Bridge Pose on the Crownसेतु बन्धासन
Setu Bandhāsana — an advanced backbend that works the spinal erectors, glutes, hamstrings.
10–20SECONDS HELD
One line on the timetable. Bridge Pose on the Crown is held 10–20 seconds, 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 Bridge Pose on the Crown
Read all of it before starting, and read the cautions further down before starting at all.
Lie on your back with the knees bent, then press up into a high bridge with the hands supporting the back of the pelvis.
Walk the elbows in and lift the chest until the weight moves towards the top of the shoulders.
Slide the crown of the head down onto the mat and take the weight there very lightly, arms supporting throughout.
Straighten the legs one at a time along the floor, keeping the hands on the pelvis.
Hold briefly with the arch held by the back muscles, then bend the knees and lower down the way you came.
Hold: 10–20 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 Bridge Pose on the Crown 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.
- Holds a long arch with the load shared between the arms, the crown of the head and the legs.
- Strengthens the spinal erectors across the full length of the spine in a straight-legged arch.
- Extends the hips fully with the legs long rather than bent.
Bridge Pose on the Crown is one of 43 backbends in this library and one of 61 poses rated advanced. Poses that extend the spine and open the front of the body — chest, hip flexors and abdomen.
Who should skip Bridge Pose on the Crown, or change it
- Any neck injury or cervical disc problem — the crown carries part of the load, so avoid this shape entirely.
- Disc injury, spondylolisthesis or spinal fusion.
- Shoulder or elbow injury, since the arms hold the pelvis for the whole pose.
- Pregnancy at any stage.
- High blood pressure and glaucoma.
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 Bridge Pose on the Crown
What tends to go wrong, and the specific correction — not "engage your core".
MistakeLetting real weight settle onto the head.
FixKeep the elbows driving down so the arms and shoulders carry the load; the crown only touches.
MistakeStraightening both legs at once, which drops the arch into the lumbar spine.
FixExtend one leg at a time and keep the glutes firm so the curve stays spread along the spine.
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. Bridge Pose on the Crown sits at code 02175, yoga, Power, 4 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
= 4 × 3.5 × 70 ÷ 200
= 4.90 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 | 49 | 98 | 147 | 221 | 294 |
SOURCE·2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities·code 02175 · 4 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 Bridge Pose on the Crown?
Lie on your back with the knees bent, then press up into a high bridge with the hands supporting the back of the pelvis. Walk the elbows in and lift the chest until the weight moves towards the top of the shoulders. Slide the crown of the head down onto the mat and take the weight there very lightly, arms supporting throughout. Straighten the legs one at a time along the floor, keeping the hands on the pelvis. Hold briefly with the arch held by the back muscles, then bend the knees and lower down the way you came. Hold for 10–20 seconds.
What does Bridge Pose on the Crown work?
Primarily the spinal erectors, glutes, hamstrings, with the neck, chest, quadriceps assisting or lengthening. In mechanical terms: holds a long arch with the load shared between the arms, the crown of the head and the legs.
Who should not do Bridge Pose on the Crown?
Any neck injury or cervical disc problem — the crown carries part of the load, so avoid this shape entirely. Disc injury, spondylolisthesis or spinal fusion. Shoulder or elbow injury, since the arms hold the pelvis for the whole pose. Pregnancy at any stage. High blood pressure and glaucoma. 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 Bridge Pose on the Crown suitable for beginners?
No. Bridge Pose on the Crown is rated advanced. The shape itself is rarely the problem — arriving at it years too early is. Work through the beginner and intermediate backbends poses on this site and learn this one in person.
How many calories does Bridge Pose on the Crown 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. Bridge Pose on the Crown sits closest to Compendium code 02175, yoga, Power, at 4 MET — about 147 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 backbends on the wall
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 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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