F.I.T.T. Principle: The F>I>T>T> principle is a basic philosophy of what is necessary to gain a training effect from an exercise program. F>I>T>T> stands for Frequency, Intensity, Type and Time. They can be applied to 2 types of training, Cardiorespiratory and resistance.
Cardiorespiratory training
Cardiorespiratory training Also called Aerobic Conditioning, which means it requires oxygen to sustain the activity.
Frequency
Exercise a minimum of 3x per week.
Intensity
You must maintain your heart rate in the Target Heart Rate Zone in order to gain benefits. To determine this take 220-your age. This gives you your maximum heart rate. If you are at a high fitness level, you should train at 70-80% of your max. If you are at a lower fitness level you will gain results at 50-70%.
Time
Try and maintain your intensity for a minimum of 12 to 15 minutes (not including your warm up and cool down). As you increase your fitness level, increase your time to 20-60 minutes. If weight loss is a goal, try long training session at a lower intensity (50-60%). This utilizes fat as an energy source and is helpful in weight/fat reduction.
Type
Choose activities that involve as much muscle mass as possible. Exercises that use the whole body, or large muscle groups are most beneficial.
Resistance Training
Resistance Training Also called anaerobic training which is a term to indicate oxygen isn’t required. What happens during resistance training is the body uses glycogen storage in the muscle for immediate fuel during heavy exertion. Oxygen is required to replace this fuel and therefore you are in oxygen debt until the exercise is finished and the energy storage is replenished through the process of respiration.
Frequency
A general guideline would be to do each body part 1-2 times per week or every 4-5 days if you are a beginner or are doing high load workouts. For lower intensity workouts or higher trained individuals, you could try doing each body part 2-3 times per week, with a day of rest for that body part in between.
Intensity
The amount of work you do during a workout is your workload. Your workload can be measured by 3 components. 1. the amount of weight you lift. 2. the number of repetitions you do (a repetition is one complete movement of an exercise and a set is the number of repetitions an exercise is performed before stopping) 3. The length of time it takes to complete the training session. Therefore any combination of lower weights, less sets, and repetitions and more time will decrease your intensity and by increasing the weight, sets, and repetitions and less workout time will increase intensity.
Choose a weight that you can lift 8-12 times (reps) before “momentary muscle exhaustion” prevents you from doing another rep. This is called training to failure and is important because these last few reps will create a training effect and make changes in the muscle in the shortest period of time. When you get to a point that you can do more than 12 reps, then you add weight until you can work your way back up to 12 reps again.
Time
Time is measured not in how fast you do the actual lifts, but in the time between sets. The less rest time, the more intense the workout.
Type
There are 2 types of exercises for muscle groups, main and assistance (minor). Main exercises involve the most muscle mass. They usually involve more than 1 muscle group when exercising and you can use the greatest weight resistance with these exercises. The assistance exercises isolate the muscle group by concentrating on the simple movement of that muscle group and eliminating or minimizing the involvement of other muscle groups. Have variety in your choice of exercises. Variety will shock the body and won’t allow it to get used to the same exercises.
There are 3500 calories in a pound
The 3 components of fitness are strength, flexibility and cardiovascular/respiratory
Main muscle groups: There are many more than this
Front top of arm: biceps
Back to of arm: Triceps
Chest: Pectoralis
Back: Latissimus dorsi, trapezius
Buttocks: Gluteus
Back of leg top: Hamstrings
Front of leg top: Quadriceps
Back of leg lower: soleus gastrocnemius
Shoulder: deltoid