Utkatasana (Chair Pose): How to Do It Step by Step, Plus Variations

Utkatasana (Chair Pose) is a standing yoga pose in which you bend your knees and sit your hips back as if lowering onto an invisible chair, arms reaching up beside your ears. It works the fronts of the thighs, the glutes and the muscles along the spine, and it builds heat fast. Bikram yoga calls it Awkward Pose, and it opens Sun Salutation B in Ashtanga.

Pose type: standing, strengthening. Level: beginner, with deeper forms for experienced students. Props: none, a wall or a block between the thighs if you want feedback.

What Utkatasana means

Utkata means powerful, fierce or intense in Sanskrit, and asana means seat or posture. So Utkatasana is the powerful or fierce pose. B.K.S. Iyengar used that translation in Light on Yoga. English-speaking studios named it Chair Pose after the shape, and in the Bikram series it is Awkward Pose, which is how it feels the first few times.

The pose is not among the postures of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. It comes into view in the 20th century, in Krishnamacharya's teaching and the styles that grew from it: Iyengar, Ashtanga and later Vinyasa. Old enough to be classic. Not ancient.

How to do Utkatasana, step by step

1. Stand in Tadasana (Mountain Pose) with your feet together, or hip-width apart if that feels steadier. Big toes point straight ahead.
2. Inhale and reach your arms up beside your ears, palms facing each other or touching.
3. Exhale and bend your knees. Send your hips back and down, as if you were about to sit on the edge of a chair behind you.
4. Shift your weight toward your heels until you could lift your toes. Keep the knees pointing the same way as the toes, over the middle of each foot.
5. Let your torso tilt forward a little, so it runs roughly parallel to your shins. Hug your lower ribs toward your hip bones so the lower back does not sway.
6. Draw your shoulder blades down your back, away from your ears. Gaze forward, or up between your hands if your neck is happy there.
7. Stay for five breaths. To come out, inhale, press through your feet and straighten your legs, arms still reaching. Exhale and lower your arms.

Go only as low as you can while your heels stay heavy and your back stays long. Thighs parallel to the floor is the direction, not the entry ticket.

Benefits of Chair Pose

Chair Pose is a held squat. That tells you most of what it does.

• Thighs: the quadriceps hold you up against gravity the whole time. You feel them within three breaths. Our guide to the quadriceps in yoga covers how they work.
• Glutes and back: the further you sit your hips back, the more the gluteus maximus works, and the muscles along the spine hold the torso steady as it leans forward.
• Shoulders: reaching the arms overhead while the torso tilts asks for shoulder mobility and some endurance in the upper back.
• Heat: big leg muscles working hard raise your heart rate and warm you up. That is why Chair Pose sits early in so many flows.

The old version of this page promised toned knees and a massaged belly. The knees get a load, which is good for them in the right dose, and the abdominal muscles work to keep the ribs in. That is the defendable version.

Who should skip or modify Chair Pose

• Knee pain: stay higher, with a smaller bend, and keep the knees tracking over the second toe. Stop if the pain is sharp or sits inside the joint.
• Shoulder injury or a stiff neck: keep your hands on your hips or pressed together in front of your chest instead of overhead.
• Lower back pain: go less deep and keep the ribs drawn in. Sitting against a wall takes most of the work off the back.
• Pregnancy: take the feet wider than the hips to make room for the belly, and use a wall or a chair nearby for balance.
• Low blood pressure or dizziness: come up slowly, and lower the arms first if your head feels light.

More on this in our 10 tips to avoid yoga injuries.

Common mistakes

• Weight in the toes. The knees shoot forward and the thighs burn for the wrong reason. Lift your toes for a moment to find the heels.
• Knees falling in. Press the outer edges of the feet down and point the knees over the middle toes.
• Swayed lower back. The bottom sticks out and the ribs flare. Draw the tailbone slightly down and the lower ribs in.
• Shoulders up by the ears. Widen the hands to shoulder width, or bend the elbows a little, and let the shoulder blades slide down.
• Holding the breath. A hard pose tempts you to brace. Keep the breath long and even through the nose.

Where teachers disagree

Ask three teachers how to do Chair Pose and you get three answers. The differences are real, and none of them is wrong.

• Feet together or apart. Iyengar and Ashtanga teach it with the feet together, which asks more of balance and the inner thighs. Many Vinyasa classes use hip-width feet, which is easier on the knees and the balance. Bikram sets the feet about 15 cm (six inches) apart.
• Upright or leaning. Some teachers want the torso as upright as possible. Others let it lean forward over the thighs. Upright puts more load on the thighs. Leaning shares it with the glutes and back. Most bodies need some lean to keep the heels down.
• Knees past the toes. The old cue says the knees must never pass the toes. Studies of squats suggest that some forward knee travel is normal, and that blocking it moves strain into the hips and lower back. For a sore knee, a smaller bend still helps. For a healthy knee, tracking over the middle of the foot matters more than where the kneecap ends up.

