This document outlines principles for developing an effective fitness training program. It discusses assessing a client's goals and requirements, categorizing goals as general health or sports performance, and applying the FITT principles of frequency, intensity, time and type of exercise. It also covers components of fitness like cardiovascular endurance, strength and flexibility that should be addressed. Training should follow principles of specificity, progression, overload, reversibility and variation to avoid tedium and injury while steadily improving the client's fitness level.

1. FitnessTraining Principles

2. In preparing your exercise programme, you need
to bear in mind the following:
• The individual and their requirements & goals.
• Specific components of fitness required to be
improved for the client to achieve their goals.

3. The individual and their requirements
First you must establish the purpose of the exercise programme.
There are many reasons why an individual may wish to undertake a personal
exercise programme: to lose weight, to gain cardiovascular fitness for health
or competition, returning from injury, muscle gain and so on.
The client’s exercise goal will influence the design and the intensity of the
work out programme.

4. Workout programs, and/or goals can be
categorized into two main groupings
1: General health, well being and/or body fat
loss
(ie weight loss)
2: Sports specific performance activity including
muscle growth

5. FITT Principles
All exercise programs are based on F.I.T.T. Principle to
keep the body challenged and to avoid monotony.
When you exercise with adequate intensity, time and
frequency of the body will adapt to the stress placed on
it and will show desirable changes.
F: Frequency is the number of times you exercise each
week.
I: Intensity is how hard you are working while you are
exercising. (The effort you put forth.)
T: Time is the total amount of time that is spent
exercising in one session.
T: Type is the type of exercise you are doing,
cardio(aerobic) or resistance training(anaerobic).

6. Components of Fitness
An exercise programme will need to address a
the components of fitness, identified as relevant
to achieve a clients goals.
Select no more than four or five components to
be part of any one exercise session.

7. Health Related Components of Fitness
• Cardiovascular Endurance
• Muscular Endurance
• Strength
• Flexibility
Sports Specific Components of Fitness
• Agility
• Power
• Balance
• Co-ordination
• Speed of Reaction
• Timing
Components of Fitness

8. Health Related Components of Fitness
Cardiovascular Endurance
Ability of heart and lungs to delivery oxygen to the working
muscles
Muscular Endurance
Ability of the muscles to sustain near maximum effort over a
prolonged duration.
Strength
The maximum force a muscle can generate once
Flexibility
The range of motion(ROM) a joint has.

9. Sports Specific Components of Fitness
• Agility
Agility or nimbleness is the ability to change the body's position
efficiently
• Power
Refers to an individual's ability to exert a maximum amount of
force in the shortest possible time
• Balance
Is the ability to stay upright or stay in control of body movement
• Co-ordination
The ability to use different parts of the body together smoothly
and efficiently
• Speed of Reaction
The ability to respond quickly to a stimulus.
• Timing
The ability to coincide movements in relation to external factors

10. Principles ofTraining
For steady progress and to avoid injury, fitness
professionals should follow the principles of training
(S.P.O.R.T)
Specificity
Progression
Overload
Reversibility
Tedium

11. Every type of exercise has a particular effect on the body.The type of
training we choose must be right for the type of improvement / result
the client wants to see.
We must always use a training programme that puts regular stress on
the muscle groups or body systems that we want to develop, adapt &
improve.
We must train the correct component(s) of fitness
that will give the client the required result they
desire
Specificity

12. The body takes time to adapt to more frequent or harder exercise. We
must build up stress (effort) on our bodies in a gradual, or progressive
way.
As he body adapts to the exercise stress, the fitness professional must
progress the clients program by changing some or all of the FITT
principles.
If you progress the clients program to quickly or by to much you
increase the risk of injury or they may become disinterested with the
program and give up.
Progression

13. We can only achieve improvements in most aspects of physical
performance by forcing the body to work just beyond it’s current
known limits. In other words we overload it.
Example – to improve our aerobic fitness by running, we could run
more times a week, complete the run in a shorter time or increase the
distance we run. Each one of these will overload the aerobic system.
The aerobic system will gradually adapt to cope with the overload and
we will become fitter.
Overload

14. Reversibility
The process of reversibility applies to most aspects of
physical performance and fitness. It means that the
effects (or improvements) of training will be lost at about
one third of the rate at which they were gained.
We lose our aerobic fitness more easily than our
anaerobic fitness(strength), because our muscles quickly
lose much of their ability to use oxygen.

15. Tedium(physical & mental boredom)
Training programs must be varied to avoid tedium / boredom. By
using a variety of different training methods, we will keep our
clients enthusiasm and motivation.
We can follow a long workout with a short one, a hard session with
a relaxed one or a high speed session with a slow one.
We could change the way we train and where we train.Variation,
while still targeting the required components of fitness, will ensure
a client stays motivated.