Extended Side Angle is an intermediate standing pose that combines a hip-opening lunge with a deep side stretch. Reaching your top arm overhead creates one long, unbroken line from your back heel to your fingertips, opening up the whole side body of your body. It’s a great pose for building leg strength while also improving spine and shoulder mobility.
EXTENDED SIDE ANGLE POSE BENEFITS
- Front leg: strengthens the quad and glute med holding the bent-knee lunge.
- Back leg: stretches the calf and ankle as the heel presses down, and the hip flexor as the hip extends behind you.
- Stretches the groin as your wide stance abducts and externally rotates the hips.
- Stretches the obliques, intercostals, quadratus lumborum, shoulders and lats as you reach through the fingertips of your top arm, twist your chest open, and lengthen the side of your body.
CATEGORY
SKILL LEVEL
- Intermediate
INSTRUCTIONS
- Set-Up
From Downward Dog, step your right foot in between your hands in Runners Lunge.
- Action
Check that your right knee is directly above your right ankle and turn your left heel down to the mat. Your back foot should turn in roughly 30 degrees. Come up, resting your right forearm on your front knee. Straighten your back leg and press back through the outside edge of your back foot. Circle your left arm down and across your body and reach through your fingertips.
- Refinements
Check that your front knee doesn’t come forward over your ankle and that your right toes and knee point straight ahead. Draw your right ear away from your shoulder and look up—twisting from your abs.
- Duration
Hold the pose for 3-5 breaths.
- To Release
Circle your left hand down to the mat and step back to Downward Dog for the other side.
ADVANCED VARIATION: Bound Extended Side Angle Pose
- To bind the pose—bring your right arm behind you, lift your left hand up from the mat, reach it under your left thigh and take hold of your left wrist. Gently turn your head up to the sky.
CONTRAINDICATIONS
- Avoid Extended Side Angle if you have a foot, knee, hip or shoulder injury.
MASTER EXTENDED SIDE ANGLE POSE
If you’d like to practise Extended Side Angle pose as part of a sequence, watch Sidebends And Twists—a 15-minute guided practice designed to improve spine and shoulder mobility and stretch the abs and obliques. This video can be accessed along with my full library of 360+ videos as part of the 14-Day Free Trial.
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