Cart
0
£0.00
The 11 PHILLIPS FIT Decision Points™
How Feedback Becomes a Training Decision
The PHILLIPS FIT Method™ does not rely on a predetermined programme alone to decide what happens during a training session.
Instead, 11 Decision Points™ help organise the information gathered from your goals, biomechanics, performance and — importantly — your nervous system's real-time response to the demands placed upon it.
Each Decision Point considers a different aspect of your current capacity. Together, they help determine whether training should continue as planned, be modified, progressed, regressed, or whether another intervention may be more appropriate.
They are not eleven rigid tests that must be performed in exactly the same way during every session.
They are eleven areas of information that can influence the next coaching decision.
PHILLIPS FIT First Principle:
Never assume capacity. Assess it.
1. Daily Readiness
Establish today's starting point.
Capacity is not fixed.
Sleep, stress, recovery, previous training, illness and other factors can influence how you function from one day to the next — meaning what was appropriate last week may not necessarily represent the right starting point today.
PHILLIPS FIT therefore considers both how you report feeling and what your nervous system demonstrates during assessment before assuming that today's programme should proceed exactly as planned.
This Decision Point helps inform: where today's training begins and how closely the planned session should initially be followed.
2. Training Demand
Determine what challenge can be successfully tolerated today.
A training session creates multiple demands simultaneously: movement, force, stability, breathing, sensory input, complexity, volume and fatigue.
The question is therefore not simply how much training can be completed.
It is whether the demands being placed upon you can be successfully organised and tolerated by your nervous system today — and how the session should respond to that information.
This Decision Point helps inform: the overall level of challenge appropriate for the session.
3. Exercise Selection
Choose the right exercise for the person in front of you.
An exercise may appear ideal based on your goals and biomechanics while still representing a demand your nervous system cannot successfully organise/tolerate at that moment.
Exercise selection within the PHILLIPS FIT Method™ therefore considers more than what an exercise is theoretically designed to achieve.
It also considers how successfully you can currently organise its particular combination of movement, force, stability, sensory and breathing demands.
This Decision Point helps inform: whether an exercise should be retained, modified, regressed or replaced.
4. Exercise Response
Assess what happens when the exercise is actually performed.
An exercise can look technically correct and consciously feel completely fine while still producing a nervous system response that would otherwise go unnoticed.
Rather than relying solely on appearance or how an exercise feels, PHILLIPS FIT can reassess relevant movement and motor output responses to determine how your nervous system has responded to this particular exercise.
The response then becomes information.
This Decision Point helps inform: what, if anything, should be changed before the exercise continues.
5. Training Dose
Match demand to current capacity.
Choosing an appropriate exercise is only part of the decision.
The dose matters too.
Load, repetitions, sets, range of motion, tempo, breathing strategy, stability requirements, complexity, sensory demand and recovery can all alter what an exercise asks of your nervous system.
The aim is therefore not simply to prescribe a standard combination of sets, reps, and load, but to establish a training dose that can be successfully organised and tolerated right now.
This Decision Point helps inform: how much of the chosen exercise is appropriate at that moment.
PHILLIPS FIT Second Principle:
Right intervention. Right level of demand. Right time. Right person.
6. Progression
Demonstrate progression — don't presume it.
Increasing the weight, repetitions, range, complexity or intensity does not automatically mean that an exercise has been successfully progressed.
Within the PHILLIPS FIT Method™, greater demand is first introduced and the response can then be reassessed.
The progression is only truly appropriate if your nervous system remains capable of successfully organising the new demand.
This Decision Point helps inform: whether a progression should be retained, refined or reversed.
7. Movement Capacity
Understand what a movement restriction may be telling us.
Restricted movement is often treated primarily as a mobility or flexibility issue.
Sometimes that may be entirely appropriate.
But a reduction in available movement may also accompany a nervous-system response to a demand it does not currently organise confidently.
PHILLIPS FIT therefore considers movement not merely as something to stretch or increase, but as another source of information about current capacity.
This Decision Point helps inform: whether a movement should be trained as presented, modified, reassessed or explored further.
8. Force Production
Distinguish current motor output from long-term strength.
Reduced force output does not automatically mean that a muscle simply needs strengthening.
A person may possess adequate physiological strength yet demonstrate a temporary reduction in motor output in response to a particular demand.
By assessing force production alongside other nervous-system responses, PHILLIPS FIT can distinguish between what somebody is generally capable of and what their system is successfully expressing at that moment.
This Decision Point helps inform: whether greater loading is appropriate or whether the response first needs further investigation.
9. Sensory Demand
Consider the information the nervous system is being asked to process.
Exercise is not only mechanical.
Every movement also involves sensory information — including proprioceptive, tactile, visual, vestibular and other inputs that help the nervous system understand where the body is and how it should respond.
Changing that sensory demand can sometimes change the nervous system's response to an exercise even when the visible movement itself appears almost identical.
This Decision Point helps inform: whether the sensory demands associated with an exercise are contributing to the current response.
10. State Regulation
Consider capacity beyond movement and force.
The ability to train successfully can also be influenced by how well the nervous system tolerates changes in physiological state.
Breathing patterns, breath holds, longer exhales and shifts between more activating and more calming demands can themselves represent challenges to the nervous system.
Where relevant, these responses can provide additional information about the capacity the person brings into training.
This Decision Point helps inform: how breathing and state-related demands should be incorporated into the session.
11. Intervention Choice
Decide what should actually happen next.
The first ten Decision Points ultimately serve one purpose:
to make a better decision.
Sometimes the information indicates that the exercise can continue exactly as planned.
Sometimes the exercise, its dose or another training variable should change.
And occasionally, assessment may indicate that even significantly simplified exercise demands cannot currently be organised successfully. In those situations, repeatedly changing the workout may not be the most appropriate solution.
Where appropriate, a separate Neuro Reset Technique (NRT) session may instead be recommended to explore and address the capacity limitation before returning to exercise progression.
This Decision Point helps inform: the right intervention for the person in front of you at that moment.
The Decision-Making Framework
The 11 Decision Points™ are not separate from the PHILLIPS FIT Method™.
They are how the Method gathers and organises the information required to apply its three-stage process:
Assess → Match → Expand
Assess
Understand current capacity.
Match
Match the intervention and level of demand to that capacity.
Expand
Determine the most appropriate strategy for increasing what can be successfully organised and tolerated.
The Principles govern how PHILLIPS FIT thinks.
The Decision Points determine what information PHILLIPS FIT considers.
The Method brings those two together to determine what happens next.