On this episode of CITV, we review one of our favorite pieces of technology, the FITLIGHT Trainer ! Fore more information about the FITLIGHT trainer , visit https://carrickinstitute.com/store/fitlight-trainer/ #carricktrained #carrickinstitute #fitlight #carrick #neuroscience #training #braintraining #humanperformance #athletes   Transcription: – In today’s episode of CITV, we’ll be performing a technology review of the FITLIGHT Trainer system up next. In this episode of CITV, we’re gonna do a technology review of the FITLIGHT system, and we’re joined by Rob. So, Rob, I wanna say thank you very much for coming up and showing this to all our scholars at home. So the Carrick Institute is a huge fan of the FITLIGHT system and specifically the Human Performance program. It was featured in that and the coaches, trainers, and athletes had a lot of fun using it. But there’s still some of you out there that don’t know about it, we figured this would be a good opportunity for you guys to learn about it. So, Rob, my first question for you is, where did this come from? Who invented it, how’d it get here? – Originally there was a Danish former handball goalie that designed a product to improve his reaction time. A Canadian engineer saw that, he invested in it, and made it to what it is right now, the FITLIGHT Training. – Okay, so initially reaction time, but people are using it for many more things now, aren’t they? – True. Anywhere from a big sports team like an NBA team or a soccer team in Europe to a physiotherapist to a chiropractor to a doctor who works with people with Parkinson’s disease. – Yeah, so that’s one of the neat things that have kind of impressed me about the system, its flexibility. And we’ll get into that, but we’ve seen it go from the athletic development realm and now we’re seeing it in brain-based rehab, which is kind of exciting. So why don’t we get into it? If somebody purchases the system, this is what comes in the box. What comes in the unit? Let’s take a look. – So, the FITLIGHT Trainer comes in a case like this. It has a tablet anywhere between four and 24 lights in a case like this. With the case, you can charge the lights, with the tablet you can program the lights any way you want. Each light has an impact and a proximity sensor, so whenever a light goes on you can deactivate it by either touching it or going past it. – What’s the durability on something like this? ‘Cause if it’s an impact sensor, some of these athletes, they’re pretty strong. – I’m glad you asked. So the lights are very strong. You can hit them as hard as you want. You cannot break them. – Okay, excellent, yeah, we have a system ourselves that we got a while ago and we haven’t had any issues with it, but I think it’s an area that you go, wow, if I’m gonna be smacking this thing, is it gonna be really durable? We haven’t had any issues. What about the proximity sensor? How close or far away can you be? – So the proximity sensor can go anywhere, and this is metric, from 10 centimeters, which is about four inches, up to 80 centimeters, which is about this far. – Okay, excellent. So, the tablet, the software is a big part of what makes this such a flexible platform. How does the tablet, what does it allow you to really do? – The lights haven’t really evolved over time. They’re our core hardware. The software, we keep redeveloping. So with the software you can program the lights, and that being said, is you can go anywhere from a random training where the system chooses which light will go on next to really customize your own exercise where you can literally program each individual light with different colors, different proximity, different impact sensors. – Excellent, so it seems like it’s one of those systems, and this is what I loved about it, that you’re only really limited by your own creativity. If you know what you’re trying to create for your patient or athlete, the FITLIGHT system can help contribute there. – I like it that you say that because once you start working with the FITLIGHT Trainer, once you see what other people do, that’s where your mind starts going and then you’ll see that you come up with new exercises almost every day. – Yeah. When we first got our unit that was the exciting part. I went on YouTube and Instagram and started looking at how other people are using it. And it was amazing to see all the different variations that people were coming up for, not only different sports which was fun, but then in the brain-based rehab was kind of interesting, as well. I saw some people using it just as visual feedback for different exercises. Also saw it as a way to give people novel stimuluses and having them react to it. Saw it as a lot of dual-tasking and we’ll talk about that, give you a demonstration for that, which I thought was very, very neat. So I love its flexibility, so for that I thank you guys for doing that. Can you tell us a little bit about what’s in the future for the software? Can you talk about that at all, or no? – Well, there’s a lot going on within FITLIGHT in a good way. Later this year, there will be a big, big update for everybody that already has a FITLIGHT Trainer and everybody that will get a FITLIGHT Trainer in the future. The only thing I can say now is that the software