FIDORS: A Personal Trainers Principles Of Programme Design

Today’s fitness blog will examine the principles of designing an effective exercise programme. Anyone working in the fitness industry as a personal trainer will find themselves planning cardiovascular and resistance training exercise programmes for their clients. Although any training program should consider an individual’s fitness levels, goals and experience, the principles of program design can be explained in a set of guidelines expressed by the acronym FIDORS. The acronym stands for frequency, intensity, duration, overload, reversibility, and specificity.

Frequency of training

With cardiovascular training, there’s no reason someone can’t train up to seven days a week. Within this schedule, a fitness instructor might want to vary the intensity so that if clients have had a tough session one day, they might follow an active recovery session the next.

With resistance training, the muscle tissues need more time to recover, repair themselves, and grow stronger. A personal trainer would normally advise a recovery period of 24–48 hours for a beginner working with relatively light weights that don’t put too much force through the muscles.

A more intensive workout using heavier weights to train the creatine phosphate energy system will cause more damage to the muscle fibres, which means the body will need closer to 48–36 hours to recover. Even more intensive training will require a more extended recovery period, which could restrict an individual’s weight training programme to one or three days a week.

A personal trainer with a client keen to train more frequently could devise a split-training programme in which different muscle groups are trained on different days. An example might be:

• Day 1: Chest muscles
• Day 2: Back muscles
• Day 3: Leg muscles
• Day 4: Core muscles

On day 5, they would return to training the chest, as the muscles would have had sufficient time to recover.

Intensity of training

Fitness instructors typically recommend training between 50% and 90% of an individual’s maximum heart rate, depending on their fitness levels, goals, and whether they aim to train their aerobic or lactate threshold system.

If a client is following a cardiovascular training programme 5-7 days a week, their fitness instructor may advise them to vary the intensity between different days rather than working at 85% of their maximum heart rate at every session.

With weight training, intensity is governed by the weight lifted, the number of reps and sets, the length of the lever, the speed of movement, stability, and the rest period between each set. To increase the intensity of the training session, a personal trainer can:

• Increase the number of exercises
• Increase the weight
• Increase the number of reps
• Increase the number of sets
• Reduce the rest period between sets
• Slow down (increase duration) or speed up (increase force generated) the movement. 
• Increase the instability to work more on the core, synergists and fixators

Other options include:

• Altering the leverage to make it harder to lift the weight, or
• Change the training system employed, which can range from basic sets to supersets, eccentric training, forced reps, plyometrics, or a number of alternative training systems.
• Duration of a training programme

Regardless of the cardiovascular training program a client follows, a personal trainer can make it more effective by increasing the exercise duration. Simply put, if someone does three sets of bench presses, they can increase the duration at their next session by doing four sets. The duration of any cardiovascular program will depend on the intensity of the exercise, the individual’s fitness level, and their specific goals.  Cardiovascular guidelines recommend 20–60 minutes of exercise per session, divided into blocks of at least 10 minutes. A resistance training program typically lasts between 20 and 60 minutes, depending on the client’s fitness level and goals.

Overload for training stimulus

Any exercise programme a fitness instructor sets should provide a training stimulus that strengthens the body’s systems. A top athlete like Paula Radcliffe would not improve her fitness by walking on a treadmill, but an overweight client who is not used to walking for extended periods will get a training response.

Overload is about gradual improvement; the guideline is to increase any variable by 5%. This is true for both cardiovascular work and resistance training. Over time, individuals will gradually build up their physiological systems and improve their performance.

Reversibility of fitness levels

If someone stops training, their fitness levels will suffer. Like a car, our bodies need regular servicing. If a personal trainer has a client who reaches a certain level in training and then takes a break from the gym, even for a few months, they will not be able to return to the same level of training immediately.

Specificity of training goals

Fitness instructors often have to work out different exercise programmes for clients who want to train for strength or speed and those who wish to improve their endurance.

Specific training gets specific results. If a client plans to run a marathon, their personal trainer will not suggest sprint training, as it would utilise the wrong energy system. If a client wishes to lose weight, they don’t necessarily have to work at 85–90% of their maximum heart rate; they need to work harder than usual and burn more calories than they consume.

Strength training involves promoting development in the creatine phosphate system by lifting heavy weights with a small number of reps, say 1–5 reps, with a rest period of around 3–5 minutes between sets.

Endurance training is about developing the aerobic and lactic acid systems—the muscle’s ability to recruit and replenish muscle fibres over time. So, the client would lift lighter weights but increase the number of reps to 12–20, with a rest period of around 30 seconds to a minute between sets.

We hope you have enjoyed today’s fitness blog and would love to hear your comments.

To learn more about our range of fitness courses, please click here.