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Virabhadrasana III (Warrior Pose 3) requires focus and stamina to handle a thoughtful calibration between push and pull—gathering energy in, and lengthening it out.
“Virabhadrasana III asks us to face grounded on one leg, rooted down into the earth, however on the same time to boost the other leg and stretch horizontally from the rules of our toes to our fingertips, like a radiant star rising into home,” says Vitality Yoga creator Beryl Bender Birch. “However after we develop outward an extreme quantity of, we lose our vitality and stability.”
Focus on contracting, pulling in, and connecting with gravity, says Bender Birch. Nonetheless don’t contract an extreme quantity of; in case you occur to understand on too tightly, you will lose development—and certain your stability, too. Alternate between development and contraction, and take care of every with equal significance.
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Sanskrit
Virabhadrasana III (veer-ah-bah-DRAHS-anna)
virabhadra = the title of a fierce warrior, an incarnation of Shiva, described as having a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, and a thousand toes; wielding a thousand golf tools; and carrying a tiger’s pores and pores and skin.
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Warrior III fundamentals
Pose sort: Standing posture
Targets: Full-body energy
Benefits
Warrior III improves your stability and strengthens your core. In your standing leg, this pose stretches the once more of your thigh (hamstring) and buttock (glute) whereas strengthening the doorway of your thigh (quadriceps) and ankle. In your lifted leg, this pose stretches the doorway of your hip (hip flexor), along with the psoas, and strengthens the once more of your thigh (hamstring) and buttock (glute).
Totally different Warrior III perks:
- Helps counteract the results of sitting an extreme quantity of
- Will probably be helpful for restoration after sports activities actions
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How one can
- Begin in Virabhadrasana I (Warrior Pose I) alongside along with your correct foot forward.
- Root down firmly alongside along with your correct heel to boost your lower abdomen, drawing the abdominals in and up and releasing your tailbone down.
- Company your correct outer hip into your midline as you straighten your left leg.
- Energize your arms to draw additional measurement into your side physique.
- Flip your left inside thigh in direction of the ceiling to roll your left outer hip forward, then pivot onto your once more toes so your once more leg is in a neutral place.
- Inhale to elongate your spine.
- Exhale and tilt your torso forward, and attain your arms out ahead.
- Shift your weight into your entrance foot, and switch forward as you elevate your left leg until it is parallel to the bottom.
- Your greater arms physique your ears, and your head, torso, pelvis, and lifted leg to sort a straight line.
- Proceed to indicate your left inside thigh to the ceiling so your leg stays neutral and your pelvis is stage.
- Proceed to engage your correct outer hip to supply stability in your standing leg.
- Push once more alongside along with your left heel whereas extending forward alongside along with your arms, the crown of your head, and your sternum.
- Tone your lower abdomen, and direct your tailbone in direction of your left heel to supply assist in your lower once more.
- Preserve for 5–10 breaths, then rigorously bend your correct knee and step once more alongside along with your left foot, returning to Virabhadrasana I.
- Exit, and repeat on the other side.
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Beginner concepts
- If the hip bone of your lifted leg raises by way of the pose, launch that hip in direction of the bottom until every hip elements are even and parallel to the bottom. Energize your once more leg and lengthen it strongly in direction of the wall behind you as you attain merely as actively forward alongside along with your arms.
- When you straighten the doorway knee, take into consideration that the doorway calf is resisting forward in direction of the shin; it’s going to cease the knee from locking or hyperextending.
Uncover the pose
There’s a typical tendency in Warrior III to roll your torso barely over to your standing-leg side, or to drop your shoulder, arm, and hand on that side. Work to internally rotate the thigh and your complete torso to be parallel to and instantly coping with the bottom.
To straighten your once more leg, bend your standing knee barely to create one prolonged line of energy out of your head to your once more foot. Protect your foot flexed to engage your quadriceps.
When you straighten the standing knee by pushing the highest of the thighbone once more, take into consideration that the same-leg calf is resisting forward in direction of the shin. These two opposing actions cease the knee from locking or hyperextending and extra stabilize the place.
Remember!
- Don’t lock (hyperextend) your standing knee. Do you have to actually really feel strain spherical your standing knee, barely bend it. The stretching sensations are most safe felt throughout the services (bellies) of the hamstrings/backs of thighs pretty than throughout the joints.
- Stay away from overarching your low once more, a typical mistake with beginning practitioners. Defend your low once more and comply with extending out of your once more leg to your crown.
- In case you might be new to this pose or your lower once more hurts, carry your palms collectively on the center of your coronary coronary heart, as an alternative of extending your arms in entrance of you.
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Coach concepts
These cues will help defend your faculty college students from hurt and help them have among the finest experience of the pose:
- Focus on development. Broaden by the torso and your raised once more leg, shifting your shoulders away out of your ears. Work to handle measurement and openness all by way of your greater physique.
- Maintain conscious of cultivating a easy and sluggish transition as you come out of the pose. An indicator of a complicated comply with is the ability to transition mindfully between poses.
