Virabhadrasana 1 (Warrior I)

Virabhadrasana 1, Warrior I, is a standing lunge in which the front knee bends over the front ankle, the back leg stays straight with the foot turned out and grounded, the hips face forward, and the arms reach overhead. Virabhadra is the name of a warrior from the Shiva story, and the pose is named after a figure rather than an object, which is why the English name keeps the word warrior rather than translating the shape.

It is not Virabhadrasana 2, which is a different pose wearing the same name. In Warrior I the hips face the front of the mat and the arms go up. In Warrior II the hips and the chest open to the side and the arms reach out level. Students who confuse the two spend months making the second one badly while thinking they are doing the first.

It is also not a hip opener you are meant to force. The famous instruction to square the hips is the source of more lower back complaints in beginners than anything else I teach, because a pelvis that will not turn simply passes the job to the lumbar spine. In this pose the honest measure of progress is a grounded back foot and a vertical front shin, not a photograph.

Where it sits in a practice is straightforward. It comes after the standing arrangement of Tadasana is understood, alongside Trikonasana and Utkatasana, and it is undone afterwards with a forward fold. In the hatha class described on the hatha yoga page it is a held pose rather than a flowing one, which is a different experience from meeting it in a vinyasa.

Three decisions make this pose, and all three are made before the arms move.

• The length of the stance. Too short and the front knee runs past the toes. Too long and the back heel lifts and the pelvis tips. The test is simple: bend the front knee to a right angle and see whether the back heel stays down and the front heel stays quiet. If either lifts, change the length rather than the effort.
• The back foot. Turned out to between 45 and 60 degrees, with the outer edge pressing down. A passive back foot is the reason a student says the pose is exhausting: the front leg is doing all of it. Press that outer edge and the pose gets noticeably easier to hold.
• The hips. Bring them round to face the front as far as they go without the lower back gripping. Then stop. If you want them rounder, widen the back foot away from the midline by a few centimetres, which gives the pelvis room to turn without recruiting the spine.

Only once those three are settled do the arms go up. This order is not a preference. Raising the arms first drags the ribcage forward, the tailbone tips back, and the lower back takes the load, which is exactly the pattern yoga for back pain exists to talk people out of.

If you are unsure whether your knee is tracking properly, practise the shape at a wall with the back heel in the corner where the wall meets the floor, or use the chair version. Both are described in the variations above, and both are what I put a new student in for the first fortnight.

Warrior I is often described as an opening pose, which undersells it. It is a strength pose with an opening in it.

The front leg works the quadriceps, and particularly the vastus medialis and vastus lateralis, to hold the bent knee. The gluteals and the deep hip muscles level the pelvis. The back leg works the calf and the muscles of the inner thigh to keep the foot down and the leg straight, while the hip flexors of that same back leg are being lengthened, which is why desk workers feel the stretch high in the back groin. Along the spine the erector spinae work to keep the trunk upright, and the abdominals work to stop the lower back arching. The shoulders and the upper back hold the arms overhead.

The laboratory measurements are worth knowing because they are specific. In the biomechanical study of eleven experienced instructors, the back limb in Warrior I reached the highest vastus medialis activation of any of the five poses tested, at 50.4 percent of maximum, and the front limb produced the highest hip extensor moment. That is a real training effect on the thigh, not a figure of speech. The same study measured the highest knee extensor moment in Utkatasana, so the two poses together cover the quadriceps thoroughly.

For the abdominal side of the work, the review of core activation in yogic postures put rectus abdominis activity in Warrior at 50.38 percent, second only to the crescent lunge. That is a good deal more abdominal work than most people expect from a standing pose, and it is one reason a strong standing practice belongs in a plan for weight loss more than a set of sit ups does.

This is a working pose, so the hold is short and the honesty is in the last column. Always do both sides, and always for the same length of time, even if one side is easier.

Once a day is plenty and four or five days a week is enough, which is roughly what the guidance in how often should you do yoga says for strong standing work. A thigh that has been genuinely worked wants a day to recover, and a student who does this pose hard every single day usually arrives at week five with a sore knee.

Warrior I belongs in the standing part of a practice, after the joints are warm and before anything on the floor. A sensible order is Tadasana, Urdhva Hastasana, a round or two of Surya Namaskar to warm up, then Warrior I, Warrior II and Trikonasana, then down to the floor.

Afterwards, fold. Uttanasana is the counter pose, because it lengthens exactly what the pose has been contracting and it settles the lower back. If the back feels at all compressed, add half a minute of Balasana before you move on, and finish the practice with Savasana as usual.

It also pairs naturally with breathing practice. Holding a strong standing pose for eight breaths teaches you to keep the breath even under effort, and the practice that develops that most directly is Ujjayi. Beginners who cannot keep the count in Warrior I usually find it comes right after a fortnight of sitting with Anulom Vilom.

If you are assembling a first home routine, how to start yoga at home shows where a standing pose fits into fifteen minutes, and the ten minute morning routine is the shape of a practice this pose can be added to once the stance is reliable.

Almost nobody has to leave this pose out entirely, and a great many people should change it.

• Knees. This is the real caution. A short stance with a shallow bend keeps all the benefit and removes most of the risk. The biomechanical study is encouraging here: the deep knee bend that worries people is in Utkatasana and Warrior, and it is the sideways load rather than the bend that troubles a knee, which is why the front knee tracking over the second toe matters more than how far it bends.
• Blood pressure and the heart. Arms overhead in a held standing pose is not a small demand. Hands on the hips, twenty seconds, and read yoga for high blood pressure, which sets out why the inversions are the ones ruled out and the standing poses are not.
• Shoulders and neck. Keep the arms down and the chin level. The same principle runs through yoga for neck and shoulder pain: never buy an arm position at the cost of the neck.
• Balance and age. If you are over forty and coming back to movement after some years, use the wall, take the short stance, and read yoga for beginners over forty before you decide how deep to go. Standing poses are where the balance training happens, and a twelve week programme of them measurably improved postural control and gait speed in older adults.

If you would rather be watched while you sort out the back foot, that is what the classes are for, and you can come to a first class and be corrected in person.