Astavakrasana
hold 10 s each side · advanced · move in slowly, hold, come out the same way
Take care: Needs open hips and strong wrists and elbows: practise side crow first, and skip it with a wrist, elbow or shoulder injury.
Astavakrasana, to the right: the right leg hooked over the right upper arm, the left leg crossed over it at the ankle, both legs straight and extended to the right and forward, squeezing the right arm. The hands are flat and shoulder-width; the elbows bend about 90° toward the back as the chest lowers forward until the trunk is level with the floor. The pelvis turns to face the legs while the chest stays square to the floor; the centre of mass is solved over the hands.
Bodyweight: no weights. Joint demand below is your own body's weight in this position.
Faults grow with knee bend and apply to lifts standing on the floor. The fault check flags a knee caving more than 10° inside the line of the toes and a load split beyond 60/40. Knee cave shows best in the front camera.
Femur changes keep standing height fixed by shortening or lengthening the torso. Longer femurs force more forward lean in any squat.
Hold for 10 seconds on each side: move into the pose slowly, breathe steadily, and come out the way you went in. Yoga is practised for control, balance and mobility, never to failure, so this does not change with your limits.
Level: advanced. One round counts like light conditioning work: 18 legs points, 86 push points, 35 arms points, 12 core points.
Triceps, pectoralis major, anterior deltoid, serratus anterior, obliques, rectus abdominis, adductors (squeezing the arm), hip flexors and quadriceps (holding the legs straight).
One 3D skeleton drives both views. Segment lengths and widths are Winter's anthropometric ratios of height; segment masses and centre-of-mass positions follow Dempster's data. For free-standing lifts the whole-body angle is found numerically so the combined centre of mass of lifter and load sits over the middle of the foot. Arms and legs use two-link inverse kinematics with a pole direction. Rep timing follows a minimum-jerk profile.
Balance is quasi-static, so ballistic lifts are shown slowed down. Cable pull and pad support forces are not modelled. The spine is one rigid segment and joints have no range-of-motion limits or muscle forces.