Product: DDP Yoga

Who from: ‘DDP Yoga’ is brought to you by former wrestler, actor and now turned Yoga-entrepreneur ‘Diamond’ Dallas Page, or as he is better known to his legions of fans, ‘D.D.P’! Dallas discovered yoga through his wife, while he was rehabbing an injury he had sustained in the ring. He was approaching the age where the majority of performers typically were forced to retire due to the effects of injuries and wear and tear accumulated from wrestling. However, Dallas found that through yoga, he managed to get into the best shape of his life. He went on to win the title when he returned to the ring and continued to perform in the top tier of wrestling for years after. It was at this point that Dallas realised the benefits of yoga and how it can can change people’s life. He realised that he could help so many people but first he would need to shift the unfortunate stigma that yoga had gathered over the years and find a way to get the masses into yoga and build a hot body. This lead to ‘DDP Yoga’ being born!

What is it: ‘DDP Yoga’ is a type of yoga that originated as ‘Yoga for the Guys’ (or my favourite term for it – ‘Broga’!) but it has gradually evolved over time into a badass, low impact, challenging yet calming, awesome workout program for anyone of any age or fitness level. It can either be performed as an accompaniment to your fitness plan or it can be the only workout you do and still see a great transformation to your body.

‘DDP Yoga’ uses what is known as Dynamic Resistance. What is that you ask? Well, I’ll let DDP answer that:

“Dynamic Resistance is what makes DDP Yoga so powerful and so unique. I guess you could call it my “secret sauce.” You don’t need weights, bands or gadgets; the only resistance equipment you need is your body, because dynamic resistance uses counteracting muscles to continuously resist your movement. In simple terms, it’s like flexing all of your muscles as you move from one position to another. Dynamic resistance increases your heart rate and gets you into your Fat Burning zone. It converts slow moving, easy activity into fat-blasting muscle toning that quickly builds a sexy, slender, strong body.”

‘DDP Yoga’ basically involves you performing a range of moves (which are dependant on the pack purchased), keeping certain muscles tensed as you move, while at the same time, you control your breathing. Sounds simple, right? Try it! Dallas has formulated the workout so that you work the entire body, challenge yourself (regardless of your fitness), burn fat , build muscles (many that you miss in typical workout programmes) and be pumped up enough to do it again at the end of the move set without putting any pressure or strain on your joints and limbs.

Basically, it does this sort of thing – what could you do with ‘DDP Yoga?’:

What do you get with it:

(Full Disclosure – I was given a free copy to review after I interviewed DDP. To listen to the interview, click here)

With the entry-level pack, you get:

• A handy wall chart showing all of the basic moves and the movement transitions, which looks great on your wall. This is great for a reference tool.
• The DVD’s in cool envelope sleeves that are colourful and inspiring.
• A great user manual. It is littered with handy tips on nutrition, how to perform the moves, exercise timetabling, lifestyle and so on. It is written with DDP’s unique sense of personality and passion. I won’t go into great detail about the manual here but suffice to say, I would have happily bought this as an additional purchase to the DVD’s, due to the quality of it.

How did I find it?

Pro’s

• Open to all: You can start it, at any age, any gender and almost fitness level. ‘DDP Yoga’ is an unbiased exercise platform that is open to anyone and can still change anyone’s life. There really is no entrance requirements to start. It doesn’t matter who you are or what your history is, ‘DDP Yoga’ will improve you. It helps fix your posture, make you more flexible and stronger and have a number of additional benefits to the rest of your life (including having sex – trust me, it really helps!).
• Very Inspiring Guy: You can’t help but find Dallas very inspiring. There is just something about him, that when he talks, you get drawn in. He’s full of energy, passion and personality. DDP does a great job of explaining the moves and his yoga in a way that motivates you to workout. When you watch it, it’s like he’s your own personal trainer, which as a wrestling fan is awesome!
• Hot Girls: One of the things that draws you in are the demonstrators. Not only are they in great physical shape, give great demonstrations of the exercise and with such passion and vitality but they are also really, really hot! What more can you want from such a programme – great workout and hot babes! With ‘DDP Yoga’ you get both in droves!

