Creating a personal fitness plan

Throughout this semester, I have been taking a Lifetime Wellness course. During this class, our instructor has talked about creating a personal fitness plan to help people be physically active. My professor taught our class about the FITT formula--frequency, intensity, time and type. This formula is used to remember and apply different training variables. The goal of FITT is too achieve your fitness goals in through easier planning.

Frequency: It simply means how often you work out. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends exercising a minimum of three days a week for vigorous activity. It is important to have a few days of rest to avoid injury. It is also to prevent burnout, which is the physical and emotional exhaustion from exercise.

Intensity: The amount of strength and power exerted when doing the workout. Intensity of exercise is based on an individual. One person may find it easy to do an activity at a certain level, but another may find it hard. There is low intensity, which is like doing everyday activities like walking. There is moderate and vigorous intensity levels too. Moderate intensity is when you can still talk during your exercise. Vigorous is when you are out of breath and you can't talk.

Time: How long each workout is. More than 20 minutes of vigorous intensity is recommended by the ACSM to lose weight. More than 30 minutes of moderate intensity will help keep weight consistent. The Department of Health and Human Services recommends that adults accumulate at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous activity each week.

Type: What kind of workout you chose. Weight lifting, walking/running, sports, cardio, aerobic, dancing, etc. There are so many ways to workout. Find something you like to do so that you will continue to do it.