In last week’s Yoga Tune Up® Teacher Training in Los Angeles, I introduced the trainees to the importance of dynamic stretching. This style of stretching involves engaging the body in continuous perpetual movement and is extremely beneficial as a warm-up for any pre-athletic endeavor. In YTU, we specialize in creating nuanced, specific and innovative dynamic stretches and we get incredible results with our students. In YTU-lingo, we call these types of repetitive flowy moves, “Minivinis.” Everyone has a favorite, mine is the Half-Happy Baby Minivini for the lower back and buttocks, others love the Pranic Bath to lubricate the shoulders, and the overall winner last week was PRASARITA LUNGES! This speed-skating Minivini has numerous benefits which include a deep hip warmup, awakening of the inner and outer thigh muscles, quadriceps, and strengthening the ever-important pelvic floor muscles. ENJOY!
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I haven’t visited all the minivinis yet, but I am completely taken with the revolving ardha chandrasana in “golf” (Post Athletic Stretch). Perfect for range of motion and I would think it’s great for bone density as well!
Glad you like it Sharon, if you like the “Moon Rises,” you will absolutely love the “Leg Stretch Minivini” in the TENNIS sequence!
[...] For a great example of a dynamic pre-yoga or pre-athletic warm-up, click here. [...]
Simple… but SO effective. Thank you, Jill
I love how it works but is also fun!
Thanks for introducing the concept of dynamic stretching–it’s really sunk in! This is a great exercise in particular. As a dancer, I appreciate the buoyancy and movement of the pose and know that it will stretch (and tone) key muscle groups. I love YTU!
What a great way to warm up! This seems like a nice minivini to do after sitting all day or if you just need to get blood flowing in the hips. Good prep for a hip-opening series.
Thanks for the video. I’ve used high knees and butt kicks as dynamic stretches before, but this stretch does a lot more to warm up the inner and outer thighs.
Great warm-up for the hips! Love it!
Love this warm-up! It really helps me utilize a more complete range of motion in my hips.
This is my favorite minivini!. Whether you do it slow or fast, the benefit is undeniable. It strengthens, it tones, it get the fascia heating, gets the joints moving and lubed. Plus, it’s just fun! Love, love, love this movement.
My fav hip minivini was jithara parivartonasana. I knew to keep my legs together but never figured out why one knee slid in front of the other. It was a breakthrough to find out about the nonagreement of the hips. Quadratus lumborum was so tight and this corrective stretch was very healing. I will definitely share this with my students
OMG yes I can definitely comment on Prasarita Lunges as I did them for the first time in my life just this week on the New York YTU teacher training – I found muscles which had been asleep and screamed at me ! I need to be getting that blanket out regularly now and turn up the disco music !!
The Prasarita Lunges is my “go to” minivini as well, to strenthen my inner thighs The overstretching throughuot the years left me with great weekness, and this is a fun way to start building strenght.
Wow, the Prasarita Lunges definitely work! I felt them along my inner thighs and I felt my shoulder joint warming up. In the beginning I definitely was cautious as I have tight adductors and didn’t want to overstretch them, but by the end I felt my muscles sufficiently warmed up and no longer feared working the pose faster and deeper. This was a great find.
This one is also one of my favs and I regularly teach this in class! Dynamically strengthening and stretching at the same time provides so many benefits to our muscles, joint and increasing heat and fluids to the body. I love how this exercise is great to use in class but also as a warmup for athletic movements and sports. Thanks!
I love this minivini! What a great way to work so many areas of the body at one time. Many times I only have a few moments & I love the minivinis to strengthen & tone effectively. My ah ha moment this week has been that I can work my body inside out with the use of only a mat, block & YTU balls. No need for fancy equipment anymore.
I love the way this pose allows me to be squishy and watery I love that we can glide and slide, My practice before was strongly focused on holding muscular energy and static holds. This is freedom this is yoga (Tune Up)
This has always been one of my favorite poses to stretch and warm up the inner legs, so great to have it validated!
I’m a chronically tight person; Long story short: I had a birth injury that left me with partial facial paralysis, an injury to my upper cervicals, and itty bitty, super short tonic muscles, which I’ve been living with for 37 years and re-habing for the last 15 years. So I have tried EVERY stretch regimen I can get my hands on and I have consistently discovered that I get dramatically greater gains from dynamic stretching than from static stretching. Who knows if it’s because of the nervous system involvement of my original issue, but static stretches barely put a dent in my tightness, while dynamic stretches can make magic happen! Yay minivinis!