FanPost

DDP Yoga: An incredibly long, totally amazing review

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Just a note. I am including all parts of my DDP Yoga review in this post. For those of you who have been following along thus far, feel free to skip to the end, since everything before it has already been posted. Just posting the entire thing for anyone who hasn't yet seen what I have written.

DDP Yoga

To start, a little about me. I was a baseball player from the age of 3. I always played at a high level, and kept myself in good shape. After graduating high school, I went on to pitch in Junior College baseball. I had never taken school very seriously, and didn’t realize till it was too late that even the best athletes need some kind of grades to play at a 4 year college. My first year of college, I was in shape and came in at a healthy 6 foot 4, 225 pounds. While throwing a bullpen in front of a scout from San Diego, I hyperextended my left knee and tore my ACL, MCL and dislocated my kneecap. Surgery was recommended, but at the time I wasn’t the most forward thinking 17 year old & decided "screw it, college sucks anyway". I didn’t get the surgery, dropped out of school, and quit playing the thing that had defined me for the last 14 years. My completely shot knee led to years of apathy and sitting on my ass, with the excuse always being that I couldn’t run or workout because my knee was wrecked.

At the time of writing this, I am weighing in at a very rotund 313 pounds. I’ve always been a very confident person, but lately I’ve decided that enough was enough.

After many unsuccessful attempts at getting myself into better shape, I finally broke down and decided to give DDP Yoga a shot. After all the good things I had heard, and the failures I have had, I figured I had nothing to lose. This is an account of my first week using the program. Hopefully this will help anyone out there who is on the fence or even a little bit interested in trying out the program.

Note that I will be writing this in real time – I figured it would be a more honest account if I sat down and wrote how I was feeling after each workout.

DAY 0 –

I received the basic DDP Yoga set on Monday, June 9. Considering I ordered it late Thursday night, I was pretty happy with the quick arrival. Inside there is one DVD, a GIANT poster detailing all of the "Diamond Dozen" moves (the core positions that DDP Yoga is based around), and a 49 page program guide.

The first thing I did was thumb through the guide and get a little bit better idea of what the hell I had just gotten myself into. First impression: This guy Diamond Dallas Page is relentlessly positive. And, having watched him growing up, it’s almost impossible to read his 3 page into without hearing it in his voice. The guide includes a week-by-week plan on how to approach the workouts, with 3 different levels of intensity. There is also an incredibly in-depth guide on nutrition and the "right" way to eat. Needless to say, I was amazed by how terrible my eating habits were just from reading this alone.

The program guide seems like it will be the most important tool in this journey. Reading through it, it seems almost impossible to fail if I can just follow the simple, laid out in ink instructions. One of the things I was worried about was having them just ship me a DVD and say "figure it out". That is definitely not the case here.

Another thing I should point out and mention is the online community that comes with DDP Yoga. Once you purchase it, you get a link to join the forum. There, I have found the most positive and inspiring people imaginable. Everyone there is in the same spot I am – simply wanting to improve their life and its quality. 1 day after signing up, I had received welcome messages from several different people, including DDP himself. Now, it was an automatically generated message, but it was still pretty cool to be instantly welcomed like that.

I received this later in the day on Monday, and since RAW is on in a few hours & I have some work to be done from home, I will be starting Workout 1 (The Diamond Dozen) on Tuesday. Here’s hoping that coward Seth Rollins gets what’s coming to him tonight. More to follow after the first workout tomorrow.

Day 1 –

Wow. I started the first recommended workout tonight, and it kicked my ass. By the end of the roughly 35 minute intro to the program, I was whooped. The starting point, and core of DDP Yoga, is a workout called the Diamond Dozen. The Diamond Dozen consists of 13 separate moves. This is less of a "workout" and more of a tutorial on the moves necessary to complete the rest of the workouts. Nevertheless, this "tutorial" left my heart rate racing and sweat pouring out of me.

