Legs, hips and lower back · 30–60 seconds
Chair pose, and how to make it fit you
The same shape as standing up from a chair — which is exactly why it is worth training.
Chair pose looks like a held squat and works like rehearsal for one of the most repeated movements of the day: getting out of a seat. It is also unusually adjustable — the arms, the depth and even whether you hold it at all can each be changed independently, which is why the library carries seven versions of it.
How to do it
- 1
Stand with your feet hip-width apart
Weight spread across the whole foot rather than pitched onto the toes.
- 2
Send your hips back and down as if reaching for a seat behind you
Knees track over the middle of the feet. You should be able to see your toes past your knees.
- 3
Raise your arms as far as your shoulders comfortably allow, and hold
Overhead if that is available; forward at shoulder height or down by your sides if it is not. The legs are doing the work either way.
Make it easier
Go shallower — bend far less at the knee — or drop the arms entirely, which takes demand off the shoulders and lower back without losing the leg work. The most accessible version is to stop holding altogether and simply move between sitting and standing from a real chair.
Make it harder
Hold a block between the thighs and press into it, which brings the inner thighs in and asks more of the pelvis.
The mistake that undoes it
Pitching forward onto the toes with the heels lifting. If your heels are light, the hips have not travelled back far enough.
When this one tends to help
Stairs and standing up from low seats feeling like more work than they used to.
Knees that are sharply painful in the position rather than working hard should be assessed before you keep loading them.
Also called chair pose, utkatasana, chair yoga pose. Drawn from the clinically authored Vinys exercise library — how the method works. General movement guidance, not medical advice.