A few years ago, wrestler Diamond Dallas Page felt the same way a lot of us do about yoga. How does twisting yourself into a pretzel and chanting gibberish help you get ripped and in shape? Well, he found out after rupturing discs in his lower back during a 1998 match with the New World Order; as Page likes to say, however you feel about wrestling, you can't fake gravity. He was in pain, inflexible and looking to get back into the ring when his wife suggested he try yoga. Soon DDP was hooked, teaching classes and feeling in the best shape of his life. "This is a quote from DDP and nobody else," he says. "Flexibility is youth, in the body and the mind." But don't think he went all New Age. His new book Yoga for Regular Guys is filled with serious yoga-based workouts tailored for men, along with plenty of pictures of stretching, sweating yoga babes. "This book is The Man Show meets yoga," DDP says. Playboy.com spoke to the former wrestling star and learned a few tricks about dominating a different kind of mat.

DDP's new workout, Yoga for Regular Guys (YRG), is a mixture of yoga, old-school calisthenics and isometric exercise designed to strengthen and tone your body, especially your torso and back. That makes man's favorite exercise, the pelvic thrust, feel stronger and last longer. See where he's going with this? And, once you're a yoga stud, you've got a line that can't be beat. "Tell a girl you'll take her through a workout and show her some yoga," he says. "Soon you're sweating and guiding her through some moves. Trust me, there's no other pickup like it."

Every guy who's tried to get into a workout routine is familiar with the Herculean task of simply getting to the gym on a regular basis, much less paying for membership. With yoga, you can get straight to sweating, no transportation hassles or down payment required. "By the time you go to the gym, change, lift and do cardio, you've got two hours invested," says Page. "And if you're a businessman on the road, forget it. But if you have 20 minutes, you have time for YRG."

Before he started doing yoga, DDP always pushed himself to the brink when he worked out. That's bad news, according to doctors, because working above your maximum aerobic heart rate means you're less efficient and will require more recovery time. Think of it in auto terminology -- when you overdo it at the gym, you're basically redlining. DDP incorporates the use of a heart rate monitor into his YRG workouts to improve efficiency and keep his body in the optimal fat-burning zone. "The heart monitor is your barometer," he says. "It gets you in the right place to lose the weight."

It's a yoga cliché, but proper breathing is required for proper workouts. If your body is going to be a fat-burning furnace, you have to get the air inside to stoke the fire. "Everyone thinks they know how to breathe, but they don't," says DDP. "There are many types of yoga breathing, but none works as well as deep belly breathing. You're breathing like a little baby, and if you can just do that, you will have more flexibility. You get into each position much deeper."

DDP won't lecture you on spirituality or finding inner peace. He just wants to kick your ass into gear and get you in shape, and that requires a lifestyle change, not just a temporary solution. "It's about the before and during," he says. "There's no after. That's when you're dead." He suggests making YRG a regular routine, along with eating organic foods and drinking plenty of water. "It helps turn back the hands of time."

Many yoga courses come with DVDs that lay out complete workout routines, but it would be a mistake to look and not learn. "You really need to have the book and read the whole thing cover to cover," DDP says. "There's so much knowledge you won't get off a DVD. Nobody explains things the way I do." And, no other yoga instructor includes a gallery of scantily clad yoga babes. It's the definition of easy reading.