Hit Fit® Training System
Simply the best for fitness and martial arts training
Kevin L Sciullo, MS, CSCS, NSCA-CPT
For a more scientific explanation of training effects please reference
‘Physiological and Neuromuscular Adaptations from Training’
Testimonial
I have been training in sport and martial arts including wrestling and TaeKwon-Do for over 20 years, having trained under various coaches and instructors to earn a 4th-degree black belt. My formal education is in Human Health and Development, Exercise Physiology, and Chronic Disease; my certifications include Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and Certified Personal Trainer under the National Strength and Conditioning Association.
My work locally and at the University of Pittsburgh involves collaborating with the best coaches and physiologists in the area to provide the best training strategies possible to students and athletes of varied backgrounds to elicit elite performance.
My job is to examine the top strategies in training to elicit the main attributes of athleticism and fitness which are: muscular strength/power, muscular endurance, cardiovascular endurance, flexibility, and functional body composition. The Hit Fit® Training System encompasses all of these components for anyone who trains with it – from the beginning fitness enthusiast to the experienced athlete, and skilled martial artists of any style; this system provides the highest value.
Can I get stronger using this system?
Yes! Each time you strike the target, you are met with resistance. True strength can only be increased beyond a given point when weight is displaced – it is when weight is displaced quickly over time in an efficient manner we achieve muscular power/speed. Increasing resistance is done in the weight room, so that same principle is utilized here.
The Hit Fit® Training System has the ability to increase the weight added in the core of the bag. Each time the individual strikes the bag and meets resistance, muscles and bones adapt to the increase in resistance improving strength and power.
Strikes can be done as hard and powerful strikes, soft trapping or parrying flow, fluidity of upper and lower extremity techniques, and targeting specific areas of a moving object greatly increase accuracy on a subconscious level.
With this adaptation, training over time with this system can increase muscular strength and can also increase bone density resulting in improved health conditions for everyone who trains with it.
How does this tool increase my speed and athleticism?
Every movement is a result of a signal that fires from your central nervous system, moves along the length of nerves, and enters the muscle – and the action the muscle is signaled to perform creates movement. This movement can be powerful, fluid, soft, or strong.
As you can imagine, these processes cannot be performed consciously and all occur at a larger and faster rate than imaginable. Therefore, improvements in the speed of these vital messengers have to be trained to act as a subconscious reflex.
This process improves through repetitive actions (drilling) as well as learning new movements (training new techniques in an unpredictable manner). It is with this principle that The Hit Fit® Training System enhances physical and mental efficiency.
No two movements of The Hit Fit® Training System are alike, and therefore the athlete never falls into a predictable rhythm. This allows the individual to throw hand strikes, elbows, knee strikes, foot techniques, jumping skills, low strikes, sweeps, and more all while attempting to impact, block, slip and dodge. No other training device can perform all of these capabilities nor can they perform unpredictably based on their design.
Is this system ideal for any body type?
Everyone has a different composition of muscle fiber types (slow or fast-twitch) allowing for a preponderance of an individual to favor strength/power sports vs endurance sports – however, training can improve any body type to excel. With this system, one can train BOTH fiber types and develop skills in areas of endurance and power – and in the eyes of most trainers I work with, this is the ultimate goal of athletic prowess.
Due to the adjustable and customizable nature of the tool, it is also IDEAL for anyone of any height, weight, or skill level. It is also compact in nature so having only one tool that takes up little space is the perfect system for any home or gym.
Visual acuity and accuracy are vital in martial arts as well as all sports – how is this improved?
Kinesthetic sense is also known as proprioception – the knowledge of where the body is in space. The Hit Fit® Training System allows improvements in spatial awareness (proprioception) due to enhancing the function of the mind and body.
This awareness is processed and learned at a subconscious level as proprioceptors act as sensory nerves providing the information needed to maintain muscle tone and perform movements of complexity and coordination.
These pathways mentioned are essential to reaction timing, reflex, and subconscious processing. Any athlete will agree that when the moment of action arrives, they feel as though they are not thinking – everything is reaction based on instinct from repetitive practice and preparation. They can trust in their training and simply act.
The subconscious processes information 30,000 times faster than the conscious – therefore, if movement and action require thinking or processing, there can be no reaction response or use of these acquired skills.
It is in the well-trained individuals that one can rely upon the subconscious that all reactions to actions will surface. No plan is required, no guessing what the action or attack will be, and no visualization of possible scenarios; simply confidence in one’s skill and preparation as the time for action arrives.
It is in this stage that the trained individual becomes enlightened; that as he can gain immense skill and ability, he also understands the need for continued training, learning, and drilling.
The enlightened athlete and martial artist will never cease use of The Hit Fit® Training System due to the clear benefits of its use; there is no end goal when one trains in martial arts, fitness, boxing, and all sports other than to continuously learn and grow.
Can I practice high jumping techniques and other acrobatic skills?
Yes! Muscles require training to achieve high levels of power and explosiveness. Prime example: plyometric training. With this system, each time an athlete jumps, springs, kicks, or rotates, the muscle and the entire body system experiences work and adapts.
Due to the nature of this system as mentioned previously, all types of strikes can be trained based on the specific targets ideal for either hard or soft skills. This same method is used with all kicks – jump kicks, spinning techniques, thrust kicks or pushing kicks, snap kicks, linear or circular kicks, low sweeps, and many more!
Will training with this system increase my energy levels?
