Child's Pose

Child's Pose is a restorative yoga posture that gently stretches the hips, thighs, and ankles while decompressing the spine. It serves as an excellent resting position to reduce stress, lower heart rate, and release tension in the lower back.

Exercise movement reviewed by:Marie Braga, PT, DPT, CSCS
How Iridium Helps

While this is a gentle recovery pose, the AI utilizes your HRV and sleep data to determine exactly when your nervous system requires parasympathetic activation to lower overall stress. If you report lower back tightness or hip discomfort during heavy lifts, the app intelligently schedules this movement to improve range of motion and tracks the duration to ensure sufficient time for tissue relaxation.

Form Cues

Do
  • Spread your knees wide while keeping your big toes touching
  • Sink your hips back heavily toward your heels
  • Reach your arms forward to lengthen the spine
  • Rest your forehead gently on the floor to relax the neck
  • Breathe deeply into your back ribs to expand the torso
Don't
  • Don't force your hips down if you feel sharp knee pain
  • Don't shrug your shoulders up toward your ears
  • Don't crane your neck to look forward
  • Don't hold your breath; keep the diaphragm moving

Common Mistakes

  • Keeping hips too high due to tight hips
  • Tensing the shoulders and neck muscles
  • Holding breath or shallow breathing
  • Forcing the stretch through knee pain

Muscles Worked

This movement primarily targets the erector spinae by gently lengthening the spine, while simultaneously stretching the gluteus maximus and hip flexors through deep hip flexion. When the arms are extended forward, it also provides a mild stretch to the latissimus dorsi and anterior deltoids, helping to open the shoulders.

Primary

Erector Spinae

Secondary

Hip FlexorsAnterior Deltoid

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