Patience, Persistence, Perspiration

Crane/Bakāsana/बकासन
First we have to warmup the wrists. Strong and flexible wrists are crucial to holding poses like crow for a long time without pain.

I show you a timesaving routine I developed. Lean with as much bodyweight as possible into your hands.

Start with the fingers pointing forward

That way you strengthen and stretch your wrists enough to do crow pose even on the back of your hands one day.

Start with the fingers pointing backwards

The sequence is flat on the palms, on first finger knuckles, on fingertips, fists, dorsum of hands.

Start with the fingers pointing outwards

In the last exercise I reversed the order to have the right distance between the hands.

Start on the dorsum, fingers pointing outwards

For a stable crow pose we need strong arms, especially the triceps, strong shoulders and a strong core.

Although the classical crow pose is done with bent arms, it is good to start early with straight arm training. With straight arms you train at the most mechanically disadvantaged position and you get stronger through the entire range of motion, while with bent arms you get stronger only at that angle plus an extra 15 degrees.

With straight arm exercises you also strengthen and stabilize your scapulas. This kind of strength is known in the gymnastic world as straight arm scapular strength or SASS.

A strong core is needed for an active uplifting crow pose rather than just hanging in there and letting gravity take over.

So next we will do a few simple straight arm exercises. First some shoulder shrugs.

If you can’t do the full shrugs, just hang in there with straight arms or assist with your legs and slowly build up to the final exercise

Next exercise is tucked L-sits, which will build up your compression strength, helping if your wrists lack flexibility, compensates to a certain extent lack of shoulder strength and you will need it later to press into handstands.

You can combine this exercise with the previous one to save on time, progress to straight legs, or do it on the floor if you built up the flexibility

Another great exercise to strengthen the triceps and simultaneously stretching the shoulders to their maximum range of motion is the eccentric dip.

Lower slowly, hold, push up fast, hold

Alternating between hollow backs (tuck your tailbone) and crabpose in the next exercise, works your straight arm strength in different ranges of of motion of your shoulders.

Hold your body tense for a couple of seconds, then change position

An exercise probably everyone knows is the plank hold. Do it on your forearms if it is too hard, or in the lower chaturanga position to work in different ranges. You can also shrug your shoulders here as described earlier, known as SASS shrugs or pushups plus.

For building strength 1 minute holds are enough, longer holds build just your endurance

Press walks are also a great way to simultaneously strengthen your triceps, shoulders and core.

Start by doing them forward.

Start with little hops and progress to lifting your legs from the core

After a couple of presses repeat by doing the walks backwards.

You can bend your knees a little at the beginning, because backwards is harder

If you need to loose a little bodyweight for your crow then do the mountain climber, a great straight arm and cardio exercise.

Try to touch your elbows or even your nose with your knees

Through the instability on one arm you further strengthen the muscles needed for your crow pose by doing elbow drops.

Just this exercise alone wold be enough to build some decent strength for crow

For the next block of exercises you will really need to tighten your abs or you will slide down the wall with your feet.

First one is just a static wallsquat hold.

Work that compression and straighten your arms as much as possible by constantly pushing away from the floor

In the second exercise we do some shouldershifts on the elbows to work those shoulders holistically.

Touch the floor with your nose, then push back again

We didn’t really had pushups as an exercise until now, which is an obligatory exercise for total upper body strength, so here a slightly different version with your legs in a similar position as in crow.

Go down til your nose touches the floor and straighten your arms fully

This concludes my sortiment of strengthening exercises your crow pose will benefit from.

I can. I will. End of Story

Next i will show some fun vinyasas or movements you can try if you already can hold your crowpose for a long time, so I won’t show more strengthening exercises because at this point in your practice you probably already know what you do and the vinyasas are strengthening exercises on its own.