Child's Pose
Also works: Glutes · Middle Back
Sitting your hips back to your heels with arms stretched out in front lengthens the lower back and lats under nothing but the weight of your own torso. It is one of the few positions where you can hold a long spinal stretch for two minutes without any muscle having to work to keep you there.
Own the movement
Set up first, then execute. Every cue below is something you can check on your next set.
Before the first rep
- Kneel with your big toes together and your knees as wide as is comfortable — wider knees let your torso drop between the thighs.
- Walk your hands forward until your arms are long, then sit your hips back toward your heels.
- Rest your forehead on the floor, a block or a stacked fist; a straining neck ruins the hold.
- Slide a rolled towel behind the knees or under the shins if your knees or ankles complain.
- Let your shoulders relax away from your ears instead of holding the arms actively.
Every rep
Breathing & tempo — Long slow breaths directed into the back of the ribcage — you should feel the back expand rather than the belly. Let the hips settle a little further toward the heels on each exhale.
How much, how often
Where to start, and what to change when it stops being hard.
Bodyweight only. Hold 60-120 seconds, one to three rounds, and add a 30-second round to each side by walking the hands left and right if one side of your back is tighter. Daily is fine; there is no recovery cost.
What goes wrong
The errors that show up most often, and the cue that fixes each one.
Widen the knees toward the edges of your mat so the torso has somewhere to go, and put a cushion between heels and hips to sit on if the ankles or knees will not allow the full fold.
Let the hands go heavy on the floor and drop the shoulders. If the shoulders keep gripping, rest your forearms down or slide the hands slightly wider.
Move it to after the session, or to a rest day. Before heavy hinging, do cat rounds and bodyweight hinges instead — long passive holds leave the erectors temporarily less able to brace.
Put the forehead on the floor, a yoga block or your stacked fists so the neck is fully supported. The hold should be long and boring, and a working neck makes that impossible.
Why bother
Folding the hips fully takes the pelvis out of the equation, so the stretch lands where you want it: the erectors and thoracolumbar fascia across the lower back, plus the lats as the arms reach forward. Nothing has to hold you in position, which is why the tissue actually lets go here.
Where the arms go decides what you feel. Straight forward biases the lats and lower back evenly; walking both hands to one side turns it into a one-sided lat and quadratus lumborum stretch, which is worth knowing if one side of your back always feels tighter.
Where it fits
After training, between sets of heavy pulling, or any time your back has been under load for a while. One to three minutes is a normal hold. It is not a warm-up drill — going into a long passive lower-back stretch immediately before deadlifting is a poor trade.
If this one isn't it
No kit, too hard, or too easy — here's where to go instead.
Same job, different kit
Start here instead
When this gets easy
Asked and answered
My knees hurt in this position. What do I do?
Do not push through it. Put a folded towel behind the knee joint to reduce how far it bends, sit on a cushion between your heels, or widen the knees further so the fold is less deep. If it still hurts, use a seated forward fold in a chair or lower-back SMR instead — the lower back does not care how you got the stretch.
Does this decompress my spine after deadlifting?
It lengthens the erectors and takes compressive load off, which is why it feels good after heavy pulling, but any change in disc height is temporary. Do it because it relaxes a back that has been braced for an hour, not because you expect it to undo the session's loading.
Is child's pose enough on its own for a stiff lower back?
No. It gives you a long passive flexion stretch and nothing else, and a back that keeps stiffening up usually needs movement and load rather than more minutes in one shape. Take the relief, then earn the range: cat rounds for segmental control, bodyweight hinges, and something that actually trains the erectors such as back extensions. The stretch is the reward at the end, not the programme.
Arms forward or arms by my sides?
Arms forward if you want the lats in it, which is the version worth doing after pulling work. Arms back alongside your shins is a purely restful variation that stretches the lower back only. Neither is wrong; pick by whether you want the shoulder involved.