Yes! The body has three main energy systems which can produce usable energy in the form of Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) from macronutrients, mainly Carbohydrates and Fat.
The three main energy systems include the phosphagen system, glycolytic system, and oxidative system. In general, each system produces ATP from specific sources with the intention of various durations/intensities of movement.
With The Hit Fit® Training System, an athlete can work on one or all of these energy systems based on the desired training outcome. Through cross-training, an athlete can choose workouts that work short fast and strong bursts of energy, mid-duration events like rounds of boxing or kickboxing, or recreate 30 minutes or longer workouts involving work/time ratios of exercise using a multitude of stations.
This type of circuit training with varied stations and exercises is all possible with one system: The Hit Fit® Training System. Teaching the body to better utilize sources of energy for all intensity and durations of exercise results in better energy use and functions of the body throughout the day. Being active helps you stay active – every day and many years to come.
Fatigue is bad news for athletes – especially in martial arts and boxing. Can this system help delay when fatigue sets in?
Blood lactate is typically measured and is used as a determinant of fitness. Typically, lactate threshold is reached around 50-60% of VO2 max (maximal oxygen update) in untrained people.
Research can show this threshold is increased to 70-80% of VO2 max in trained athletes. So, the onset of blood lactate (OBLA) can be trained to occur at a later time in activity allowing for increased intensity and duration of activity – an invaluable asset to all athletes.
Training with The Hit Fit® Training System allows an athlete to improve cardiovascular endurance as well as increase muscle protein synthesis. Using this system to cross-train various exercise and martial arts techniques as a circuit, stations, round simulation, or simple sets and reps, allows for the highest benefit of training which is a greater anabolic response and lower catabolic response. Otherwise, the athlete will experience greater degradation known as overreaching or overtraining.
Can training increase cardiovascular endurance similarly to running?
Yes! – And the low-impact exercises are much safer on the joints than running! When an untrained individual begins activity, the system quickly climbs to a near-maximal level of heart rate and respiration, typically higher than is needed for the activity. This is due to excessive stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system which prepares the body for fight or flight response.
The more an athlete trains, the more control they have on their sympathetic response and can even use breathing and visualization to enhance their parasympathetic response which allows for rest and digestion to slow the system down.
Training with The Hit Fit® Training System can therefore enhance sympathetic control and increase parasympathetic tone – this allows an individual to react/respond to any threat or stimulus within the appropriate level of state anxiety without reaching over-excitement and losing the ability to react and function.
The cardiovascular system is the first to suffer when one ceases training, however, it is the first to improve when training begins! So from the very first high-intensity workout performed with this system, improvements in heart rate control and breathing through endurance will all show improvements!
Why is this training system better than a single-chain heavy bag?
An incredible feature of The Hit Fit® Training System is its unpredictability of movement. Due to the design, it does not swing like a pendulum, rather it moves in completely different patterns with each hit. This prevents the mind-body connection to avoid falling into a predictable rhythm.
In any sport or physical activity, training with a partner or coach is ideal because a human can move unpredictably which is representative of real life.
Reaction time is inversely related to heart rate and blood pressure as well as sympathetic tone as mentioned earlier. Therefore, physical training that improves conditioning can decrease reaction time.
Looking into reaction speed related to visual acuity, we see that familiar scenarios resulting from training can decrease the processing time needed to perceive a stimulus and react.
It is with this practice that the sensory pathways go beyond the visual – the lemniscal, auditory, and vestibular neural pathways all process stimuli faster than the visual pathway.
Therefore, as the athlete and martial artist train with The Hit Fit® Training System, they react based not only on visual stimuli, but also the sensation of touch, balance, and rhythmic changes to process this information quickly – resulting in elite reaction time and accuracy.
Conclusion
The Hit Fit Training System develops your mind, as well as your body due to the vast number of techniques that can be done with the system. Something no other training device can do. One is only limited by their own imagination.
Training with The Hit Fit® Training System develops all skills and attributes related to fitness and martial arts prowess. This device is completely unpredictable in movement causing adaptations physically and mentally which enhance these skills.
The ability to train from both standing and the ground, and changing between the two, enhances both the muscular and cardio benefits. We have coined the phrase "circuit training in a bag".
This device combines the benefits of seven pieces of martial arts training equipment into one ideal system. Additional unique qualities are its unpredictable movement, structure, and variability in weight and resistance. It allows the athlete to develop their own unique sense of rhythm, reaction, and skill based on practical drilling rather than predictable repetition.
Practitioners can develop all of the essential attributes of a martial artist, boxer, or fitness enthusiast. These include hard versus soft striking, dodging and awareness skills, instincts necessary for live encounters, and much more. All of this is accomplished through utilizing practical boxing techniques, maintaining optimal levels of fitness, and mastering the most advanced and effective martial art techniques from any system or style.
Benefits and uses exist with The Hit Fit® Training System beyond martial arts, boxing, and fitness. Studies suggest high-intensity aerobic exercise incorporating the learned skills of boxing techniques can be beneficial for many chronic diseases across the board such as but not limited to Parkinson’s disease.
In this day and age, I believe any coach, teacher, instructor, athlete, or martial artist can benefit immensely from training with The Hit Fit® Training System; this training tool is affordable, space-efficient, allows for individual training while remaining socially distant from others, and has incredible market potential. This is one of the most advanced, realistic, and effective training devices on the market today.
References of physiological and neuromuscular statements and information:
Haff, G., & Triplett, N.T. (2016). Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning. Fourth Edition. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.