With its revolutionary approach to yoga and innovative, male-oriented instruction, Real Men Do Yoga will be the definitive guide for both novice and veteran men who are discovering the innumerable physical and mental benefits of yoga.

Satisfying the male fascination with sports and admiration for athletes are interviews with more than twenty pros, all of whom are enthusiastic yoga practitioners: football's Eddie George, Shannon Sharpe and Amani Toomer; baseball pitchers Barry Zito (2002 Cy Young Award winner) and Al Leiter, star hockey goalie Sean Burke and NBA superstar Kevin Garnett as well as pro golfers and tennis players.

Photos of sports stars doing yoga, such as football greats Dan Marino and Chris Carter, drive home a powerful message. Each chapter offers a combination of stretches and strength-builders that target and benefit specific areas:

• Conquering back pain (which afflicts an estimated 10 million men)
• Improving sports performance including yoga for golf, running, basketball, tennis and more
• Increasing flexibility in the upper body, spine and lower body
• Building muscle strength
• Improving sexual performance

In a sea of yoga books aimed at women, Real Men Do Yoga is an easily accessible, "non-New Agey" guidebook that takes something mysterious to American men and offers a reassuringly effective and practical guide that they'll actually use.

Average Customer Review: ( 22 customer reviews )
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I've been practicing Yoga for about 7 years now daily. I used to be intensely involved in weight training and I'm in much better shape and feel a hundred times better doing Yoga than I did before. There are several reasons for this.

First of all, you can do Yoga every day which means you can feel great every day. In my case I vary the intensity of my practice, some days more of a power routine and other days more of a gentle approach to stay physically "open". You are truly as young as your spine is (and your joints, muscles, ligaments (etc.) as well

Second, it involves whole body movements so you are not overtraining any one area. While you certainly aren't going to get the size that you will from weight training, you will get incredibly muscular everywhere. My torso has more subtle definition from daily yoga than my former weight training regimen.

You also get whole body, "real life" strength. You learn to work with your body in an integrated fashion that will help you in your day to day movements. Even if you are doing very physical work you'll find you can do it more effectively because your body works cohesively.

Third, you learn how to breathe more completely. This helps with stress, fatigue and also your ability to focus.

Fourth, if you do a vigorous vinyasa style of yoga several times a week (one that is continuously flowing) you CAN actually get a pretty intense cardio workout (this is my only point of disagreement with the author who thinks you still need a separate cardio practice). Sure, your heart isn't going to be pushed as hard as if you are running or biking, but from my own experience I have found tremendous cardio benefits from a vigorous yoga practice. You will push yourself enough to get a serious sweat going and raise your heart rate up to a higher yet safe rate without putting yourself into a situation of "overwhelm".

While I'm sure there are many who will disagree with this, there have been studies that show that serious yoga practitioners have excellent cardio scores when tested.

Of course there are multiple other benefits of yoga in general but now I want to speak about this book in particular.

This book is a great introduction to yoga, whether you are a man or a woman. It has sound and clear instruction,is actually more thorough than I expected it to be, and it is a book that many men might be inclined to read who otherwise wouldn't give yoga a chance.

The short vignettes throughout of various world class atheletes as well as men who do yoga just to enhance their regular lives (as well as their "weekend" sports activities) helps bring yoga into the realm of real people.

My only complaint, and it's a VERY small one, is that sometimes I find that the author "tries too hard" to appeal to a certain "jock" mentality in his use of language. It seemed a bit forced to me and actually geared to a "locker room" mentality. It's not that he uses profanity, its just that he sounds like he's speaking to idiots from time to time and I found it annoying.

I happen to be a huge football fan in general and a Tennessee Titans fan in particular and can assure you that if you've ever heard Eddie George speak (who is on the cover of the book) he is highly intelligent and extremely well spoken. This goes as well for many other professional atheletes (such as Defensive end for the Titans Kevin Carter, who is another Yoga Junkie).

So I would've liked the book more with less forced "jock talk" and language geared more towards intelligent men who are also sports junkies as well as interested in their physical well being.

Still, the content of the book more than makes up for this shortcoming and that is why I still gave it the five stars it deserves.

Highly recommended!

17 of 18 found the following review helpful:

Change your life...Oct 27, 2003

I can't say how positive I am about this book. As a former semi-pro soccer player spreading into middle age a little faster than I would like, I've been trying to build an exercise program that improved my strength and flexibility but spared my creaking joints.