Preparatory poses

• Tadasana (Mountain Pose): the starting stance, weight even across both feet.
• Malasana (Garland Pose): a deep squat that opens the hips and ankles for the knee bend.
• Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog): stretches the calves and prepares the shoulders for the arms-overhead position.

Follow-up poses

• Uttanasana (Standing Forward Fold): fold over the legs straight from the chair and let the thighs rest.
• Virabhadrasana I (Warrior I): in Ashtanga the warriors follow Utkatasana at the end of the standing sequence.
• Garudasana (Eagle Pose): the same bent-knee base, one leg wrapped around the other.

In Sun Salutation B you inhale into Utkatasana, exhale into a forward fold and move on through the vinyasa. See where it sits in the full Ashtanga Primary Series.

Utkatasana variations

Wall chair

Stand with your back against a wall and walk your feet about two foot-lengths forward. Slide down until your knees bend, hips level with or above your knees. Hold for a few breaths and slide up. The wall carries your back, so you can feel the legs work without guessing at the angle of the torso. Good for beginners, for pregnancy and for knee rehabilitation sequences.

Chair with bound hands

Interlace your fingers, or hold a strap, behind your back and draw the knuckles toward the floor as you sit into the chair. The arms stay out of the way, the chest opens and the shoulders roll back.

Chair with eagle arms

From Chair Pose, cross your right elbow under your left, bend both elbows and bring the palms together, or the backs of the hands. Lift the elbows to shoulder height. This stretches the space between the shoulder blades and is a good step toward full Eagle Pose. Change the arms and repeat.

Parivrtta Utkatasana (Revolved Chair)

1. Sit into Chair Pose and press your palms together in front of your chest.
2. Inhale and lengthen your spine. Exhale and turn your chest to the right, hooking the left elbow outside the right thigh.
3. Keep your knees level. The left knee tends to slide forward, so draw it back in line with the right.
4. Press the palms together to turn the chest a little more toward the ceiling. Look forward, or up past the top shoulder.
5. Hold for five breaths, unwind on an inhale and do the left side.

The twist comes from the upper and middle back. If your breath gets short, turn less. Our guide to Ardha Matsyendrasana explains twisting from a seated base.

Bikram's Awkward Pose (Utkatasana in three parts)

In the 26 Bikram yoga poses, Utkatasana is the third posture, after Half Moon with Hands to Feet. The feet are about 15 cm apart and parallel, and the arms stretch forward at shoulder height, not up.

1. First part: sit back as if into a chair, feet flat and weight in the heels, until the thighs move toward parallel. Keep the spine long, stomach in, chest and chin lifted. Inhale to come up.

2. Second part: rise high onto the balls of the feet, then lower with the spine upright until the thighs move toward parallel, heels still lifted. Inhale to come up and set the heels down.

3. Third part: rise onto the toes again, press the knees together and lower slowly, spine straight, until your hips hover a hand's width above the heels. Come up the same way, knees still together. If your knees object, stop higher or skip this part.

Lauren Matters teaches all three parts in Hot 26: Standing Series, a 30-minute level 1 class.

For a full practice around this one pose, try Game of Utkatasanas: 20 minutes of Vinyasa flow in and out of Chair Pose, level 1-2, no props. More classes like it are under yoga for strength.

Frequently asked questions

What is Chair Pose good for?

Chair Pose strengthens the thighs, glutes and the muscles along the spine, and it asks the shoulders to reach overhead while the torso leans forward. Because it works large muscles, it warms you up fast, which is why it opens Sun Salutation B and many Vinyasa flows.

How do you do Chair Pose correctly?

Stand with the feet together or hip-width apart. Reach your arms up, bend your knees and sit your hips back as if onto a chair. Keep your weight in your heels, your knees over the middle of your feet and your lower ribs drawn in. Hold for five breaths and press up to stand.

Why is Chair Pose so difficult?

You hold most of your body weight on bent knees with no rest for the thighs, and the arms overhead make it harder to breathe and balance. Tight calves and ankles also force the heels up or the back to round. Go less deep, try hands on hips, and it gets easier within a few weeks.

Does Chair Pose work the glutes?

Yes. The gluteus maximus works harder the further you sit your hips back and the lower you go. With an upright torso the thighs do more of the work. A slight forward lean, with weight in the heels, shares the load with the glutes.

Should your knees go past your toes in Chair Pose?

A little forward knee travel is normal in a squat, and forcing the knees back moves strain into the hips and lower back. What matters more is that the knees point the same way as the toes and the heels stay down. With knee pain, bend less.

How long should you hold Utkatasana?

Five breaths is standard in most classes. Beginners can start with three and build up. In Bikram yoga each part of Awkward Pose is held for about 10 seconds or more. Come out when your form goes, not when your pride does.

What does Utkatasana mean?

Utkatasana comes from the Sanskrit utkata, powerful or fierce, and asana, posture. It is often translated as the powerful pose or the fierce pose. In English it is called Chair Pose, and in Bikram yoga Awkward Pose.