Carsten’s Log

Yoga for Regular Guys

Now I thought I’m quite fit. I work out a bit each day, and although I never get caught in a Gym, I’ll do my strengthening exercises, pushups, chin ups and squats almost daily. But when I found YRG on the internet, I became intrigued and ordered the DVD straight away. Much to my surprise it arrived just 3(!) days after I’ve ordered it, which is phenomenal, considering that normally an order from Amazon takes up to 6 weeks(!) to arrive here in Australia. So I guess there must be some synergistic effect at work here.

Anyway, today was my second day doing the 20 minutes workout, and I’m really impressed. My back muscles ache like as if I’ve never trained before and my quads almost killed me during the lunge touchdown (aka Superstar). I am having as much fun doing the workout as the guys and girls on the set and I’ll post my progress. At this time I couldn’t imagine doing the 60 or 40 minute workout that also came on the DVD.

So what is this YRG? Well, there’s this huge guy, Diamond Dallas Page, a former heavy weight ‘world’ champion in staged wrestling. He started his wrestling career at 35, an old age really when most other wrestlers already retire. When at the crown of his career he ruptured two vertebral discs in his lumbar spine he couldn’t even bend to tie his shoes, his wrestling career seemed to be over. Then his wife got him to do Power Yoga and after a few months doing this consistently he got back his flexibility and core strength and stepped back into the ring to become 3 times ‘world’ champion. Now I’m not into wrestling, as this is very much an american thing, but having a big guy like this preaching Yoga is very interesting indeed. So he developed his own style of Yoga to include more strengthening and cardio elements so that it would appeal to the ‘regular guy’. The moves are all Yoga moves but he’s given them new names that are easier to remember like ‘Road Warrior’, ‘Touchdown’, ‘Superstar’ and of course the ‘Diamond Cutter’ which is his trademark from his wrestling career. Also he really stresses the importance of breathing correctly in and out of the movements and makes you contract all your muscles isokinetically to achieve a strenghtening and cardio effect. I think it rocks. And that is only partly because of his great personality, but mostly because it is a challenging and entertaining workout.