I'd always been interested in yoga, but had always been put off by yoga books, which invariably come larded with new age gobblegook and stuffed with photographs of super-fit contortionists, none of whom seem to have a body anything like mine.

Real Men Do Yoga comes good on all counts. It's written with humor, intelligence and an awareness of what concerns men approaching yoga for the first time. It demystifies yoga - the photos feature an identifiably regular guy - while explaining clearly and interestingly how it can help the ordinary jock. And it is wonderfully good at helping anyone who wants to integrate yoga into a broader exercise regime. At the risk of sounding new agey, I'd say that, given time, this book might just change my life.

12 of 12 found the following review helpful:

Give RMDY to the Man in your LifeOct 24, 2003

Well it is about time someone wrote such an easily accessible book for us finally. When I speak about us, I am speaking about the male athlete or martial artist who has looked at this yoga stuff as some kind of revisited new age and trendy workout for either sexy models or contortionist. In all actuality, Yoga was traditionally only practiced by the Brahmin males of India.

My own personal journey towards yoga includes receiving All American recognition as a college football player as well as a long time practicing martial artist. In my early 30�s I began to feel the tremendous physical abuse I had subjected my body to throughout the years. My shoulders ached so painfully at night, I couldn�t sleep. It was time to start taking a look at other alternative methods of staying in shape outside of bench presses, bicep curls and protein shakes, which in all actuality just maintained my inflating waistline.

It was time for a much needed change, which first led me to return to the martial arts, explore Tai Chi and finally Yoga. At 240 plus lbs, you have a tendency to stand out in the middle of yoga class that usually consists of about 85% women. I loved the energy and atmosphere so much, it inspired me to participate in a yoga teachers training program and eventually open my own tai chi and yoga center in New York City. This summer, after purchasing RMDY we now dedicate Thursday evenings to a men's practice. This wonderful book is timely, speaking directly to the modern male athlete, although anyone would benefit from reading this book as it strips away the stereotypes while focusing on the real benefits of practicing yoga, which include greater flexibility, strength and balance. And the list of names and pictures of well-known professional athletes utilizing this ancient Eastern practice is mind blowing. I wish this book would have been accessible to me 20 years ago, but I guess there is time for everything. Highly recommended...

5 of 5 found the following review helpful:

Real Men Do YogaSep 22, 2003
By Terry McKenna
Great book! I currently weight-train and study martial arts. After reading "Real Men Do Yoga" I now understand how yoga will serve as the perfect bridge that will allow me to take the next step by getting more out of my workouts.

"Real Men Do Yoga" is a wonderful book since it gets straight to the point, de-mystifies the misperceptions surounding yoga, provides easy to follow instructions with supporting illustrations, and has great testimonials from some of today's great athletes.

If you're concered about your physical well-being, get this book. You'd be foolish not to.

5 of 5 found the following review helpful:

Use of Professional Athletes Oversells Basic ConceptsOct 04, 2008
By Scott Schiefelbein
Full disclosure - I am a complete newbie when it comes to yoga. This probably explains why I picked up this book in the first place - an experienced yoga practitioner probably doesn't need to turn to a book for guidance.

But as a newbie, I can highly recommend this book for its easy-to-understand yet comprehensive walk-through of basic yoga.

At first, I was turned off by the use of famous professional athletes in this book. I prided myself on being from a more cynical generation than my parents, where they bought Mr. Coffee because Joe DiMaggio was its spokesman. So I was bit turned off by the prominent photos of Eddie George and Dan Marino, to name but two of the prominent athletes depicted in this book. I'm well aware that pro athletes will do anything for a buck, so their pictures in the book did nothing to impress me.

But then I read the book, and the athletes' testimonials started to make sense when I started to understand the exercises described in its pages. And thanks to those thorough - yet basic! - explanations, I have been able to start my first yoga routines.

And that's saying something, because I'm the last guy that anyone would expect to pick up yoga - stiff as a board, father of two young girls with no free time whatsoever.

But this book worked for me. It lays out reasonable explanations of why I should do these exercises. No mysticism, no tapping into my inner being, just good plain common sense - even in the section about meditation!

If you're an experienced yoga practitioner, this is probably not the book for you. But if you're a guy and you're looking to give yoga a shot, this is one of the better books you can pick up. It's educational, cautious (no "You'll look better and start turning heads in 10 days!" promises), and yet optimistic about the benefits yoga can provide to the average American male who gives it a try.

All in all, well worth the investment.

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