Triangle pose

Triangle Pose or Trikonasana is not even that foundational of a pose. You won’t necessarily have it in a basic yoga flow.

But it’s super important and helpful for increasing your flexibility because it stretches lots of muscles at once. And at this point, you are due for a little challenge!

So let’s tackle this one as well!

If you have back or neck problems, especially issues with your discs, skip this pose!

How to get into Triangle pose

You want to start out by standing up tall. Then step your feet apart, so that they’re parallel and about one leg-distance apart.

From here, turn your left foot outwards so that your toes are pointing away from your body.

Breathe in and lift your arms up to shoulder level, so that they’re directly over your legs.

Two images of a woman setting up for triangle pose: in the first image standing with her feet about one leg-length apart, hands on hips. In the second image lifting her arms to the side so they're parallel to the floor

And then breathe out and hinge from the hips to the left, while keeping your upper body long.

Image of a woman moving further into triangle pose by leaning over her left leg, arrows showing the direction of the movement and how her spine is staying long and straight

Stretch out as far as you can go, while not collapsing your upper body. Your spine should stay long.

Again, you might not get very far and again, that’s totally fine.

Put your left hand onto your leg wherever you are, or use yoga blocks to help with this.

Image of a woman in triangle pose, using a yoga block for support, arrows showing which way the chest should rotate (forward) and how the spine should stay as straight as possible

A few more pointers

Make sure that your upper body is directly facing the front. This might mean, turning the right side of your chest up a little. Imagine the right side of your chest is opening up to the ceiling.

If your neck feels okay with it you can look up to the right hand. This can make balancing a little more challenging and isn’t necessary either.

Press into your feet to stay stable and really make your leg muscles strong. This will help you keep your balance and it also allows for the backside of your legs to relax a little more.

To come out of the pose engage your belly muscles while breathing out, press into the feet, and pull yourself back up.

And then change the orientation of your feet to do the same on the other side.

This pose is quite complex. So if you’re struggling with following all the queues right now, don’t worry.

This will get easier with a lot of time and practice.

But it’s a great stretch for your whole body!

Time to get serious!
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