Measure Your FITTness

The FITT Principle is used to prescribe fitness and exercise recommendations to clients. It’s a great way of monitoring your exercise program. It is an acronym that stands for Frequency, Intensity, Time, and Type.

Frequency refers to how often you exercise, typically measured by the number of workout sessions completed per week. Everyone is different, so you want to find that right number where you are exercising often enough to reach your goals, but so too much where you’re at risk for injuries or over training. The Department of Health and Human Services recommends 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise a week, which many experts suggest to break down into five days of 30-minute sessions. It should be set considering your current fitness levels, goal, daily routine, and your recovery.

Intensity refers to how hard you exercise. Cardio can use many different measurement tools, such as heart rate, 1-10 scales, or the level of incline or resistance on a treadmill or elliptical. For strength training, measuring can also be done through heart rate or based on the weights or reps used. You can also use the talk test to measure intensity. For moderate-intensity, you want to exercise hard enough that you’d be able to talk, but not sing. For vigorous-intensity, you want to exercise where you can only speak a few words before needing to take a breath. 

Time refers to how long you exercise for. For cardio, it is the length of time it took you. Strength training can also be measured this way, but it can also include measuring sets and reps because if you increase either of these, then the time it will take to complete will also increase.

Type refers to what kind of exercise. While you want to meet the guidelines of at least 150 minutes of cardiovascular activity and two days of strength training per week, it is important to choose activities you enjoy.

The principle is like an equation and the four elements are interdependent and changing only one can make a difference. Using FITT can help you make one change to your routine and see if your body responds or if you should make another change in order to break you off from your plateau. It is important to change things up on a regular basis to keep your body healthy and your mind engaged.