Chair Pose, Utkatasana (OOT-kah-TAHS-anna), is a basic standing pose that looks easy…kinda like sitting in a chair. This pose is slept on a little in our Yoga practice because it’s not as flashy as a handstand or a one leg bendy, twisty pose. Chair Pose is called fierce pose for a very good reason.

Do you remember 8th grade gym class? Ever have a wall sitting competition? I remember mine very clearly. I out-sat every girl in our gym class. I believe I even beat the record. So needless to say, when I was first introduced to chair pose in a Yoga class, I was ready to sit in that bad boy all day long. Ten breaths in chair pose? Ha! Easy.

I think I may have forgotten that 8th grade was almost a quarter of a century ago and that my record had been beaten by the very next gym class that day. Ok, so chair pose wasn’t as easy as it looked when the teacher demonstrated. And it certainly wasn’t as simple as leaning against a wall. Guess how many muscles are engaged when we enter chair pose.

Let me lay it out for you here:

The key structures engaged in chair pose include the shoulder girdle, spine, quadriceps, hamstrings, knees, and hips.

The joint actions of these structures include shoulder flexion, elbow extension, forearm supination, axial extension in the spine, hip and knee flexion, and ankle dorsiflexion.

The working muscles in the spine include the intertransversarii, interspinalis, transversospinalis group, erector spinae, and the psoas major. In the shoulders and arms we have the upper trapezius, serratus anterior, supraspinatus, middle deltoids, biceps brachii long head, triceps, supinator, extensor digitorum, and abdominal muscles for axial extension and lower spine support. Moving to the legs, chair pose utilizes the gluteus medius and minimus, adductor group, quadriceps eccentrically, tibialis anterior, soleus eccentrically, and intrinsic muscles of the feet.

Ready for your quiz?? Ok, so some of these muscles may seem like a foreign language, but that sure is a lot of muscle engagement in just one Yoga pose. Fierce, I’d say.

Next time you move into your chair pose, see if you can feel and connect to these areas. We don’t have to connect to the transervsopiliazius seratusbrachiiationminimus, but we can connect to the core, back, legs, arms, and feet. Notice the energy, the engagement, and the strength that is building as we heat up in this fierce pose that touches every part of our body.

Building a deep awareness in our physical body is just one aspect of moving into each Yoga posture. Notice the breath and the obstacles that arise in your postures. Notice the key structures and working anatomy. Notice the lengthening and the contracting in each pose. Notice the thoughts and the vulnerability that may arise when we stay in a pose. And then notice how all of these things come together to make just one seemingly simple pose. Now, is it really all that simple? Or maybe that’s why we call it fierce!