FITT Principle

Frequency How often you do exercise? How often should you be exercising? -Guidelines: cardiorespitory training – minimum of 3 sessions per week ideally 5-6 sessions per week resistance training – minimum 3 days per week (all body parts each session) - up to 6 days per week (focusing on 1-2 body parts)

Intensity At what percentage of your MHR are you working? How hard are you pushing yourself while you are working out? The amount of effort you are putting into your workout.

-Guidelines: cardiorespitory training – using your heart rate is one of the best ways to gage your intensity resistance training – workload is the best indicator of intensity and this workload has three components 1.amount of weight lifted 2.number of repetitions 3.length of time to complete workout

Time How long are your workouts? -Guidelines: cardiorespitory – lower level of fitness should maintain target HR for minutes - can increase that to minutes resistance training – no longer than minutes and can be as short as minutes - need to make sure that you are not overworking and leaving enough time for recovery

Type What kind of exercise are you doing? Cardiorespitory training- -Aerobic (in the presence of oxygen - any activity that is performed at a low to moderate intensity for more than 90 seconds, allowing oxygen to release energy through metabolism, is usually called an aerobic activity)* -improves your cardiovascular system -should be continuous in nature -should use large muscle groups Running, walking, cycling, swimming, aerobics classes

Resistance training - Anaerobic (in the absence of oxygen... and any activity that is performed at a medium to high intensity for less than 2 minutes, where energy is derived without oxygen, is usually called an anaerobic activity)* -stressing the neuromuscular system -weights -resistance bands -circuit training

* Physical fitness is a compromise of cardiorespiratory endurance, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance, accuracy and toughness. *denotes definitions taken from anaerobic-training.html website anaerobic-training.html **CDC recommends: Children and adolescents should do 60 minutes (1 hour) or more of physical activity each day.

Sports Training Principles Sport specific training has a more in- depth set of principles that should be applied: -specificity -overload -adaptation -progression -reversibility -variation *taken from: *for more information: “Sport Training Principles” (1997) Frank Dick