Most approaches to fitness training use predominantly the large muscles of the lower body, especially in the pursuit of cardio-vascular fitness. Cycling, jogging, studio workouts and even so-called military fitness, despite what you might have thought, place the vast majority of their energy demand on the lower body muscles. Yet these are the exercise methods that most people will turn to for total-body fitness? The question is: can you really experience full-body vitality by practising training methods that under-utilise more than half the body’s muscles? Shouldn’t the upper body be more seriously involved in energy production? And, is it truly necessary to separate cardio training and strength training?
More than 30 years ago, Dragan Radovic (founder of the Fitness4x4® training method) began asking some of these challenging questions about exercise and fitness. He then spent the next three decades researching and discovering the answers first-hand, through a personal exploration into the very core of what it means to train for total-body vitality. His discoveries lead him to an approach to vitality training which he called Fitness4x4® and an incredibly powerful group-exercise class known as the Hour of Power®. These training methods have been practised by thousands of enthusiasts around the world in the 30years since its inception, with Dragan’s son Rajko spearheading the development of instructor training and evolved workout formats since the early 2000’s.
Dragan himself is now approaching 70years of age. He lives and trains in relative solitude in a mountainside retreat in Montenegro. He remains committed to demonstrating the extraordinary power of the Fitness4x4 Training Method, for the ordinary person – no matter their age or life circumstances. He does this by immersing himself in the ordinary challenges of life whilst continuing to expect the extraordinary from his training of himself and others. He trains how he has always trained: minimal time investment, maximum possible energy output. And the results continue to confound… and more importantly, to inspire.
Fitness4x4® borrows its name from the world of motor vehicles. In the same way that a 4×4 vehicle sends power to all 4 wheels instead of 2, in Fitness4x4® training the arms and the legs are powered equally by the heart and lungs to achieve the most efficient and effective fitness training imaginable. It is an approach to exercise that aims to combine the reality of the high-energy physical experience, with an intellectual understanding of how the whole body can respond to Cardio-Vascular training. Fitness4x4 seeks to provide as many people as possible with that experience and with those answers – in a way that does not over-complicate, over-mystify or indeed over-inflate itself. Hour of Power®, HOP® Evolutions; The Dragan Challenge™ , The 4x4Draganwalk™ and 4×4 Vertical Training™ are all part of that Fitness4x4® Approach. We invite you to learn more, find which one suits you best, and begin your journey to discovering peak fitness at any age.