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Sphinx

Salamba Bhujangasana

hold 45 s · beginner · move in slowly, hold, come out the same way

Take care: Move the elbows a little forward if the lower back pinches; skip it during pregnancy, as it means lying on the belly.

Salamba Bhujangasana: lying face down, the chest props up on the forearms, elbows under the shoulders and forearms parallel, palms down. The upper back lifts about 30° and the lower back rests in a gentle curve while the pelvis and legs stay heavy on the mat. The elbows walk back under the shoulders as the chest rises.

-80°Ankle dorsiflexion
2°Knee flexion
5°Hip flexion
84°Trunk from vertical
149°Arm to trunk
22°Elbow flexion
22Ankle spacing, cm
34Hand spacing, cm
-1Knee outside ankle, cm
–Knee cave, ° inside toe line
–Load left / right, %
0Pelvis drop, cm

Load and joint demand

Bodyweight: no weights. Joint demand below is your own body's weight in this position.

Shoulder, per side
10 / 10

N·m now / peak over the rep.

Faults

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.

Body

Femur changes keep standing height fixed by shortening or lengthening the torso. Longer femurs force more forward lean in any squat.

Muscles worked

Lower back
35 pts
Upper back
22 pts
Shoulders
8 pts
Abs and core
4 pts

Effort and your quota

3.5/10 effort3.5fatigue per set

Hold for 45 seconds: 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: beginner. One round counts like light conditioning work: 8 push points, 22 pull points, 39 core points.

Prime movers

Spinal erectors, multifidus, lower trapezius, serratus anterior (holding the chest up); abdominals and hip flexors stretched.

What to look for

  • Elbows under the shoulders, forearms parallel, palms flat.
  • Draw the chest forward and up between the arms, shoulders away from the ears.
  • Let the legs and pelvis be heavy; breathe into the belly.
How the model works, and its limits

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.