सर्पासनसर्पासन
Sarpāsana — a beginner backbend that works the spinal erectors, rhomboids, glutes.
10–20सेकंद धरून ठेवले
One line on the timetable. Snake Pose is held 10–20 seconds, 3 rounds, with the breath moving throughout — and no set practice here is built around it — it is held on its own.
स्रोत·YogaPath sequence data — stay times as taught·one breath ≈ 5 s at an even pace·पुनरावलोकन जुलै 2026
How to do Snake Pose
Read all of it before starting, and read the cautions further down before starting at all.
Lie face down with the legs together and the chin resting on the mat.
Interlace the fingers behind your back, low down near the sacrum.
Straighten the arms and draw the knuckles towards the heels so the shoulder blades slide together.
Inhale and lift the head and chest, letting the arms rise a little behind you.
Hold for a few breaths, then lower the chest and release the hands.
Hold: 10–20 seconds, 3 rounds. 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 Snake 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.
- Works the muscles between the shoulder blades hard, because the arms have nothing to push against.
- Extends the thoracic spine and broadens the collarbones at the same time.
- Strengthens the spinal erectors in a purely muscular lift.
Snake Pose is one of 43 backbends in this library and one of 88 poses rated beginner. Poses that extend the spine and open the front of the body — chest, hip flexors and abdomen.
Who should skip Snake Pose, or change it
- Pregnancy from the second trimester — prone poses are not suitable.
- Shoulder impingement or a rotator cuff injury: hold a strap between the hands instead of interlacing.
- Disc injury or spondylolisthesis — keep the lift very low, or take Sphinx instead.
- अलीकडे झालेली पोटाची शस्त्रक्रिया.
- Elbow or wrist pain when the arms straighten behind the back — keep the elbows softly bent.
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 Snake Pose
What tends to go wrong, and the specific correction — not "engage your core".
MistakeYanking the arms up so high that the neck compresses to compensate.
FixLift the sternum first and let the arms follow only as far as the shoulders allow.
MistakeThe lift showing up as a sharp crease in the low back.
FixFirm the glutes, lengthen the tailbone towards the heels, and spread the arch upward into the mid-back.
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. Snake Pose sits at code 02150, योग, हठ, 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 मिनिटे | 20 मिनिटे | 30 मिनिटे | 45 मिनिटे | 60 मिनिटे |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 31 | 61 | 92 | 138 | 184 |
स्रोत·2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities·code 02150 · 2.5 MET · 70 kg reference adult·पुनरावलोकन जुलै 2026
The whole activity dataset, including everything that is not yoga, is at BurnLab.
Asked before class
How do you do Snake Pose?
Lie face down with the legs together and the chin resting on the mat. Interlace the fingers behind your back, low down near the sacrum. Straighten the arms and draw the knuckles towards the heels so the shoulder blades slide together. Inhale and lift the head and chest, letting the arms rise a little behind you. Hold for a few breaths, then lower the chest and release the hands. Hold for 10–20 seconds, 3 rounds.
What does Snake Pose work?
Primarily the spinal erectors, rhomboids, glutes, with the chest, shoulders, hamstrings assisting or lengthening. In mechanical terms: works the muscles between the shoulder blades hard, because the arms have nothing to push against.
Who should not do Snake Pose?
Pregnancy from the second trimester — prone poses are not suitable. Shoulder impingement or a rotator cuff injury: hold a strap between the hands instead of interlacing. Disc injury or spondylolisthesis — keep the lift very low, or take Sphinx instead. Recent abdominal surgery. Elbow or wrist pain when the arms straighten behind the back — keep the elbows softly bent. 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 Snake Pose suitable for beginners?
Yes. Snake 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 Snake 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. Snake 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 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 आणि 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.
स्रोत·Published asana references·asana names, alignment and cautions as taught·पुनरावलोकन जुलै 2026
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