Well, I'd like to live in a world where you post on a paintball review site, you post about paintball. But, I live in a world run by Covid-19 and my almost 3 year old son. For your reading pleasure I give you my experiences with a month of DDP Yoga. Overall I am very satisfied with the program and think the flexibility and strength I've gained can translate to more enjoyable playtime on the paintball field.
What is DDP Yoga?
Great question. I will assume you've heard of yoga. Previous to this program I would run across yoga as part of a cool down exercise after working out with a trainer or at the end of a 'bootcamp' YouTube video. It's mostly stretching I felt... For folks who wanted to look fancier than doing normal stretches.
DDP stands for Diamond Dallas Page.
Yes, the wrestler. I thought wrestling was pretty cool when I was 5 and again when I was 14. At 14 I vaguely remember this DDP guy showing up in the WCW NWO days. Apparently he was/is kind of a big deal if you like wrestling.
How did you hear about this?
Back when I was 5 one of the wrestlers I loved was Jake the Snake. Hulu had a documentary streaming a while back called, "The Resurrection of Jake The Snake." Long story short, this DDP guy works to rehab Jake from a crippled drunk to a happy/healthy member of society. It blew me away.
Enter Covid
A few months later, Covid is firing on all cylinders. My 2 year old is getting more and more active and moving around to play with him is doable, but feels a lot like a chore. I'm gaining a bit of weight, nothing crazy but overall not feeling super great, kind of depressed as my wife and I juggle jobs and daycare five days a week (we are still lucky to have jobs that can be done remotely). I know my body well enough to know I needed to make a change but what to do when the gym, workout groups and in-person trainers are not possible meant looking on YouTube for workouts.
YouTube Workouts
I tried a few different videos and settled on about a month doing videos from Sydney Cummings. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVQ...7It_pEv6tn-jdA. What I liked about the channel was the depth of videos was really nice. She's got videos whether you've got 10 minutes to work out or an hour. Get a workout for your summer bikini or high intensity interval workouts.
While I was feeling a little stronger my weight wasn't seeing any stable loss. I also felt like I was getting a lot of random joint pains after certain workouts and a lot of soreness the next day which could impede playing with my kid... which was kind of the point of doing all this anyway.
The DDP program
At its core DDP Yoga is a combination of dynamic tension exercises, isometrics and yoga positions. There is an emphasis on using a heart rate monitor while exercising so one can tell if they're under or over their optimum heart rate. If you're too low, you should try upping the dynamic/isometric tension. If your heart rate is too high, you can back down.
At 35 I haven't had any major issues but the program also tries to cater to people who have previous injuries and mobility issues. During the workouts trainers are really good about showing alternative ways to do a pose or exercise.
The App
I use the app on iOS and via the web app. I could talk about the app for a whole review on its own. I will spare you that. What I like is there are lots of workouts available, they are downloadable, DDP has a inspiration/motivation section, nutrition section with lots of recipes for eating better and a ton of workouts that cater to folks who can't get out of bed under their own power to folks looking for ultra mega hardcore workouts. It works well with heart rate monitors, I've tested it with a generic one from Amazon and my Apple Watch. Your heart rate stats show up as you workout on your phone/iPad and they're tracked for you to review after the workout.
Personally, I prefer tracking my workouts using the Apple Yoga or Core Training exercises. They seem to be more accurately. I have a feeling this is a limitation of the iOS 3rd party exercise API than laziness on the part of DDP's dev team.
Here's an example in of a typical Sydney Cummings Bootcamp style workout vs DDP Yoga routine:
Sydney:
Here's DDP:
While not a perfect cross comparison, you can see the DDP workout started to cool down at about 2pm... It's a pretty good representation of how my body reacts to one workout vs the other. You can see with the usual bootcamp style video I'm getting 30 more calories out of my workout than I do with DDP, however... My body is so much happier after a DDP workout, no soreness, no aching feet or joints, I can do multiple DDP workouts a day without feeling dead.
Other Changes
Per suggestions of the DDP, I've mostly given up drinking. I was probably averaging 1 drink every other day pre-Covid, and was easily hitting 1 to 2 a day before starting DDP. I'm also drinking a gallon of water each day. Biggest thing I've noticed drinking this much water is my body isn't dying for coffee every morning. In fact, I'm off coffee these days too. DDP suggests gluten-free but come on... Pizza, ramen, toast... Not going away any time soon.
Results
So overall I've responded well to the program. My strength and flexibility feels way better than I can remember. Especially my neck and posture feel better. I recently did some strenuous up/down hill hiking with the kiddo on my back and expected my muscles and joints to hate me the next day but they felt fine. I'm down 8 pounds or so, weight loss is not my aim and it's too soon to say if that loss of wait is going to stick around or not. I'm really interested to see how things progress.
