Revisiting Program Design - Part 1 - the FITT

We have been taught in fitness school that we should design our training program according to the FITT principles:

Frequency
Intensity
Time
Type

Here are some typical guidelines based on this.

FITT Principles, adapted from FIT Society - Winter 2007 - ACSM

Simple eh? Not so. There are still a lot of variables not touched in this guideline, which can be very arbitrary, especially for beginners. Resulting in ineffective program designs. At least for me there were still a lot of questions unanswered.

Let's just take a look at some of these unanswered questions and the ridiculous comments that can arise out of following this guideline.

Frequency

So outside the 3-4 days of training, it means no activity at all? Or is it not defined? So if i put a high intensity soccer game on one of the non-training days, would it be okay? Would it interfere with my training? I could even put 3 high intensity soccer games on my 3 non-training days.

How do i schedule these 3-4 days? Can i put them back to back?

Do i put them mon-wed-fri or tue-thur-sat?

Intensity

So 3 sets of 8-12 reps is the holy grail huh? What about singles, doubles, triples, and all the rep ranges up to hundreds or thousands?

What is the rest period between each set?

I want to tone my arms, so i'll stick to light weights. 12 reps not enough, i'll do twenty reps.

I'll train to failure every set, every exercise, every training session.

Are three sets enough? Is this too much?

So 65% MHR is the guideline. If i want to burn more fat, i should be doing the lower range, ie 65% right? I shouldn't be doing anything higher than this if i want to maximize my fat burn.

Time

I want to train harder, so i'll train up to 120 minutes at a time at the gym. The more the merrier. I would even spend the whole day training if i had the time.

I want to train harder, so i'll do up to 60 minutes of cardio at a time. The more the merrier. I would even spend the whole day training if i had the time.

Type

I don't want big thighs so i'll skip the squats and deadlifts and just do the upper body.

Would stair climbing give me big thighs? Would running give me big calves?

Doesn't squats hurt your knees? Doesn't deadlifts hurt your back? Aren't explosive lifts dangerous?

Isn't overhead lifting dangerous?

So you have to have strong arms to lift kettlebells huh?

I just want to tone my arms so i'll just do bicep curls and triceps extension. Ten variations of each exercise: supinated, pronated, hammer grip, barbell, dumbbell, preacher curl etc.

I just want to tone my tummy so i'll just do sit ups. No, scratch that. People say that sit ups are bad, i'll just do crunches.

Conclusion

So we can see that these definitions are not specific enough to equip a person with the knowledge to design a sound training program. Next article we'll see CST's program design principles and how it can fill in these gaps.