Bound Angle Pose
बद्ध कोणासन
Baddha Koṇāsana — a beginner seated pose that works the hip adductors, hip flexors, spinal erectors.
How to do Bound Angle Pose
Read all of it before starting, and read the cautions further down before starting at all.
Sit on the edge of a folded blanket with the legs straight out in front.
Bend both knees and bring the soles of the feet together, letting the knees fall out to the sides.
Draw the heels in only as close as the hips allow while the pelvis can still stay upright.
Hold the ankles or shins — not the toes — and lift up through the spine.
Support both knees on blocks or cushions if they hang high, and hold with steady breathing.
Hold: 1–3 minutes. 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 Bound Angle 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.
- Stretches the inner thighs with both hips in external rotation.
- Loads the spinal erectors to hold the pelvis upright while the legs are wide.
- Takes the hips through a range that walking and cycling never produce.
Bound Angle Pose is one of 29 seated poses in this library and one of 88 poses rated beginner. Poses taken on the floor, where the pelvis is the base and the spine works above it.
Who should skip Bound Angle Pose, or change it
- Groin or adductor strain — widen the feet away from the body.
- Knee injury: support the knees so they are not hanging.
- Recent hip replacement, where external rotation is often limited.
- Sacroiliac pain, which a very wide-knee position can aggravate.
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 Bound Angle Pose
What tends to go wrong, and the specific correction — not "engage your core".
MistakePushing the knees down with the hands or bouncing them.
FixLet the knees rest on props and breathe; forcing an adductor stretch is how it strains.
MistakeRounding the back to bring the heels closer.
FixMove the feet a hand's width away from the body and sit tall instead.
What a practice like this costs in energy
Nobody has measured a single asana in a metabolic cart. The 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities publishes MET values per style of practice, so Bound Angle Pose is mapped to the nearest published code — 02150, yoga, Hatha, 2.5 MET — and the figures below are for a practice of that kind, not for holding this one pose.
| Time practising | 10 min | 20 min | 30 min | 45 min | 60 min |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 31 | 61 | 92 | 138 | 184 |
Calculated as MET × 3.5 × 70 kg ÷ 200 kcal per minute — the standard ACSM relationship, shown in full on the method page. Scale it to your own weight by multiplying by your weight in kilograms and dividing by 70. The whole activity dataset, including every non-yoga activity, is at BurnLab.
Questions
How do you do Bound Angle Pose?
Sit on the edge of a folded blanket with the legs straight out in front. Bend both knees and bring the soles of the feet together, letting the knees fall out to the sides. Draw the heels in only as close as the hips allow while the pelvis can still stay upright. Hold the ankles or shins — not the toes — and lift up through the spine. Support both knees on blocks or cushions if they hang high, and hold with steady breathing. Hold for 1–3 minutes.
What does Bound Angle Pose work?
Primarily the hip adductors, hip flexors, spinal erectors, with the glutes, lower back, ankles assisting or lengthening. In mechanical terms: stretches the inner thighs with both hips in external rotation.
Who should not do Bound Angle Pose?
Groin or adductor strain — widen the feet away from the body. Knee injury: support the knees so they are not hanging. Recent hip replacement, where external rotation is often limited. Sacroiliac pain, which a very wide-knee position can aggravate. 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 Bound Angle Pose suitable for beginners?
Yes. Bound Angle Pose is a beginner-level pose on this site, which means it is learnable in a first class and has a version that works for most bodies. The cautions above still apply.
How many calories does Bound Angle 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. Bound Angle 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.
Sequences that use Bound Angle Pose
Related poses
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. Energy figures derive from the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities. 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.