Conclusion
Well, if you stuck around this long I encourage you to check out DDP Yoga's website and see if it might be something you're interested. In They don't have a referral program as far as I know (and don't care if they do) I just wanted to share some positive experiences I've had with something in an otherwise shitty year.
What is DDP Yoga?
Great question. I will assume you've heard of yoga. Previous to this program I would run across yoga as part of a cool down exercise after working out with a trainer or at the end of a 'bootcamp' YouTube video. It's mostly stretching I felt... For folks who wanted to look fancier than doing normal stretches.
DDP stands for Diamond Dallas Page.
Yes, the wrestler. I thought wrestling was pretty cool when I was 5 and again when I was 14. At 14 I vaguely remember this DDP guy showing up in the WCW NWO days. Apparently he was/is kind of a big deal if you like wrestling.
How did you hear about this?
Back when I was 5 one of the wrestlers I loved was Jake the Snake. Hulu had a documentary streaming a while back called, "The Resurrection of Jake The Snake." Long story short, this DDP guy works to rehab Jake from a crippled drunk to a happy/healthy member of society. It blew me away.
Enter Covid
A few months later, Covid is firing on all cylinders. My 2 year old is getting more and more active and moving around to play with him is doable, but feels a lot like a chore. I'm gaining a bit of weight, nothing crazy but overall not feeling super great, kind of depressed as my wife and I juggle jobs and daycare five days a week (we are still lucky to have jobs that can be done remotely). I know my body well enough to know I needed to make a change but what to do when the gym, workout groups and in-person trainers are not possible meant looking on YouTube for workouts.
YouTube Workouts
I tried a few different videos and settled on about a month doing videos from Sydney Cummings. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVQ...7It_pEv6tn-jdA. What I liked about the channel was the depth of videos was really nice. She's got videos whether you've got 10 minutes to work out or an hour. Get a workout for your summer bikini or high intensity interval workouts.
While I was feeling a little stronger my weight wasn't seeing any stable loss. I also felt like I was getting a lot of random joint pains after certain workouts and a lot of soreness the next day which could impede playing with my kid... which was kind of the point of doing all this anyway.
The DDP program
At its core DDP Yoga is a combination of dynamic tension exercises, isometrics and yoga positions. There is an emphasis on using a heart rate monitor while exercising so one can tell if they're under or over their optimum heart rate. If you're too low, you should try upping the dynamic/isometric tension. If your heart rate is too high, you can back down.
At 35 I haven't had any major issues but the program also tries to cater to people who have previous injuries and mobility issues. During the workouts trainers are really good about showing alternative ways to do a pose or exercise.
The App
I use the app on iOS and via the web app. I could talk about the app for a whole review on its own. I will spare you that. What I like is there are lots of workouts available, they are downloadable, DDP has a inspiration/motivation section, nutrition section with lots of recipes for eating better and a ton of workouts that cater to folks who can't get out of bed under their own power to folks looking for ultra mega hardcore workouts. It works well with heart rate monitors, I've tested it with a generic one from Amazon and my Apple Watch. Your heart rate stats show up as you workout on your phone/iPad and they're tracked for you to review after the workout.
Personally, I prefer tracking my workouts using the Apple Yoga or Core Training exercises. They seem to be more accurately. I have a feeling this is a limitation of the iOS 3rd party exercise API than laziness on the part of DDP's dev team.
Here's an example in of a typical Sydney Cummings Bootcamp style workout vs DDP Yoga routine:
Sydney:
Here's DDP:
While not a perfect cross comparison, you can see the DDP workout started to cool down at about 2pm... It's a pretty good representation of how my body reacts to one workout vs the other. You can see with the usual bootcamp style video I'm getting 30 more calories out of my workout than I do with DDP, however... My body is so much happier after a DDP workout, no soreness, no aching feet or joints, I can do multiple DDP workouts a day without feeling dead.
Other Changes
Per suggestions of the DDP, I've mostly given up drinking. I was probably averaging 1 drink every other day pre-Covid, and was easily hitting 1 to 2 a day before starting DDP. I'm also drinking a gallon of water each day. Biggest thing I've noticed drinking this much water is my body isn't dying for coffee every morning. In fact, I'm off coffee these days too. DDP suggests gluten-free but come on... Pizza, ramen, toast... Not going away any time soon.
Results
So overall I've responded well to the program. My strength and flexibility feels way better than I can remember. Especially my neck and posture feel better. I recently did some strenuous up/down hill hiking with the kiddo on my back and expected my muscles and joints to hate me the next day but they felt fine. I'm down 8 pounds or so, weight loss is not my aim and it's too soon to say if that loss of wait is going to stick around or not. I'm really interested to see how things progress.
Conclusion
Well, if you stuck around this long I encourage you to check out DDP Yoga's website and see if it might be something you're interested. In They don't have a referral program as far as I know (and don't care if they do) I just wanted to share some positive experiences I've had with something in an otherwise shitty year.