Periodisation and the principles beyond FITT
Physical Education · GCSE · The School
Three principles FITT does not cover
SPECIFICITY: training must match the demands of the sport. It must fit the muscle groups, energy systems and movements the sport actually uses. A swimmer's programme built around running trains the wrong fitness. REVERSIBILITY: adaptations are lost when training stops or drops sharply. They fade roughly at the rate they were gained. A long injury layoff needs a graded return, not a jump back to full training. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES: age, sex, experience and starting fitness change how a person responds. An identical programme is not equally right for a beginner and an elite athlete.
Why a season has shape
A year of unchanging training either plateaus or overtrains. PERIODISATION divides the year into phases with different aims: building a base, then peaking for competition, then recovering. Peak fitness cannot be held for months. It can only be timed to arrive when it matters.
The three cycles
MACROCYCLE: the whole year or season. MESOCYCLE: blocks of several weeks within it, each with a focus — a strength block, then a power block. MICROCYCLE: a single week's pattern of hard and easy sessions. Naming which cycle a question refers to scores higher than saying "training block".
PRE-SEASON: high volume, lower intensity. It builds an aerobic base and general strength — unglamorous, and essential. COMPETITION SEASON: volume drops and intensity rises. Sessions focus on the specific demands of matches, maintaining rather than building fitness. POST-SEASON, or transition: active rest, addressing injuries. Reversibility is allowed to work in reverse here — a deliberate reduction, not a training failure. TAPERING sits just before a major competition. Volume falls sharply while intensity stays high. Accumulated fatigue clears, so peak performance appears exactly when needed.
Individual differences, applied
Two players given the identical programme can respond completely differently. A younger, less experienced player may need lower intensity and more recovery to adapt safely. A highly trained veteran may need a heavier stimulus to progress at all. A programme that ignores this either under-trains one player or injures the other. Matching the load to the person is not an exception to the plan — it is the plan.
Putting the principles together
A strong training-plan answer names FITT for the session. Then it names specificity, for why that content was chosen. Then periodisation, for where it sits in the year. Then individual differences, for why it suits this performer. Naming FITT alone answers only one part of a four-part question.