- Invite softness into the posture. Focus on extending by your raised once more leg. Fastidiously bend your lower knee to ask some softness while you stand company.
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Variations
Warrior III with blocks
For added stability, carry your arms to blocks at any peak pretty than the bottom.
Warrior III with arms in direction of a wall
If stability is elusive, stand coping with a wall as you come into Warrior III and place your palms on the wall, using it to help provide help to. Your leg may or is not going to be lifted extreme, and that is OK.
Warrior III with a chair
Come into Warrior III coping with a chair and rest your arms on the seat or the once more of the chair as you elevate one leg behind you.
Warrior III with foot in direction of a wall
Stand coping with away from a wall as you come into Warrior III and place the underside of your lifted foot on the wall. Press into your heel. Your leg may or is not going to be lifted extreme, and that is OK.
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Why we love this pose
“Warrior 3 permits you so many entry elements—from Warrior 1, from Tree, from a lunge, from Chair. And, oh, the areas you might go: Standing splits. Half Moon. The issue of Warrior 3 is to keep up the hips parallel to the bottom, nevertheless when you do, you may very well actually really feel the ability of your standing leg.” —Yoga Journal senior editor Tamara Jeffries
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Preparatory and counter poses
Stretch your hips, your complete once more physique, and your shoulders earlier to coming into Warrior III.
Preparatory poses
Supta Padangusthasana (Reclining Hand-to-Enormous-Toe Pose)
Urdhva Hastasana (Upward Salute)
Plank Pose
Anjaneyasana (Low Lunge)
Extreme Lunge
Urdhva Prasarita Eka Padasana (Standing Splits)
Parsovottanasana (Intense Aspect Stretch)
Utkatasana (Chair Pose)
Navasana (Boat Pose)
Counter poses
Tadasana (Mountain Pose)
Uttanasana (Standing Forward Bend)
Balasana (Toddler’s Pose)
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Anatomy
Warrior III converts the potential energy saved in Warrior I into movement, projecting your physique forward into balancing in your entrance leg, explains Ray Prolonged, MD, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon and yoga coach.
The precept story of the pose is the rotation of your pelvis forward and flexion of your torso over your standing leg. The once more story in Warrior III is the balancing act. As with all balancing poses, develop to take heed to your center of gravity and use it to your profit. Bend your standing leg and/or lower your lifted leg to descend the center of gravity and make the pose additional regular.
Throughout the drawings below, pink muscle tissue are stretching and blue muscle tissue are contracting. The shade of the color represents the drive of the stretch and the drive of contraction. Darker = stronger.

Central to the balancing act is the quadriceps of your standing leg. That you must use it to boost your torso by straightening your knee. Press the ball of that foot into the bottom and change your thigh inward. This prompts the platform on the side of your lower leg and the tensor fascia lata and gluteus medius of your standing-leg hip.
Needless to say stability originates from the massive muscle tissue of the pelvic core—the psoas and the gluteals. The gluteus maximussynergized by the a tremendous chiefextends the raised hip and tilts the pelvis backward. Work together the gluteus maximus and a tremendous chief by contracting the buttocks. Activating the gluteus maximus moreover externally rotates your leg; counter this by taking part the tensor fascia lata and gluteus medius muscle tissue to internally rotate your hip.
Phrase the interrelations among the many many spine erector, trapeziusand deltoids. Observe how these muscle tissue will be utilized collectively to boost your chest and raise your arms whereas drawing your shoulders away out of your neck. Straighten your elbows to engage the triceps. Carry an exterior rotation of your shoulders by taking part the infraspinatus and teres minor muscle tissue of the rotator cuff.
Excerpted with permission from The Key Poses of Yoga and Anatomy for Vinyasa Flow into and Standing Poses by Ray Prolonged.
Put Warrior III into comply with:
In a position to put this standing posture into comply with? Listed below are just some flows to aim:
Improve Your Motivation and Willpower with This Sequence
Try This Lower-Physique Energy Yoga Sequence for Regular Legs
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About our contributors
Coach and model Natasha Rizopoulos is a senior coach at Down Beneath Yoga in Boston, the place she gives programs and leads 200- and 300-hour coach trainings. A loyal Ashtanga practitioner for a couple of years, she turned equally as captivated by the precision of the Iyengar system. These two traditions inform her educating and her dynamic, anatomy-based vinyasa system Align Your Flow into. For additional information, go to natasharizopoulos.com.
Ray Prolonged is an orthopedic surgeon and the founding father of Bandha Yoga, a most well-liked sequence of yoga anatomy books, and the Day-to-day Bandha, which provides concepts and techniques for educating and dealing in direction of protected alignment. Ray graduated from the Faculty of Michigan Medical Faculty and pursued post-graduate teaching at Cornell Faculty, McGill Faculty, the Faculty of Montreal, and the Florida Orthopedic Institute. He has studied hatha yoga for over 20 years, teaching extensively with B.Okay.S. Iyengar and totally different essential yoga masters, and teaches anatomy workshops at yoga studios throughout the nation.