Your book, Structural Yoga Therapy, is very informative and I’ve learned a lot from it. However, the stick pose is problematic for me both because of the nature of my lower back pain and because I physically cannot assume it without my lower back and pelvis flexing too much. The cross-legged sitting posture is also difficult, unless I sit on two thick pillows. Could you recommend alternatives by which I might still be able to test the related muscles without having to assume either of these two positions?
The muscles toned by these poses are the hip flexors – notably psoas and rectus femoris (uppermost quadriceps). The cat pose and sunbird use the same muscles and you can test their strength by your capacity to round the spine and approximate your knee toward your head (joint freeing series #7, page 142).