Crane Pose (Bakasana)

What is Crane Pose:

The Crane Pose, also known as bakasana (baka = crane, sana = pose or posture) in yoga and advanced frog stand in calisthenics, is a foundational balance exercise that involves supporting your body weight on your hands while your knees rest on the upper extremeties of your upper arms or armpit. It's a beginner-friendly arm balancing pose that builds strength, stability, and confidence for more advanced movements, like the handstand. It is often confused with Crow Pose, but Crane Pose typically requires straighter arms, making it more demanding on shoulder and core strength.

Key Benefits:

  • Balance and Confidence: Strengthens stabilizing muscles and enhances coordination, as well as builds confidence in the position, as a foundation for learning the free handstand.
  • Shoulder and Arm Strength: Strengthens the front and middle deltoids, triceps, and forearm extensors for carrying and balancing your weight.
  • Wrist Mobility and Resiliency: Enhances the wrist joints' mobility and resiliency, making them less prone to injuries.
  • Convenience: This exercise can be performed virtually anywhere without equipment, making it accessible and convenient for most individuals.

Variations:

  • Crow Pose: A similar arm balancing pose that, instead of putting the knees around the around the armpit, the knees are placed in the lower extremities of the upper arm or around the elbows and triceps.
  • Handstand: An arm balancing pose performed with the whole body forming a straight vertical line.
  • Tuck Planche: A similar exercise performed horizontally aligned while keeping the legs tucked in the middle of the body without touching the ground.

How to perform Crane Pose:

  • Hand Position: Begin in a deep squat position and place your hands on the floor or with paralletes shoulder width apart and slightly turned outward.
  • Knee on Armpit: Place your knees around your armpit.
  • Getting into Position: While maintaining scapular protraction and depression, gradually lean forward and shift your weight on your hands until you can lift and balance yourself with your legs around your armpit.
  • Hold Position: Hold the position for your desired duration or as long as you can without form breakdown, then stop once your form starts to degrade.
  • Release: Push through the tip of your fingers to shift your weight backward and land on your feet with control.

Breathing Technique:

Proper breathing is crucial for maximizing performance and maintaining stamina throughout the exercise. Experiment with what you're comfortable with and let you perform your best. For starters, you can try the following:

  • Deep then Shallow Breaths: Take a deep breath as you go into the position, then take shallow breaths while holding the position at a comfortable interval.
  • Avoid Holding your Breath: Unless what you're doing lasts only a few seconds and you can endure holding your breath without issue, it's advisable to not hold it as this could lead to lightheadedness.
  • Shoulder Rotation: Maintain some degree of internal shoulder rotation for shoulder stability and optimal performance.
  • Scapular Position: Maintain depression and protraction of the scapulae for optimal performance.
  • Grip for Balancing: Spread out your fingers and do not lock them out— hyperextend your fingers as comfortably as you can while bending them to use your fingers to better grip the surface. Try to put your weight on the base of your fingers (the one that usually gets callused through gripping and pulling heavy objects— is there a name for that?), and use your fingers and the base of your palms to balance yourself.
  • Hand Position: Turn your hands slightly outwards so that the gap of your thumb and index finger forms a wide v-shape pointing straight forward to reduce the strain on your wrists.
  • Surface Texture: If you have sweaty palms, either opt for a surface texture that is not slippery and provides a good grip or use something like a rubber mat to overcome this issue to not mess with your confidence and focus in your training.
  • Accessories: To improve in the exercise without actually training for it, you can work on your shoulders, triceps, chest, and forearms- especially the forearm extensors - using other exercises that work those muscle groups to a high degree. That takes care of the strength component of the exercise, which allows you to better focus on the balancing aspect; you still have to train the balancing component of the exercise, but the thing is, you can do it more often once you have gotten fairly strong in that position.
  • Safety and Confidence: Make sure to warm up your wrists and even your shoulders for better and safer exercise execution. You can also do the exercise with safety precautions, like doing the exercise on a soft surface or with soft materials like a pillow in your front in case you fall forward.
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    Additional Information:

    Ways to make it easier:

    • Placing your knees lower on your upper arms
    • Using external force for support - a partner or something
    • Regressing to an easier variation/exercise

    Ways to make it harder:

    • Holding it for as long as possible
    • Doing it dynamically - moving your thigh in and out one at a time or both
    • Progressing to a harder variation/exercise