It can be difficult for busy people to find time for self care. My mother, for example, is one of those people. Between her jobs, her family and her animals, she always comes last and barely makes time to eat on most days. However, it is so easy and so important to find a little time each day to take care of ourselves. Mom’s main symptom is a result of tight hip flexors including the Tensor Fascia Latae. For homework, I recommended that she take time each day to do Bridge Lifts Minivini. It would take five minutes or less and bring length to her short and grumpy TFL.
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I can relate to this ‘busy Mom’ time challenge! This is a great way to fit in hip flexor work along with mobilizing the spine, shoulders and awakening the glutes. Thanks for the 5 minute tune up Bo!
Yes, I love simple homework with a big impact. Something like this can help move students to more self care and self practice with out feeling like another thing on the check list. This movement requires such attention to this breath, its quiet easy to want to move into the body with another pose or two.
I battle tight hip flexors as well. I will definitely give these bridge lifts minivini a try.
I love to start and end my day with bridge lift. I have yet to figure out why I sleep so poorly but I do find that doing bridge lifts before I even get out of bed makes my morning smoother and I try to slip one or two more minivinis in during the course of the day.
Great idea for Mom’s to do. I have found that school teachers are a mess. They put their body through so much during the school day that over time it creates havoc on the body. I haven’t done bridge lifts with them as a great daily routine to get into to relieve tension and stress in the hips.
J’aime beaucoup les poses dynamiques, surtout bridge lift minivini.
Cette poses m’aide à relâcher les TLF tendu après de longue journée passé assis
Another reason to love bridge pose! Besides working the hip flexors it also works core and the entire front of the body. As someone mentioned above it is also very meditative and relaxing with the breath.
I love starting my day and classes with Bridge Lifts with a block between thighs to initiate a stronger hip adduction. It’s a great moving meditation to ground the practice. Thank for sharing.
Ne pas avoir le temps, c’est une phrase que l’on entend souvent de nos jours. Oui il y a quelques personnes où il y a réellement un manque de temps mais c’est aussi un manque d’habitude, une conscience des bienfait que simplement 5 minutes dans une journée peut améliorer la santé de notre corps. Généralement, tout le monde prends le temps de se brosser les dents de 1 à 3 fois par jours. Ce geste intégrer dans notre routine n’est pas moins long que de faire par exemple le pont à chaque matin au levé.
C’est un gros effort de modifier notre routine, nos habitudes, mais du moment que cela est intégrer dans notre vie on se rend vite compte que l’effort en valait la joie et les bénéfices.
I enjoy the coordinated breath and body movement of the bridge lift minivini. I recommend doing at least 6 to get the therapeutic effects of the asana. I tried with varying counts of the breath and can be used as a warm up or cool down to a practice session.
I find this such a soothing and meditative pose. As a mom with two young (busy but fun!!) boys, I love the little pauses that offer a blend of breath and movement. I also find myself revitalized and energized after just a few minutes. Thanks for noting it’s effect on the TFL – I didn’t know, but it does make sense!
THank you. As someone who is just about to head into motherhood I’ll keep this quick fix in mind!
I love this practice, such a great way to deepen breath, wake up core and prime the hips. I love that you suggested this to you mother, it’s such a quick and effective way to ground in, and give back to the body. Fitting I saw this the day after Mother’s Day, I will send this to my Mom as a belated gift 😉 Thanks Bo!
Bridge Lifts MiniVini is a great exercise, I think, both for your breath and for stretching, as it opens up the whole front of the body. I would also emphasize the PNF of adducting the hips as many people tend to let their knees go out as they go up. This enhances the stretch of the TFL.
I find myself doing a couple of these every hour or so while at work to hopefully help balance all of the sitting when I have a day of meetings. It also helps down regulate the nervous system which is helpful when getting stressed about deadlines.
This is a great tip and I used it in my class. It was perfect to stretch the TFL but also a nice flex for the shoulder and breath work immediately brings you into the moment to connect the movement with the breath.
Bridge arm can engage Latissimus Dorsi, posterior deltoids, long head triceps and pect majors and stretch the anterior Deltoilds, petcoralis major(clavicular portion), an long head of biceps. so not only it will help us to stretch the hip flexer but also it will help us to stretch the chest too!
I love this bridge lift, breathing into our abdominals and watching my belly rise and deflate, also putting YTU balls at my traps. Its AUM-MAZING
Thank you for the sweet reminder that we don’t need a full 90min yoga class to melt some tension away and feel better. NO matter what our day is like, we might be able to take at least 10 minutes for ‘ME’ time. I hope your mom appreciates your advice.
Bridge lifts and of course Jill’s handy dandy Yoga Tune Up Balls (r) to roll those peaky IT bands out. Go Jill!
