Donna, an avid cyclist and golfer, maintains excellent cardiovascular conditioning. However, after our first yoga workshop, she quietly shared her concerns about tightness she was feeling in her hips, including her buttocks. I asked if she had been stretching before or after her sports activities, and like many athletes eager to start their games, she was performing only a few simple and perfunctory upper body twists. I gently and half-kiddingly asked her if she cycles backwards. She laughed at the obvious answer: “Not at all”. I then asked her if she walks sideways when she plays golf. I could almost see the light bulb in her brain switch on! All of Donna’s athletic endeavors focus on forward movement of the hips and legs, to the detriment of the development of her full and complete range of strength and flexibility in these areas.
Donna is certainly not alone. Although our hips are capable of movement and strength in several directions, our everyday activities and many sports favor forward movement. I taught Donna the Yoga Tune Up® pose Half Happy Baby Minivini, found on the 5 Minute Quick Fix for Hips video. Half Happy Baby Minivini, a variation of happy baby pose, will stretch and strengthen your hips and allow you to experience hip mobility in many directions while in a reclined position supported by the floor.
It may have been a long time since you have moved your hips in these directions. Like a “happy baby” exploring their world, you will rediscover the potential of your body, especially your hips!
So true that the repetitive motion of our hips is in one-directional. It makes sense that this would cause imbalance and pain.
I cycle a lot. I’m going to add this to my post cycle stretch and cool down.
I love Happy Baby pose even more now that I realize how it helps balance my cycling and jogging.
My hips are tight from spinning. What poses other than happy baby pose would help undo the tightness in my hips?
I have really tight hips I will definitely try this.
I once heard David Life give a lecture on the importance of backbends, emphasizing that we are a future- and forward-driven society. Do we ever bend backwards to pick up a dollar bill on the ground? No! Everything is forward. This is a nice article, because while I know about the importance of backbending, I forget that it’s important to move other parts of our bodies in other directions as well, even though I do it in a daily yoga practice.
I have genuinely enjoyed reading your articles. I find them very insightful.
Half Happy Baby Mini Vini is one of the best ‘GET IT ALL IN ONE GO’ type of poses-flushing out the hip with blood and tremendously improving circulation.This pose is truly designed one to feel good,so you can sleep better,walk better and feel so much better in your own hips!
I recently noticed that my long time yoga practice has left me flexible and strong in very specific ways–I definitely have blind spots. The thing I love about Yoga Tune Up poses is that they stray from the straight and narrow and get into uncharted territory.
I love how you encouraged your student to solve her hip problems on her own. You have empowered her from the start! That is what YTU is about for me – taking responsibility for my self care. Seeking out the patterns in daily life that perpetuate constant issues and doing something about it. I feel like i now have the tools, the simple tools, to start working not only on my self but hopefully to help others help themselves too!
Thank you Nancy!
Happy Happy Baby Minivini is a wonderful sequence, and the act of going through its many ranges of motion always brings smiles into the class.We can just ‘vini’ away back and forth or pause and dig in on an interesting spot. Since learning it from Jill, I’ve used it at the start of class to warmup in the hips, the legs and core. It provides lots of safe self-assessment of our body’s state right now and a great way to prepare for everything else.
Happy baby pose is one of my favorite poses. I, too, am a runner and cyclist and have really tight hips as a result. Whenever I’m in the yoga studio I make sure to incorporate happy baby into my practice. Since this incorporation, I notice that my hips are able to actually move other directions aside from front and back.
I used to do more conventional exercise prior to my yoga practice-I think I need to return in some way to some of these. I now feel that I am armed with the tools to prepare and repair my body from the many things I utilize it for. Hips are such a problem area for many people.