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The butterfly pose might look suspiciously like a pose you did in gym class many years ago. While the gym teacher probably didn’t have yoga in mind, he or she did pick a pretty good stretch to teach everyone!
The butterfly pose stretches the entire hip area and opens the inner thighs, back, and hip flexors. You can use it to open up the muscles before exercise, to stretch them after exercise, or as a stand-alone stretch to help with tight hips overall.
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Butterfly Pose Instructions
Here’s how to do a butterfly pose:
- Come to a seated position and bring the soles of your feet together. Keep your spine tall and abs pulled in tight.
- Grab hold of each foot with your hands and place elbows against your inner thighs.
- Keeping your spine long, inhale to prepare, and as you exhale, slowly lower your torso forward, pausing when you feel the stretch. Hold for 30 seconds or more.
The butterfly pose stretches your inner thighs, hip flexors, outer thighs, entire hip complex, and lower back extensors.
Butterfly Pose Benefits
There are many reasons you should incorporate a butterfly pose into your workouts. Here are just a few:
Stretches Hip Muscles
Butterfly pose can help relieve hip pain due to tight muscles and connective tissue in the hips.
Relieves Lower Back Pain
Lower back pain is one of the most common complaints of those visiting their doctor each year in the U.S. Since this is often due to tight muscles in the lower back, the butterfly pose can help to stretch the lower back muscles to relieve pain.
Improves Athletic Performance
Since the butterfly pose relieves tight muscles, it helps to improve the movement of the legs and hip used in so many athletic moves such as lunges, squats, running, and cycling motion.
Easy Ways to Incorporate the Butterfly Pose Into Your Workouts
Butterfly pose is a great exercise to practice any time on its own. However, you could also incorporate it into other workouts to mix them up. Here are some ideas to make that happen.
Use the Butterfly Pose After a Lower Body Workout
Love it or hate it, leg day works! Working all your lower body muscles can make for one intense training session, but may also leave you tight and sore. The butterfly pose is built into this leg workout to help you work hard and stretch well.
Leg And Butt Day Workout: Try each exercise below for the number of repetitions listed, with just a few seconds in between to rest.
Butterfly Pose – Hold for 30 seconds. Repeat.
Repeat this set one more time.
Use the Butterfly Pose in a Yoga Workout
Butterfly Pose can be incorporated beautifully into an overall yoga practice for your hips. Try this one out, beginning with a sun salutation
Mountain Pose
Forward Fold
Crescent Lunge
Plank
Chaturanga
Up Dog
Down Dog
Crescent Lunge
Forward Fold
Repeat this series 2-3 times
Then, perform each pose below for a minimum of 30 seconds each:
Chair Pose with Twist
Lord of Half Fishes
Butterfly Pose
Here are three more workouts that incorporate butterfly pose:
4 Amazing Stretches to Relieve Back Pain
7 Exercises To Prevent Runners Knee
Targets: Hip flexors, iinner thigh, outer thigh, hips, lower back
How Many Calories Does Butterfly Pose Burn?
People often ask how many calories they are burning in their workouts. Most exercises will generally burn about 100 calories for every 10 minutes you are working at a higher intensity. Bottom line – the harder you work, the more calories you burn.
Butterfly pose is meant to be a stretch, not a workout, so it doesn’t burn many calories. However, since it helps to improve your performance you’ll be more effective at your range of motion and more able to burn calories in your other endeavors.
Other Exercises Similar to Butterfly Pose
If you like butterfly pose and want to try similar stretches for your hips, here are some other options:
