Chair Poseउत्कटासन
Utkaṭāsana — a beginner standing pose that works the quadriceps, glutes, spinal erectors.
30–60SECONDS HELD
One line on the timetable. Chair Pose is held 30–60 seconds, with the breath moving throughout — and it takes its place inside 6 of the practices posted on this site.
SOURCE·YogaPath sequence data — stay times as taught·one breath ≈ 5 s at an even pace·REVIEWED JUL 2026
How to do Chair Pose
Read all of it before starting, and read the cautions further down before starting at all.
Stand with the feet together or hip-width apart, whichever keeps the knees tracking over the toes.
Bend the knees and send the hips back as though sitting onto a high stool behind you.
Shift enough weight into the heels that you could lift the toes.
Raise the arms forward and up, keeping the front ribs drawn in.
Hold with the breath moving, then straighten the legs to come out.
Hold: 30–60 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 Chair 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.
- Loads the quadriceps and glutes isometrically through a deep knee angle.
- Trains the spinal erectors to hold a long back against a forward-leaning torso.
- Builds ankle mobility, since the shins have to angle forward over the feet.
Chair Pose is one of 18 standing poses in this library and one of 88 poses rated beginner. Poses built on the feet, where the legs carry the work and the floor is the reference point.
Who should skip Chair Pose, or change it
- Knee pain under load — reduce the depth until the knees are quiet.
- Achilles or ankle injury, which limits how far the shins can travel.
- Low back injury: keep the torso higher and the depth shallower.
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 Chair Pose
What tends to go wrong, and the specific correction — not "engage your core".
MistakeKnees drifting far in front of the toes with the heels lifting.
FixSend the hips further back first; the depth follows the hips, not the knees.
MistakeRounding the upper back to get the arms up.
FixLower the arms to shoulder height and keep the chest broad.
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. Chair 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 Chair Pose?
Stand with the feet together or hip-width apart, whichever keeps the knees tracking over the toes. Bend the knees and send the hips back as though sitting onto a high stool behind you. Shift enough weight into the heels that you could lift the toes. Raise the arms forward and up, keeping the front ribs drawn in. Hold with the breath moving, then straighten the legs to come out. Hold for 30–60 seconds.
What does Chair Pose work?
Primarily the quadriceps, glutes, spinal erectors, with the calves, shoulders, abdominals assisting or lengthening. In mechanical terms: loads the quadriceps and glutes isometrically through a deep knee angle.
Who should not do Chair Pose?
Knee pain under load — reduce the depth until the knees are quiet. Achilles or ankle injury, which limits how far the shins can travel. Low back injury: keep the torso higher and the depth shallower. 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 Chair Pose suitable for beginners?
Yes. Chair 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 Chair 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. Chair 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 standing poses on the wall
More standing 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
The people behind these sites
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