• Very descriptive & Informative: Dallas expertly explains all the moves, with very descriptive terms and terminology but he does so in a way that you can feel if you are doing them right or wrong. I have used many programmes in my time but the majority just give you instructions of how to do something and it is up to you to figure out if you are doing it right. Not ‘DDP Yoga’. In this programme, Dallas describes how you should feel, how the muscles should feel inside your body and so on. Dallas does an awesome job of helping you get the most from this programme by submerging you as deeply into it as possible.
• Gives Examples: Something I really liked was the way that someone else would demonstrate and Dallas would explain what was a good or bad way of doing the exercise and Dallas would break down the exercise and show the muscles being used. This allowed me to get a deeper understanding of the exercise and know whether I was doing it right or wrong. It was great as by Dallas doing this style of explanation, you become more in tune with your body as you feel the exercise rather than try and do as you remember.
• Cool Names: One of the problems that I found with original yoga were the names. They were all so flowery and either too spiritual or girly for my taste. It was hard to take it serious when you were told to get into certain positions that made you question your masculinity. However, with ‘DDP Yoga’ its different. There is still some traditional yoga terminology in there but Dallas has mixed this up with names taken from wrestling holds and the like. It’s hard not to smirk with coolness as you perform moves with names like ‘Road Warrior’, ‘Thunderbolt’ and my favourite the ‘Diamond Cutter’ (where you make DDP’s trademarked wrestling taunt … in a yoga pose!). This is a great idea as we no longer associate his yoga with what ‘the girls’ do but instead as a exercise programme to get into a badass shape.
• It doesn’t take long: I started noticing subtle changes in my body, pretty much from the first few weeks of performing the programme. You notice little bits of fat leave here and there and your muscles feel like they can contract tighter and overall you feel fitter and stronger, with spikes in how flexible you are. Yet, you hardly feel as if you are working out. Too often, a workout programme must be followed for a few months to see any changes and the impact it has on your body causing you to stop due to fatigue or wear and tear. However, with ‘DDP Yoga’ you start to look and feel awesome pretty much from the start with no strain on your joints, no real drain on your energy levels and no equipment needed – you can literally do it anywhere. The workouts are very short and with a lot of variety in the moves too so you won’t get bored very easily either.
• Different Levels of the Exercises: A lot of the exercises chosen can be altered to suit differing levels of fitness. For example, the slow push-ups can be done either with the legs fully extended or on the knees. This customisation to suit various fitness levels, allows the programme to be available to all people regardless of how fit they currently are. It was cool to see on the DVD how originally some of the demonstrators struggled when they started the programme and how far they had come after following the programme for a while.

Con’s

• True Test of Fitness: The thing with ‘DDP Yoga’ is that it seems easy. ‘DDP Yoga’ seems like something that your average meathead will think they can do easily. However, ‘DDP Yoga’ really shows you how fit you truly are. Dalla’s yoga removes all equipment, it removes the ability to cheat, all excuses, all bullshit. With ‘DDP Yoga’ it shows you your true fitness level. You can’t lie to yourself anymore. It will show you where the flaws in your fitness are and what you need to work on. However with the change you see from performing ‘DDP Yoga’ and Dallas being in your fitness tag team, you will be soon shooting for fitness gold!
• Breathing: It was very difficult at times to remember about the demonstrate breathing patterns. There is an introductory video on breathing and then it is not mentioned during the exercise demonstrations. I think that it would helped if how to breathe during the exercise was mentioned at the same time as how to do the exercise. This way, you would learn the moves and lock in the breathing technique as you learned the moves. Breathing sounds so simple but when you have so much else to concentrate on, it would have helped to have even a gentle reminder about breathing now and then when they were explaining the exercises.
• Difficult to keep up at times: There were times when Dallas would perform an exercise (or a demonstrator would) and demonstrate the full movement through and then you were invited to perform the same move with him after watching the demonstrations. Unfortunately, not all of the moves were like this. Some went straight into you being asked to do the move at the same time. I found myself occasionally clicking the DVD back to watch it again and to perform the move at the correct time, which was a slight annoyance.
• No mention of how to pick out workout spots: Something that I found was missing from the introduction, was there was no mention of how to pick out your exercise location. The movements require you to stretch your body and limbs, which can mean going on all fours, stretching out arms and legs and so on. You need to pick an area that is clutter free, away from breakables etc to work out in. I had to reposition where I was as I was too big for the area beside my writing desk! A few minutes explaining the sort of space to work out in would have helped e.g. find an area that you can stretch your arms out in all directions or something similar.
• You will get jealous!: The demonstrators and Dallas himself are very fit people. There is no getting away from that. The ease that they get into positions was great to watch but can be draining at you as you try and put your sweaty self into a similar pose! However, the jealousy merely spurns you on to try harder and get to their level! You want to create a great body like Dalla’s and use it to get the yoga hotties that are in the videos!

OK, tell me straight – Is it Worth the money in a few words?

Hell Yes! Cards on the table, I got a free copy of the first level ‘DDP Yoga’. But I would have more than happily paid for it. I really cannot state how much quality I feel comes with ‘DDP Yoga’. It gets you into great shape but doesn’t drain you or pound your body like weights and the like do. You feel clearer in your mind, you are more flexible and you get a great body to attract hot chicks with. I haven’t found a downside yet! I would wholeheartedly recommend ‘DDP Yoga’ to anyone, including my mates and I am now proud to say I do yoga and it’s helping me to become a badass!

OK, I want it, where do I get it?

If you want to be part of the cool kids, you can pick up DDP Yoga, by clicking here.

You can follow Dallas on Twitter here and Like him on Facebook here.

The following are recordings of my interview with DDP. Sadly, I was using a awful call recorder back then so I only have the audio on these youtube videos but I will have a proper audio player copy up soon.