Hi,

Due to a recent development and reduced free time I decided to suspend Hard N' Heavy indefinitely.

I might come back sooner or later, but for now I'd like to say goodbye to you all and wish you all the best.

Until next time,

Tune the essence!!

Hey there,

I have some issues with the code of my blog and the the design is a bit off. So I just wanted to let you know that I'm suspending my writing until I figure out what's wrong or until it fixes itself (just like it happened by itself).

Stay tuned!

My last fitness related post dates Tuesday, October 14, 2008. This is also the date of my last significant fitness effort. To say that it's been a while would be an understatement. It's time to wake up and face the reality! Long story short, I don't like what I see in the mirror any more. It's time for a change!

Today I face two mayor challenges. No.1 - What do I eat?! No.2 - What do I do fitness wise?! Let's answer this questions, shall we. What I eat will be a topic for some other occasion since I haven't really decided what to do here. I'm aware that I should eliminate a lot of unhealthy things, I just have to figure out how to do that :). So that aside, lets see what to I do fitness wise - lately nothing at all. In the last few months I gained more weight than in the previous 2 years combined. This is terrible and I just have to do something about it!

When it comes to fitness I'm a firm believer that you can get great results with a carefully planned home workout rather than a long and expensive gym routine. Since I started working and my "free time" is even shorter now, I'm always striving to come up the shortest possible workout routine that actually gives results.

So, having spent some time on-line researching what's good and what's bad, what's effective and what's not, I came up with a home workout routine that is simple yet effective. It requires only one fitness "machine" - a pull-up bar, and your own body weight. It only takes about 15 minutes and sums up a total of eight elements.

Here's what you have to do!

Warm up - Do a regular whole body warm up just as you did on your gym class in high school. Make sure you're doing this properly especially if it's been a while since your last workout (like in my case)..
Jump rope (2-3 minutes) - This is my favorite cardio exercise! You can't melt the fat without cardio.
Pull-ups/Chin-Ups (12-15 repetitions) - The master of upper body exercises. It works most of the muscles in the upper body, focusing on the back and biceps.
Squats (12-15 repetitions) - A truly basic exercise that activates the biggest muscles in the body which raises the metabolism and burns the fat.
Push-ups (12-15 repetitions) - A classic! Do I really have to say anything?!
Butt Lifts-Bridge (12-15 repetitions) - Works the butt but has an impact on the lower back as well. I do it because other lower back exercises simple won't go hand in hand with my back issue. If you're feeling up to it, feel free to replace this one with a more intensive lower back exercise.
Mountain climber abs (12-15 repetitions per leg) - A interesting exercise. At first it seems like a time waster. But trust me it really works the abs without the back stress associated with the regular crunches.
Stretch - Make sure you cool down and stretch. This will eliminate the unnecessary next day pain and give the muscle a proper base "to heal".

So, warm up, do three sets with one minute breaks between sets and no breaks between the exercises then cool down and stretch. That's it. It's as simple as that. In time as you progress you can do one of two things - add another set or add more repetitions. Since I believe that several correct repetitions bring more results that a hundred wrong ones, If you feel you're up to it, I recommend you add another set. This way the 15 minutes might become 20 or 30 but it still beats going to the gym for a 2 hour workout.

There's only one catch, one magic word that will bring you the results - COMMITMENT. Yep, that's it. Make it a habit!

Stay tuned!

Hi folks,

Today we'll pay tribute to a living Macedonian legend - the one and only Vlatko Stefanovski.
"Vlatko Stefanovski was born in 1957 in Prilep / Macedonia in a theatrical family. He started playing guitar at the age of 13. In his late teens he formed the group LEB I SOL which became one of the most important names in the mu-sic scene of former Yugoslavia. The band played a particular style of fusion music, a blend of Macedonian traditional irregular rhythms and contemporary rock. LEB I SOL released 14 albums and toured around the world. Recently Stefanovski has developed a very successful solo career."


Knowing about Vlatko is not about reading a biography. It's about listening the virtuoso doing what he does best - playing the guitar. One of the things he's most famous about are his interpretations of Macedonian folk music. Here's Vlatko playing "Kalajdzisko Oro".

His arsenal is consisted of several Gibsons, a couple of Fenders, Hammer, Taylor and Yamaha acoustics, a couple of classical guitars etc.

It's been a while since I "reviewed" a guitar here at Hard N' Heavy. I've always been into Gibson so as you may assume that's my today's choice.

I recently watched one particularly interesting movie, titled August Rush. You might have heard of it. It's a relatively old one, dating somewhere in 2007, and I encourage you to watch it. It is a musically rich movie, which inspired a lot of mixed feelings. But that's another story. You may wonder why am I writing about a movie in a guitar review post and the answer is simple. There's one very special guitar featured in the movie - a Gibson J-200, which is the true topic of this post.

Well it's a Gibson. That's more than enough for me, but lets add some technical info as well. Since this is not really a review I'm not going to bother you with the actual technical features. There's the link, if you're interested. With a price tag of over $4.000 this guitar comes in lots of different finishes and many famous players, such as Elvis Presley, The Edge, Bob Dylan, Jimmy Page, have made it their primary instrument of choice. Here's another photo with a sunburst finish.
At the end I considered posting a video with a review of this guitar, but instead I decided to attach a scene from the August Rush. I hope you'll like it. Enjoy.
There's more coming soon. Stay tuned!

Time to promote some cool Macedonian music.

Some time ago I became aware of Shine, a relatively new (at least to my knowledge) band in Macedonia. The first thing that caught my attention was the guitarist. I'm referring to Damjan Pajcinovski, a truly awesome player from what I can see on YouTube and some acoustic videos on TV. I later become aware that he as one of the 12 finalists of Guitar Idol 2009, and came in second in the Strings on Fire competition.

So I really don't like to waste any more words here. I believe that Shine can have a bright future in Macedonia, and maybe even abroad. With the today's state of the Macedonian music, I'm definitely cheering for them. I'm attaching some pretty cool videos, so see and "judge" for yourself.

That's it for now. Stay tuned!

This is an update on one of my previous posts. I'm not going to bother you with stuff I already said, I just wanted to share one picture from the same event.

Here it is.

Stay tuned!