Half Frog Poseअर्ध मण्डूकासन
Ardha Maṇḍūkāsana — a beginner seated pose that works the hip adductors, quadriceps, spinal erectors.
20–40SECONDS HELD · EACH SIDE
One line on the timetable. Half Frog Pose is held 20–40 seconds 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 Frog Pose
Read all of it before starting, and read the cautions further down before starting at all.
Kneel in Vajrasana with a blanket under the shins and the seat back on the heels.
Make a fist with the right hand and place it just below the navel on the right side.
Cover the right fist with the left palm and lengthen the spine on an inhale.
Exhale and fold forward, letting the pressure sit on one side of the abdomen only.
Hold for a few breaths, come up slowly, and repeat with the other fist.
Hold: 20–40 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 Half Frog 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.
- Lengthens one side of the back body more than the other through an asymmetric fold.
- Keeps the quadriceps and ankles loaded in a deep kneeling seat.
- Works the obliques isometrically as the trunk folds slightly off-centre.
Half Frog 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 Half Frog Pose, or change it
- Recent abdominal surgery or hernia — skip.
- Pregnancy at any stage.
- Knee or ankle injury, since the base is a full kneel.
- Low back injury: reduce the fold considerably.
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 Frog Pose
What tends to go wrong, and the specific correction — not "engage your core".
MistakeTwisting the trunk instead of folding forward over the fist.
FixKeep the chest square and hinge straight forward from the hip.
MistakePressing hard enough that the breath stops.
FixEase the pressure until you can breathe evenly through the hold.
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 Frog 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 Frog Pose?
Kneel in Vajrasana with a blanket under the shins and the seat back on the heels. Make a fist with the right hand and place it just below the navel on the right side. Cover the right fist with the left palm and lengthen the spine on an inhale. Exhale and fold forward, letting the pressure sit on one side of the abdomen only. Hold for a few breaths, come up slowly, and repeat with the other fist. Hold for 20–40 seconds each side.
What does Half Frog Pose work?
Primarily the hip adductors, quadriceps, spinal erectors, with the abdominals, obliques, ankles assisting or lengthening. In mechanical terms: lengthens one side of the back body more than the other through an asymmetric fold.
Who should not do Half Frog Pose?
Recent abdominal surgery or hernia — skip. Pregnancy at any stage. Knee or ankle injury, since the base is a full kneel. Low back injury: reduce the fold considerably. 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 Frog Pose suitable for beginners?
Yes. Half Frog 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 Half Frog 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 Frog 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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