According to our polls, most of you are fans of NBC's "The Biggest Loser" reality show. The popular series, now in its seventh season, has become its very own brand, turning out books, fitness products, and workout DVDs. I decided to try their latest DVDs so you can learn more about them before you buy. The newest title, Weight Loss Yoga features the "good guy" trainer from the show, Bob. He touts the benefits of yoga in multiple "Biggest Loser" episodes. So does his yoga workout live up to the hype?

The DVD itself contains five segments. I'm going to list them below (as described on the DVD package itself) and then give you my take on each.

Warm Up (5 minutes): A "stimulating series of gentle yoga stretches that increase blood flow and flexibility"
The warm up actually lasted almost 7 minutes, and gentle is right. I wouldn't technically call this a warm up. It didn't warm me up at all or elevate my heart rate. It was just stretching. I would have expected something a little more dynamic, such as a sun salutation series, which is a traditional way to start a yoga workout, but this was OK. I would have preferred something more than static stretches of cold muscles—that's not a very safe or effective way to stretch, but as long as you don't overdo it here, you'll probably be OK.

Yoga Level 1 (20 minutes): "Activate your core and elongate your body with Bob's calorie-burning vinyasa essential yoga poses."
This lasted closer to 25 minutes, and really was nothing like vinyasa yoga, which usually includes aggressive stretches, sun salutations and a clear connection of breath to movement. Bob repeated several of the same poses over and over (like plank, pushups, downward facing dog, and warrior poses), and you would usually hold each one for a long time. My shoulders were tired from this workout, as well as my wrists. A word of caution: he does several, long-held poses that involve placing your hands flat on the floor and holding your body weight. My wrists were killing me during this (he didn't mention that you could form fists to neutralize your wrists, but you can), and I think that anyone with carpal tunnel or other wrist problems wouldn't be able to make it through this workout.

Yoga Level 2 (15 minutes): "Take your practice to the next chakra with…fat-blasting moves that sculpt and define muscle."
Again, this lasted longer than the box says. Throughout this workout, Bob calls it "yoga-Pilates abs" and it was more like Pilates abs exercises. It was a well-rounded abs routine that didn't include a single crunch, which I liked. I actually thought this segment was best, but again, there were many of the same moves as the first part, including several planks and side planks. I had to take breaks because my wrists hurt so badly. And my abs were sore—in a good way—the next day.

Yoga Level 3 (10 minutes): "Follow a dynamic sequence of flowing poses that challenge your strength and stamina to shed pounds fast."
Surprise! You need dumbbells for this part, but the DVD box doesn't tell you that. This workout features the same poses as the first one, held in a static position (not a "dynamic" or "flowing" way), but it incorporates upper body strengthening moves with the lower body yoga poses. There were some triceps kickbacks combined with chair pose (a deep squat), biceps curls added to a warrior pose (a static lunge), and some more shoulder work and back work. I thought this segment was kind of fun, simply because the upper body weights added a new dimension to the poses. You could also do this segment without weights, but it would be like a less intense version of segment 1.

Cool Down (5 minutes): "…slow, calming stretches and…meditative cool down."
This is just a stretching segment. It was pretty thorough and relaxing. I know many people skip stretching or don't know what to do, so following this one by itself could be useful, too.

Overall, here is my list of pros and cons for this DVD:

Pro: Bob does help people modify the workout and some of the former contestants who do the workout with him do a modified version.

Con: Often, I noticed several contestants do the exercises in poor form, so unless you know how to do it correctly, you could be misguided by watching some of them.

Pro: Bob isn't annoying like many fitness instructors can be. He seems helpful and nice and like he wants you to succeed. There's no yelling or forcing you to do things. He always encourages you to do what you can.

Con: You can tell that Bob isn't a yoga instructor. He gives some odd instructions that you won't understand at first, causing you to contort to look back up at the TV to see what's going on, but the more you do this DVD, the more you'll remember what he really means to say. He also doesn't go much into the technicalities of the poses and only mentions breathing a couple times, although breathing should be front and center in a traditional yoga workout.

Pro: The whole DVD provides a good balance of flexibility, strengthening, and core exercises. Especially if you need to work on stretching, this could really help you.

Con: I would say that some parts of these workouts are probably too challenging for a lot of beginners.

While I did the entire workout DVD (about 60 minutes) in one sitting, I'd recommend breaking this up. The three segments do not build on each other, so you can do them in any order or combination. Segment 1 and the Cool Down are great for developing flexibility. You could do segment 2 as a core workout—it provides a lot of variety to traditional abs exercises. And you could do segment 3 for a short upper body sculpting routine.

The last point I wanted to mention is that Weight Loss Yoga is a title, very carefully aimed at getting people to buy a yoga DVD. There's nothing special about this workout that will result in weight loss. In fact, my heart rate was near a resting level (about 40-45% of my max) during the whole thing and I didn't break a sweat. It won't burn many calories, either, especially because most of the moves are very static—you don't move around a lot. That said, yoga and Pilates still have benefits, even if they don't burn tons of calories. I'd say the biggest benefit to this is that it might be people interested in yoga and encourage them to stretch more. Not every workout has to be intense, so it could be nice to do in conjunction with your well-rounded fitness program, on a day that you want to do some lighter exercise, or as part of your core and upper body strengthening workouts.

You can buy The Biggest Loser Weight Loss Yoga DVD on Amazon.com for less than $10!

Have you tried this DVD? Do you want to try Weight Loss Yoga?