Rajko was born in 1978 in the town of Hillingdon, West London. Though his early years consistently displayed the highest academic achievement, it was his achievement on the sports field that took centre stage. Leaving high school Rajko went on to compete at the highest level of Inter-Collegiate sport in both the UK and USA, playing 1st team volleyball, basketball and football (soccer) at two universities. It was also at this time that Rajko began pioneering his father’s Hour of Power workout, gaining an early reputation as a ‘fitness guru’. With packed classes of students and staff in what would become Loughborough University’s most successful fitness programme of the 2000’s, Rajko’s Hour of Power class continues to inspire students to this day.
Having worked as a fitness consultant to two health clubs, Rajko went on to produce the original Hour of Power home-workout DVD in 2004, travelling to Hawaii to join his father Dragan to train and shoot material for the new DVD. This DVD went on to sell independently at fitness conventions and challenges around the world, slowly but surely training up a growing fan-base for this phenomenal training method.
In 2005 however, Rajko stepped back from a career in sport and fitness to pursue a musical path and record an acoustic album. Having begun songwriting from the age of 17 and having performed professionally from the age of 21, for Rajko this was not a sudden transition to an unfamiliar career…however it was still a somewhat life-changing transition: (www.rajkomusic.com)
“In order to be taken seriously and be able to legitimately call myself a professional musician I decided that I needed to shift everything I was doing in a musical direction, and so I began teaching music by day and gigging by night, ensuring that all my income was coming from music.”
It was at this time that Rajko co-founded the music charity GigAid which continues to organise and promote music events to showcase new musical talent and raise funds for charitable causes. (www.gigaid.org.uk)
Throughout this period of music however, Rajko’s commitment to elite physical training never faltered and so in 2007 when he was given the opportunity to apply for the BBC’s Last Man Standing, it was an easy switch back into ‘athlete mode’ to take on the toughest challenge of his life. 14months, 12tribes, 6 athletes and some of the worlds toughest sports. Finishing tied for first place despite numerous potentially career ending injuries, Rajko was able to limp away from the experience with his pride intact:
“Many times I wished I could go back and repeat the experience without the injuries, and maybe do better…but perhaps the reality is that I learned much more about myself through the adversity and the struggle of coping with injuries and failures than I would have learned otherwise. In many ways the whole experience was like staring into a huge mirror everyday which exposed every single weakness, fear and limitation I had physically and mentally! But at the same time it was the most beautiful and unbelievable experience of my life, travelling with 5guys who became like brothers and meeting tribes-people who took me in like family.”
In 2009 having recovered from reconstructive knee surgery, several broken bones and a array of serious injuries sustained during the filming of Last Man Standing, Rajko approached fitness supplement giants ‘Maximuscle’ to sponsor the now infamous ‘Dragan Challenge’ – an event Rajko had been assisting his father with since 2003. Maximuscle jumped on board and officially launched the Maximuscle Dragan Challenge in 2010, sending father and son team across the UK to find the nation’s best new endurance lifters. The Grand Final event at the Bodypower Expo in Birmingham was a landmark day for Rajko and Dragan, showing perhaps for the first time in ten years that with training, the remarkable upper-body feats of strength and endurance were not a family genetic gift but rather simply the result of a radical shift in people’s understanding of fitness training”
“I think up until that Bodypower weekend, many people deep down believed that our Fitness4x4 training method was an interesting and unusual gift which was unique to us…but after that weekend I think a lot of people’s eyes were opened up to the fact that upper body strength/endurance is simply unchartered territory, and the only reason we have been ahead of the game is because my father was one of the first to begin exploring!”
Currently an ambassador for Maximuscle, as well as the Director of Fitness4x4 Ltd, Rajko is now in the process of launching the remarkable Hour of Power Workout Class across the UK. Having now trained up more than 100 Hour of Power instructors and with training courses selling out for 2011, the Hour of Power looks set to become the biggest phenomenon in studio-based fitness since Reebok Step Aerobics. In January 2011, with the help of Distribution giants DCD Media, Rajko will launch the new Hour of Power Fitness DVD, opening up this unique method to the UK home fitness market.
“There was a time when Hour of Power was something I only did with other people who were really serious about improving their fitness. But the reality of it now is that most of my friends and extended family do the class, no matter whether they are into sport and training, or not! I’ve taught Hour of Power to everyone from kids to senior citizens and honestly I have not found another training class which so readily and legitimately appeals to such a wide audience. I think that’s because it is such a genuine and non-gimmicky approach to exercise…and I think people are fed up with gimmicks”.
Outside of his work pioneering the Hour of Power, figureheading the Maximuscle Dragan Challenge and chasing new World Records in Endurance, Rajko divides his time between Music, Teaching and New Challenges.
As a ‘Well Being Advisor’ to schools, one of Rajko’s biggest personal goals is to inspire students of all ages to adopt an empowered approach to healthy living, through motivational talks and interactive workshops.
“Very little of what I’ve achieved is down to pure talent – in fact most of it is down to simple consistency and self-belief. I don’t think that’s something you gain overnight, but I do know for a fact that it can be developed in everyone, and that there are small things you can change in your daily life which can make a huge difference long-term.”
In July 2010 Rajko taught the Hour of Power workout to 800 students and staff at Robert Clack School in London – something which Rajko believes can be a catalyst to kids and schools across the country to see that although sport may not appeal to everyone, the right exercise approach can be truly universal, and can significantly impact the health of the next generation.
Rajko currently divides his time between his base in West London and the Fitness4x4 Retreat in Montenegro.
