Dandayamana Bharmanasana
hold 15 s each side · beginner · move in slowly, hold, come out the same way
Take care: Keep the lifting foot on the mat, or lift only the arm, if balance or the lower back is a problem; pad the knee.
Dandayamana Bharmanasana (bird dog), from tabletop: the right leg slides back and lifts until it is straight and level with the hip, toes pointing down, while the left arm reaches forward level with the shoulder, palm down. The back stays flat and the hips level, balanced on the left knee and the right hand.
Bodyweight: no weights. Joint demand below is your own body's weight in this position.
Faults grow with knee bend and apply to lifts standing on the floor. The fault check flags a knee caving more than 10° inside the line of the toes and a load split beyond 60/40. Knee cave shows best in the front camera.
Femur changes keep standing height fixed by shortening or lengthening the torso. Longer femurs force more forward lean in any squat.
Hold for 15 seconds on each side: move into the pose slowly, breathe steadily, and come out the way you went in. Yoga is practised for control, balance and mobility, never to failure, so this does not change with your limits.
Level: beginner. One round counts like light conditioning work: 70 legs points, 22 push points, 22 pull points, 37 core points.
Gluteus maximus and hamstrings of the lifted leg, spinal erectors and multifidus, deltoids and lower trapezius of the lifted arm, transversus abdominis and obliques (holding the trunk still), gluteus medius of the kneeling leg.
One 3D skeleton drives both views. Segment lengths and widths are Winter's anthropometric ratios of height; segment masses and centre-of-mass positions follow Dempster's data. For free-standing lifts the whole-body angle is found numerically so the combined centre of mass of lifter and load sits over the middle of the foot. Arms and legs use two-link inverse kinematics with a pole direction. Rep timing follows a minimum-jerk profile.
Balance is quasi-static, so ballistic lifts are shown slowed down. Cable pull and pad support forces are not modelled. The spine is one rigid segment and joints have no range-of-motion limits or muscle forces.