Virabhadrasana 2 (Warrior II)

Virabhadrasana 2, Warrior II, is a wide standing pose in which the front knee bends over the front ankle, the back leg stays straight with the foot turned in slightly, the hips and chest open to the side, and the arms reach out level, front and back, with the gaze over the front hand. Like Warrior I it is named after Virabhadra, a warrior figure from the Shiva story, and the numbering is a modern teaching convention rather than an ancient one.

It is not Warrior I with the arms moved. The hips do something different. In Warrior I the pelvis turns to face the front of the mat and the front of the back hip is lengthened. In Warrior II the pelvis stays facing the side, and the work moves to the outer hip of the back leg and the inner thigh of the front leg. Getting these two confused is the commonest muddle in a beginners' class, and it is why they are taught in the same lesson and named out loud each time.

It is also not Trikonasana, although the feet are arranged similarly. Trikonasana keeps the front leg straight and takes the trunk sideways over it. Warrior II bends the front knee and keeps the trunk upright. If you find yourself leaning the chest towards the front thigh in Warrior II, you have drifted into a half made Trikonasana, and the fix is to stack the shoulders back over the hips.

In a held practice of the kind described on the hatha yoga page, this pose is taken for five to eight breaths a side and the work is endurance. In a flowing class it is passed through quickly, which is a completely different sensation and trains something else. Neither is wrong. They are not the same pose to practise.

Warrior II is a pose about alignment in three places, and none of them is the arms.

• The feet. Front foot turned out a full 90 degrees, back foot turned in about 15 degrees, front heel roughly in line with the back arch. Both feet stay in one line along the long edge of the mat. If the front foot is only half turned out, the front knee has nowhere sensible to go.
• The front knee. Shin vertical, kneecap pointing at the second toe. That is the whole safety instruction. The biomechanical work on standing yoga is clear that the load a knee minds is the sideways one rather than the depth of the bend, so a knee that tracks properly at ninety degrees is in better shape than a knee that collapses inwards at forty five.
• The trunk. Upright, shoulders over hips, both sides of the waist the same length. The pull to lean out over the front thigh is strong and almost nobody notices themselves doing it. Practise it once with your back near a wall and you will feel exactly when it happens.

The back leg deserves its own sentence. Press the outer edge of the back foot down and straighten that leg with intent. Students who do this say the pose suddenly feels supported; students who do not say it is exhausting. It is the same pose. The difference is one foot.

If the knee will not behave, take the narrow stance from the variations above for a month. Nobody has ever been harmed by a shallow Warrior II, and the reasoning behind going slowly with loaded joints is set out on yoga for beginners over 40.

The front thigh holds the bent knee, which is quadriceps work, and the measured figure is worth knowing: 47.7 percent of maximum voluntary contraction in the vastus lateralis of the front limb, the highest of the five standing poses in that laboratory study. The same study found the front limb producing the highest hip adductor moment and the back limb the highest hip abductor moment of the poses tested, which is a precise way of saying that this pose works the inner thigh of one leg and the outer hip of the other at the same time.

The back leg works the calf, the peroneals along the outer shin and the inner thigh to keep the foot grounded and the leg straight. The gluteus medius of the back hip holds the pelvis level. Around the middle, the external obliques work harder here than in most standing poses, which is what stops the trunk from tipping. The shoulders, and specifically the middle deltoid and the upper back, hold the arms level, and that is often what fails first.

One caution comes out of the same measurements rather than out of tradition. The back limb in Warrior II generated the highest knee adductor moment of the poses studied, which the authors noted may load the medial side of the knee joint. In practice that means somebody with an inner knee history should take a narrower stance and a shallower bend, and should not hold this pose for a minute at a time. It is a good example of why the specific numbers matter: the pose that is best for one knee is the one to be careful with for another.

For anyone using standing poses as their main practice, whether for diabetes or simply for general strength, this is one of the four or five poses that carries the load. The others in that group are Warrior I, Utkatasana and Trikonasana.

Both sides, same time, every time. A student who holds thirty seconds on the easy side and fifteen on the stiff side is training the difference rather than reducing it.

Four or five days a week is a sensible dose for a strong standing pose, with a day off for the thighs to recover. Practising it hard every day of the week is how people arrive in week five with a complaint they did not have in week one.

Warrior II sits in the standing block, after the body is warm. The order I use is Tadasana to set the standing, a few rounds of Surya Namaskar to warm the legs and shoulders, then Warrior I, Warrior II and Trikonasana on the same side before changing over. Doing all three on one side and then all three on the other saves a great deal of turning about and lets you compare the two sides properly.

Afterwards, come back to standing still. Tadasana is the counter pose here rather than a fold, because what the legs want after a wide loaded stance is a moment of even weight on both feet. If the hips feel tight, add Balasana when you get to the floor.

It also belongs in any practice aimed at general strength and stamina rather than flexibility. If you are weighing up a yoga practice against the gym, the discussion in yoga versus gym is more useful with a pose like this in mind, because a forty five second hold of Warrior II is resistance work whether or not anybody calls it that.

For a beginner assembling a first routine, how to start yoga at home shows where one standing pose fits into a short practice. Add Warrior II second, after the stance in Warrior I is reliable.

The modifications here are mostly about knees, shoulders and necks.

• Knees. Narrow the stance and bend less. Keep the front kneecap over the second toe. If the inner side of the back knee is the sore one, this is the pose to be most careful with, for the reason set out in the muscles section above.
• Neck. Do not turn the head if turning it pinches. Cervical spondylosis is common after fifty and the gaze is the first thing to give up. The same rule applies throughout yoga for neck and shoulder pain.
• Blood pressure. Hands on the hips, short hold. The inversions are the poses the high blood pressure page rules out, and standing poses are usually fine, but a long hold with the arms up is still a demand and there is no reason to make it.
• Balance. Use the wall. Standing poses are the balance training in a yoga practice, and a twelve week programme built on them improved postural control and fast gait speed in community dwelling older adults, so it is worth finding a way to practise them rather than skipping them.

If you want somebody to tell you whether your knee is tracking, come and be looked at in a class. You can start with a first class and get the feet sorted out in person, which takes about a minute and saves a month of guessing.