FITT

P1, M1

Overload: the FITT principleThere are four ways to achieve overload in an exercise programme. They can easily be remembered using the mnemonic, FITT.

Frequency – how often you train.

Intensity – how hard you train.

Time (or duration) – how long you train for.

Type – the kind of training you do.

FITT: frequencyHow often you should train depends on what you wish to achieve.

You should do 30 minutes of moderate exercise 5 times a week.

However, if you wish to become an intermediate or elite competitor in any sport, you will need to train much more frequently.Elite rowers often train twice a day!Training is best done regularly, rather than at random intervals.

FITT: intensityIntensity refers to how hard you work during your training sessions.A good way to measure intensity is to monitor a performer’s heart rate. The harder you work, the faster your heart beats.

FITT: timeIntensity will affect the time (or duration) of each training session. The length of session required to achieve improvements depends on how hard a performer is training.

If they are training for a marathon, they may need to spend several hours at a time.

A sprinter, on the other hand, will need to spend relatively little time actually exercising – their sessions are likely to consist of many short, high intensity bursts with lengthy rests in-between.

FITT: typeIf your aim is simple health related fitness, then the type of exercise you do does not matter very much – it just needs to raises your pulse into the aerobic zone for about 20 minutes.

You could even include activities like gardening, walking the dog or just dancing round your kitchen!

However, if you are training for a specific event or competition, then the type of exercise you do is very important.

FITT

Target Zones

• Into the fitness suite to see the poster on target zones

• You and a partner have 1 minute to work out what the poster is telling us

Maximum Heart Rate

• 220 – age = Max HR

Rate of perceived exhaustion

• Find this out by completing the borg scale on the next slide

• This gives us our RPE (rate of percieved exhaustion)

Find our heart rate

- Usually done by?.........

- Easier way, but not very accurate, is RPE x 10 = HR

- So I was on 14 on the borg scale, this means my heart rate is 14x10 = 140

Activity

• You are now going to spend 5 minutes doing some form of physical activity in the fitness suite

• Find out your RPE and HR.

Recap

What does FITT stand for?

What does Target zones mean?

How do you find out your maximum heart rate?

What is RPE? How do we find it out?

How do we use RPE to find out HR?