Articulating the vertebrae one at time really helps with the body breath mind connection. It’s like taking the spine for a ride on an escalator vs old school bridge, elevator to the top. It allows for proprioception.
oh man, thank you for this kind reminder to take the time to take care of ourselves. as a yoga teacher and a studio owner, i find it necessary to put yoga practice on my schedule to make sure i get some me time. and btw, love me some bridge minivini!
Love this mini vine. I like that this pose encourages slow and even movement with breath. This is a great starter and adding intentional pranayama. It is also a great pose and introduce students to new pranayama techniques.
Love this mini vine. I like that this pose encourages slow and even movement with breath. This is a great starter and adding intentional pranayama. It is also a great pose and introduce students to new pranayama techniques.
Again the bridge lifts mini-vini shows up which I absolutely LOVE. I read this blog so I could give advice to my neighbors who are all busy moms. Ha. Ha. Joke is on me. I should be doing this YTU move every day myself. I always teach it. I think it’s fantastic as a warm up at the beginning of class. People are on the floor but are moving dynamically and it almost tricks them into thinking they are doing more on a physical level than they are, which most Type A folks like. But I also love that it focuses on the breath and really slows it down. Any time during the day that we can do that, is a bonus for sure.
Good point on making just a little time each day. I’ve found (mostly through the YTU at home program!) that a little bit done consistently trumps the occasional big effort every time!
This pose has so many goodies attached to it!
I enjoy the stretching in my psoas, iliacus, and rectus. This really allows for more deep inspiration and relaxation overall.
I am able to have better hip extension when I run now!
I love the feeling of this dynamic pose as the back and hips extend with the inhale and relax on the exhale, which seems like a full body breath. I look forward including this pose into my core classes during the warm up of mind and body connection.
Bridge Lifts minivini seems like a great pose to do first thing in the morning!
Great way to lengthen the spine – especially the lumbar spine which can be cranky early in the day.
Adding the component of flexing the arms helps awaken the shoulder joint and the surrounding muscles.
Great way to gently begin to stretch the hip fexor muscles – TFL included!
I love the bridge lifts! What a great mother’s day gift! I started doing this for my tight hip flexors but it’s also a great pelvic floor strengthener (essential for the ladies) and a great way to practice the deep yogic breath.
The fast paced society we have ourselves locked into, does leave little time for self care. Do you ever see a driver speeding from one traffic light to the next only to find its red? It is a sad scenario I see all the time. Its a high speed world for the most part ladden with technology advancing at a rapid pace. Its turned us into high speed sitters. If you are an instructor of one aspect of fitness or another – you may pick and choose classes that will double as your own workouts. You might otherwise find yourself in the same situation – no time for our own self care. As for your mother – once we reach certain milestones, we look back and to see what we haven’t yet done in our lives yet. We have so much of life to experience, its hard to fit it all in. Your article is a reminder to slow down, and to seek self care experiences as well.
Great idea to use this bridge lifts for a tightt TFL
sending the link to my mom right now… happy mother’s day! she is a doctor and takes care of so many people– but when was the last time she stretched/restored her energetic/physical field?! She loves weight training and more active cardio– so I think the mini-vini will be dynamic and challenging enough to keep her in the sequence but targeted at those tight hip flexor that have developed more recently due to her increased work/desk load… she stands on her feet all day so I would also include a restorative “good ol'” legs up the wall trick to settle the femur bones into hip socket and increase blood circulation in the sacrum to alleviate the stress in her feet!
What a graceful, invigorating way to start or break-up the day. I agree that it’s important to take time for self-care each day but not everyone finds it easy. The perception of time is a funny thing and people who lead very busy lives often over-estimate how much time relaxing activities take. Encouraging self-care with brief exercises such as this one and highlighting the minimal time commitment can help decrease the sometimes overwhelming notion of taking time for oneself. Nice job!
My mother is also very busy. She works long hours and sometimes the only time she has to refresh and invest in her own wellbeing is our twice a week yoga lessons at her house. I just learned bridge lifts yesterday and had planned to teach it to my mother today during our lesson. Typically bridge is a very energizing asana but bridge lifts I find more relaxing. The movement of the arms up on the inhale allows for a deeper breath which leads to deeper relaxation. That is exactly what my mother (and I) need. Unfortunately our lesson was cancelled today but I can’t wait to teach her later this week!
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very nice, co-ordinating breath and arms, increasing the breath capacity in a progression…
increasing the breath capacity has been a big recent topic for us 😉 so great timing for us!
a young male student in one of my classes has to stand a lot in his work, and we’ve found that both the supported and unsupported bridge really help him –
and now that we’ve begun to add more movement w/breath to some of the poses, and i look fwd to adding this to the other routines
thanks so much