update will mainly focus on cognitive training, which is obviously very exciting. – I know, so one of the meetings I had them, I had a big list of things that I really wanted out of this system, and one by one they were saying, “Dr. Garcia, I think you’re gonna be very happy “with what’s coming.” So, I can’t even say it but I cannot wait to see that update. – Me neither. – I think one of the best things to do besides seeing what’s in the box and how to leverage it is potentially show them what other types of accessories are available, then I think we should go out and use it, really show them how to do it. How’s that sound? – Perfect. – Perfect. Rob, so I have the FITLIGHT system, I absolutely love it and I have some of the accessories, but I don’t have all of them. Show me the accessories, I wanna know what I’m missing. – Perfect, so each light already comes with a Velcro lock attached to the back of it. That allows you, with the Velcro pad, to attach it to any flat surface. For example, like the tripods we have behind us. You can easily take it off and you can easily put it back up. – I have the tripods, I love them. I’m a big fan of them. They’re height-adjustable, they’re lightweight, they collapse and easy to carry, so I’m a big fan of those ’cause they’re so versatile. – Exactly. When you want a more permanent setup, for example, if you take the Velcro lock from the back, you can attach the lights to our other accessories. For example, a suction cup. Very strong. Or if you prefer a magnet or something like an agility pole where you use these clips, clip on the light, and you’re done. – So I’ve seen drills with agility poles, those are really fun ’cause now you have athletes moving through the agility poles, but then having to make cognitive decisions based off the light or when the light fires off. It kinda takes these drills to the next level. Pretty cool. – And the good thing is that an agility pole allows you to attach multiple lights at a time instead of just one on a tripod. – Very cool. – Now, when you take the light off, you can place them on the back of some other accessories. For example, a silhouette target is where, for example, the military or police forces shoot rubber bullets at them. – Nice, so are they doing like, fire at specific lights, don’t fire at a different light color? – Like a go, no-go. – Right, so, like, one could be a civilian, one is the perp. – Exactly, exactly. Or when you’re more in the sports situation, for example, soccer or hockey, we have these goal targets. With a bungee cord, you strap these into a goal and you can fire pucks at them as hard as you want or with your standard soccer ball. Now the best feature, I think, is that you can have any installation in your indoor facility. You can embed the lights in a wall, or in a floor setup, with any size, any configuration that you would prefer. – FITLIGHT does custom installations, don’t they? – Yes, we do. Any room or any facility that you have, we can place a whole installation indoors, no problem. – I know there’s been requests by doctors, they want 3D immersive installations. When I talk to docs about it, they keep saying they want something that’s literally above them with the lights behind them and stuff like that. I love the configurability of that immersive installation. That would be really cool. – It’s like we said earlier, your own creativity is really the limit to what you can do. – Fantastic, so what else is there? – For the last thing, we have the light bases here in front of us. They are more for a ground setup. If you place a light into the middle, it’s a very stable configuration because it doesn’t slide and you can jump on the lights as hard as you want. – Wow, and then you could do lights, whether it matches or doesn’t match the color so then you have another cognitive element. – I like that, yes, you can. – Beautiful, well, listen, I love all the accessories, I love the platform, but the best way for them to understand how to leverage it is to give them some real-life examples. So I think the next thing we should do is head out and show them exactly how to use it. – Let’s do it. – All right, so I’m here with Rob from FITLIGHT and I’m here with Mike Potier who is a former professional soccer player and one of the graduates of our Human Performance program. We’re gonna be showing you guys three of the tests that you guys can do with the FITLIGHT Trainer. First, we’re gonna do a simple reaction time, then we’re gonna be doing a choice reaction time, and the third one we’ll be doing is a choice reaction time with a cognitive load. So, you guys ready to go? – Yeah, let’s go! – Ready. – All, right here we go. – Thank you for joining us on this episode of CITV and thank you to Rob for making the driving and allowing us to show off this technology to our scholars. – Thank you very much for the opportunity for this and we look forward to seeing your coaches and doctors use our product. – Of course. If there’s a technology that you would love to see reviewed on this program, send us an email at connect@carrickinstitute.com and we’ll do our best to get it on the show. And again, thank you to FITLIGHT and to Rob for allowing us to demonstrate this technology again. Until next time, this is CITV.