Side Wide-Angle Seated Fold
पार्श्व उपविष्ट कोणासन
Pārśva Upaviṣṭha Koṇāsana — an intermediate forward bend that works the hamstrings, hip adductors, obliques.
How to do Side Wide-Angle Seated Fold
Read all of it before starting, and read the cautions further down before starting at all.
Sit on a folded blanket with the legs wide and both kneecaps facing the ceiling.
Turn the whole trunk to face over the right leg, walking both hands to either side of it.
Inhale and lengthen the spine forward along the right thigh.
Exhale and fold, keeping both sitting bones down and the left leg pressing into the floor.
Hold, come up on an inhale, and repeat to the left.
Hold: 45–90 seconds 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 Side Wide-Angle Seated Fold 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.
- Isolates one hamstring at a time while the opposite inner thigh is held at length.
- Requires the trunk to rotate over the working leg, which works the obliques.
- Loads the quadriceps of the resting leg to keep it straight and rolled outwards.
Side Wide-Angle Seated Fold is one of 22 forward bends in this library and one of 60 poses rated intermediate. Poses that fold the torso towards the legs, lengthening the whole back line of the body.
Who should skip Side Wide-Angle Seated Fold, or change it
- Hamstring or adductor strain — narrow the legs and reduce the fold.
- Low back or disc injury: keep the chest high and use blocks under the hands.
- Sacroiliac pain from rotating over one leg.
- Recent hip replacement, where wide abduction may be restricted.
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 Side Wide-Angle Seated Fold
What tends to go wrong, and the specific correction — not "engage your core".
MistakeFolding towards the leg without turning the trunk, so the fold becomes a side collapse.
FixSquare the navel over the thigh before folding at all.
MistakeThe resting leg rolling inwards and the knee turning down.
FixPress that thigh down and keep its kneecap facing the ceiling throughout.
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 Side Wide-Angle Seated Fold 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 Side Wide-Angle Seated Fold?
Sit on a folded blanket with the legs wide and both kneecaps facing the ceiling. Turn the whole trunk to face over the right leg, walking both hands to either side of it. Inhale and lengthen the spine forward along the right thigh. Exhale and fold, keeping both sitting bones down and the left leg pressing into the floor. Hold, come up on an inhale, and repeat to the left. Hold for 45–90 seconds each side.
What does Side Wide-Angle Seated Fold work?
Primarily the hamstrings, hip adductors, obliques, with the spinal erectors, calves, shoulders assisting or lengthening. In mechanical terms: isolates one hamstring at a time while the opposite inner thigh is held at length.
Who should not do Side Wide-Angle Seated Fold?
Hamstring or adductor strain — narrow the legs and reduce the fold. Low back or disc injury: keep the chest high and use blocks under the hands. Sacroiliac pain from rotating over one leg. Recent hip replacement, where wide abduction may be restricted. 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 Side Wide-Angle Seated Fold suitable for beginners?
Not as a first pose. Side Wide-Angle Seated Fold 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 forward bends poses marked beginner first.
How many calories does Side Wide-Angle Seated Fold 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. Side Wide-Angle Seated Fold 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.
Related poses
More forward bends — 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.