Mountain Pose

How to do Mountain Pose

1. 1Stand with your big toes touching and heels slightly apart, or place your feet parallel and hip-width apart for greater stability.
2. 2Lift and spread your toes wide before setting them down, distributing your body weight evenly across the four corners of both feet.
3. 3Engage your quadriceps and gently draw your kneecaps upward without locking your knee joints back.
4. 4Draw your lower abdomen lightly in and up, allowing your pelvis to rest in a neutral position neither tucked nor tilted forward.
5. 5Roll your shoulders up, back, and down, widening across the collarbones while letting your shoulder blades settle along the upper back.
6. 6Extend your arms alongside your torso with palms turned slightly forward and fingers relaxed yet extended.
7. 7Align your ears directly over your shoulders, keeping your chin parallel to the floor and your gaze steady on the horizon.

Benefits

• Reinforces optimal postural mechanics for everyday standing and walking.
• Strengthens the arches of the feet, ankles, and leg musculature.
• Engages deep core and spinal stabilizers to support spinal health.
• Relieves chronic tension in the neck and shoulders by restoring balanced alignment.
• Improves overall proprioception, center of gravity, and balance.

Common mistakes and cues

• Hyperextending the knees

  Maintain a micro-bend in the knees to keep the quadriceps active and protect the joint capsules from excessive backward pressure.

• Flaring the front ribs

  Gently knit the lower front ribs toward each other to prevent overarching the lumbar spine.

• Collapsing the foot arches

  Press firmly through the outer edges of the heels and the mounds of the big toes to lift and support the inner arches.

• Tensing the shoulders upward

  Consciously release the tops of the shoulders down away from the ears while maintaining length through the neck.

Modifications and props

• Feet hip-width apart

  Widen your stance to hip-distance to create a broader base of support for balance issues or pregnancy.

• Back against a wall

  Stand with your heels, sacrum, and upper back touching a wall to receive tactile feedback on true vertical alignment.

• Block between thighs

  Place and squeeze a foam block between your inner thighs to encourage adductor engagement and pelvic stability.

• Seated in a chair

  Sit tall at the front edge of a sturdy chair with feet flat on the floor to practice the spinal alignment without bearing full weight.

Cautions

• Dizziness or vertigo

  Keep your eyes open and focused on a stationary point on the floor rather than closing them.

• Plantar fasciitis

  Practice on a softer mat or distribute weight mindfully to avoid overloading sensitive heel tissues.

• Acute lower back pain

  Avoid tucking the pelvis excessively and keep a soft bend in the knees to alleviate lumbar compression.

If you are working with an injury, pregnancy or a medical condition, check with a qualified professional before practising this pose.

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