Fish Pose
मत्स्यासन
Matsyāsana — an intermediate backbend that works the chest, spinal erectors, neck.
How to do Fish Pose
Read all of it before starting, and read the cautions further down before starting at all.
Lie on your back with the legs straight and the arms alongside the body.
Slide the hands, palms down, beneath the buttocks with the forearms tucked in close.
Press the forearms and elbows into the mat and lift the chest high, arching the upper back.
Tip the head back and place the crown lightly on the floor, taking almost no weight there.
Hold with the chest wide, then lift the head, tuck the chin and lower the back down.
Hold: 20–40 seconds. 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 Fish 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.
- Extends the thoracic spine and broadens the collarbones with the legs at rest.
- Opens the front of the throat and chest, which counters a long day of forward-rounded sitting.
- Loads the arms and upper back to hold the arch without floor support under the spine.
Fish Pose is one of 43 backbends in this library and one of 60 poses rated intermediate. Poses that extend the spine and open the front of the body — chest, hip flexors and abdomen.
Who should skip Fish Pose, or change it
- Neck injury or cervical disc problems — keep a bolster lengthwise under the spine and the head supported, or skip.
- Disc injury or spondylolisthesis: bend the knees with the feet flat to reduce the lumbar arch.
- High blood pressure or glaucoma with the head tipped back.
- Shoulder injury that makes tucking the arms underneath painful.
- Later pregnancy, where lying flat on the back is not recommended — use a bolster-supported version.
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 Fish Pose
What tends to go wrong, and the specific correction — not "engage your core".
MistakeLetting the head carry the bodyweight so the neck bears the arch.
FixPress the elbows and forearms down hard; the crown should touch so lightly you could slide paper beneath it.
MistakeThe arch dropping into the lower back with the ribs unmoved.
FixLift the sternum straight up towards the ceiling first and keep the lower ribs drawing in.
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 Fish 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 Fish Pose?
Lie on your back with the legs straight and the arms alongside the body. Slide the hands, palms down, beneath the buttocks with the forearms tucked in close. Press the forearms and elbows into the mat and lift the chest high, arching the upper back. Tip the head back and place the crown lightly on the floor, taking almost no weight there. Hold with the chest wide, then lift the head, tuck the chin and lower the back down. Hold for 20–40 seconds.
What does Fish Pose work?
Primarily the chest, spinal erectors, neck, with the hip flexors, shoulders, abdominals assisting or lengthening. In mechanical terms: extends the thoracic spine and broadens the collarbones with the legs at rest.
Who should not do Fish Pose?
Neck injury or cervical disc problems — keep a bolster lengthwise under the spine and the head supported, or skip. Disc injury or spondylolisthesis: bend the knees with the feet flat to reduce the lumbar arch. High blood pressure or glaucoma with the head tipped back. Shoulder injury that makes tucking the arms underneath painful. Later pregnancy, where lying flat on the back is not recommended — use a bolster-supported version. 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 Fish Pose suitable for beginners?
Not as a first pose. Fish 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 backbends poses marked beginner first.
How many calories does Fish 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. Fish 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 Fish Pose
Related poses
More backbends — 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.