One of the things you’ll notice right away when using the DVD is how oddly charming Dallas Page is. Obviously it’s a recording, but it still feels like he’s talking directly at you. This is especially true during moments when your body is shaking during a particular move and he shouts out "I know your body is shaking, it’s supposed to!" That caught me a little off guard – how the hell did he know I was shaking?!

It is a little odd hearing him refer to the program as YRG fitness. The DVD’s were most likely recorded back when the program was referred to as that and they haven’t recorded a new set with the more widely known DDP Yoga name. But, that is a small detail that probably only matters to me.

Needless to say, I am extremely satisfied with my first day. My body feels good, and I feel like I just had the kind of workout that I hadn’t been through in years – and I didn’t have to leave my house or lift a single weight to get it. I was a little worried that I might be put off the "guy doing Yoga" stigma, but Dallas does a fantastic job of making you feel extremely comfortable with everything going on.

While I woke up with a fair amount of aches and pains, it wasn’t anything unbearable. I definitely see why they recommend to take a day off after doing the first lesson, however.

Obviously, this is about results over times. I wrote this as a way to give an idea of how the program gets started. I’ll be writing another in a week or so to give an update of how things or going. If anything, writing these are keeping me accountable. So far, though, I would recommend this to anyone who is interested.

The First Week –

I’ve been able to spend a week or so now with DDP Yoga. If I had followed the guide, that means I would have gotten about 3-4 workouts in during the span of a week. They suggest starting out slower and building up, in order to get your body acclimated and used to admittedly strenuous activity. Being stubborn and looking for quicker results, I only took one day off during the past week.

Part of the reasoning behind going all-out is because actually doing the workouts is addicting. After the first 2, there was a noticeable improvement in how I would feel waking up, including already feeling a reduction in the pain level in my knee. I have been mostly sticking with the Energy and Fat Burner workouts, which both take about 25-30 minutes to complete.

The first few times with these routines was tough. One thing, that may just be me, was neck pain. The neck pain had nothing to do with the workout – it stemmed from having to look up at the screen to see when DDP was moving into another position. Another minor annoyance was during the workouts, he goes into some moves that weren’t covered in the Diamond Dozen. They weren’t hard to learn, but it is a little jarring when you feel like you know what you’re doing and suddenly get a curveball thrown at you mid-workout.

The other reason I decided to work out every day instead of the recommended day-on, day-off method, is just my competitive nature. When I finish a workout and I have DDP yelling at me, "You can do this!" my brain just triggers a response that says "Damn right I can, and I’ll prove it again tomorrow".

Overall, this has been a successful week. As I have said before, I can’t recommend this enough to anyone interested in this. In my week with the program, I have already dropped 7 pounds. My goal going in was to drop 70 pounds over 6 months, and being 10% of the way to that goal in just a week is an incredible motivator to keep going. Obviously I know how weight loss works, and I know that I’m not going to just lose all my target weight in half the time. But being able to see results in just a weeks’ time, not to mention how much better my body feels overall, is a great ego boost. I will post the last part of this review once I have reached a month with the program.

A Full Month and a Half –

It’s been over a month since I have started the DDP Yoga system. Admittedly, there were days when I was too lazy to do my work outt. But it never lasted. I constantly had the urge to get in front of my TV and get a good sweat going. In my life, I have had many workout programs. Lifting weights, running, crazy diets, incredibly in depth programs for college athletes…none of them have left me feeling as satisfied and accomplished as the DDP Yoga program has.

I had my misgivings when I first started. I have never been one to believe the hype. When it comes to this, the hype is true. If you want to get in shape and improve your health, DDP Yoga WILL help you achieve that.

Since I started, I have gained increased flexibility. My faulty knee, which has troubled me for years, doesn’t give me the problems I once had. I can bend over and put my palms flat on the ground. I no longer have any back pain. And here is the important stat; I have lost THIRTY pounds since starting. In just over a month and half, I was able to accomplish almost half of my 6 month goal.

I spent $75 to use this program. And it’s the best money I have spent in a very long time.

The FanPosts are solely the subjective opinions of Cageside Seats readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cageside Seats editors or staff.