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 permanently fixed — but it can be constrained by the nervous system's current prediction.

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.

The question is not simply:

"Which exercise best suits your goals and biomechanics?"

Your goals, biomechanics and conscious preferences are all important and form part of the PHILLIPS FIT decision-making process.

But an exercise can appear perfectly appropriate on paper while still asking more of your nervous system than it can successfully handle and tolerate right now.

Exercise selection therefore also considers:

"Which exercise best suits your goals, conscious preferences, biomechanics and your nervous system's current capacity?"

The aim is not simply to choose a "good exercise".

It is to choose the most appropriate exercise for you, at that moment.

This Decision Point helps inform: which exercise best matches you and your current capacity.

4. 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.

5. Exercise Response

Completing an exercise does not automatically mean it was successfully tolerated.

An exercise can look technically correct and consciously feel completely fine while assessment reveals an unfavourable nervous-system response that may otherwise remain invisible.

PHILLIPS FIT therefore considers two levels of information:

What happened externally?

And:

How did your nervous system respond to the demand?

If your nervous system remains organised and successfully handles and tolerates the exercise, that provides useful information for continuing.

If a defensive response occurs, the training decision must change.

The exercise response therefore helps determine whether we continue, modify the demand, change the exercise or consider another intervention.

What you can see is important. What you can't see may change the decision.

This Decision Point helps inform: what, if anything, should be changed before the exercise continues.

6. Progression

Traditional measures of progression largely reflect externally visible performance:

• More weight.

• More repetitions.

• Greater range of motion.

• A more complex exercise.

Those measures matter, but they demonstrate that you managed to do more, not necessarily that your nervous system successfully handled or tolerated more.

Within the PHILLIPS FIT Method™, a progression can be introduced and the response to that increased demand then be reassessed at a non-conscious nervous-system level.

If your nervous system continues to successfully organise and tolerate the progressed exercise without triggering a defensive response, the progression is safe to retain.

If a defensive nervous-system response occurs, the progression is no longer safe to continue unchanged, and the exercise must be modified or regressed.

The question therefore becomes:

"Has your nervous system demonstrated capacity for a greater demand, and when we increase that demand, can it still successfully organise and tolerate it?"

Progression must be demonstrated, not presumed.

This Decision Point helps inform: whether a progression should be retained or regressed.

7. Movement Capacity

Understand why movement is being limited before trying to increase it.

Restricted movement is commonly approached by stretching, massaging or "releasing" whatever feels tight.

But movement can be limited for more than one reason.

When the nervous system predicts that a movement may exceed current capacity, it may increase protective muscular tension, creating the experience of tightness. Alternatively, it may limit access to the range because of insufficient force, control or stability in that position.

In other words, a movement restriction can reflect tightness, weakness, or a combination of both.

Stretching and other releasing methods may increase range of motion (ROM) temporarily, but gaining more range does not necessarily tell us why the restriction was present in the first place. Research has shown that improvements in ROM following stretching can occur through changes in stretch tolerance and/or passive mechanical stiffness, neither of which, by itself, explains why the nervous system was mediating that tightness in the first place.

And if weakness or reduced force capacity is contributing to the restriction, simply creating more range does not address that limitation at all. 

The PHILLIPS FIT Method™ therefore treats a movement restriction as information, rather than automatically assuming that something is physically 'too short' and needs to be stretched or 'released', or simply 'too weak' and needs strengthening.

Where appropriate, nervous-system assessment helps determine what is limiting access to the movement and whether a defensive response is present.

If a capacity limitation is identified, the priority becomes addressing that limitation — including dedicated Neuro Reset Technique (NRT) work where indicated, rather than simply forcing more movement.

Work with the body, not against it.

Creating more range without addressing the capacity limitations that are causing the restriction can give you access to a position your nervous system does not yet have the strength, control or stability to manage successfully.

That becomes particularly important during resistance training. If that newly available range is then loaded before sufficient capacity exists to control it, you will be more vulnerable in that position, because you are now asking your body to manage external load in a range where it has already demonstrated limited capacity.

Mobility without stability = vulnerability.

More range is not automatically better range. Your nervous system still needs to be able to successfully control and tolerate the new range that has become available.

For this reason, passive stretching and other "releasing" methods are generally not used within the PHILLIPS FIT Method™ for increasing mobility. The priority is to understand what is limiting access to the range first, then determine the most appropriate way to address that limitation.

Where the restriction reflects a nervous-system capacity limitation, Neuro Reset Technique (NRT) is used to address that limitation directly. Once additional range can be successfully accessed and tolerated, it can then be incorporated into appropriately matched exercise and progressively strengthened over time.

This Decision Point helps inform: why movement may currently be limited, whether additional range is appropriate, and whether the movement should be accepted, modified, explored further or addressed through NRT before additional range or load is introduced.

In my own work with clients, I have repeatedly observed 'releasing' interventions increase range of motion while other measures of nervous-system function worsen. For this reason, PHILLIPS FIT does not assume that more range automatically represents a better outcome.

8. Strength & Force Production

Understand why something is weak before trying to strengthen it.

When a muscle produces less force than expected, the obvious assumption is often that it simply needs to become physically stronger.

But reduced force output does not automatically mean a muscle lacks physical strength.

Sometimes the nervous system may be inhibiting how much force that muscle is currently able to contribute.

That distinction matters.

If the weakness is down to nervous-system inhibition rather than a lack of physical strength, simply using traditional strengthening or rehabilitation exercises is unlikely to resolve the weakness itself.

The movement may appear to get stronger over time, but that improvement can come from other muscles contributing more, effectively strengthening the compensation rather than restoring contribution from the inhibited muscle.

This is why PHILLIPS FIT does not judge strength solely by whether you can complete the exercise or move the weight.

Nervous-system assessment can provide additional information about whether force output remains organised when a particular muscle, position or movement is challenged.

The question therefore becomes:

"Is your nervous system currently limiting force output in response to this exercise or position?"

If force output is organised and the limitation reflects genuine physical capacity, appropriately matched strength training may be exactly what is needed.

If assessment instead identifies nervous-system inhibition, simply applying more load may not address what is limiting access to force. Where appropriate, Neuro Reset Technique (NRT) can be used to address that limitation before force production is reassessed and the muscle is returned to appropriately matched exercise.

The aim is not simply to make the movement stronger. It is to determine whether the intended muscle is actually contributing more, or whether the body has simply become better at compensating around the weakness.

This Decision Point helps inform: whether reduced force output reflects a physical strength limitation, nervous-system inhibition, compensation, or a combination of these factors, and therefore whether the most appropriate next step is strengthening, modifying the exercise or addressing the nervous-system limitation first using NRT.

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

Understand how well your nervous system can state-shift between activation and relaxation.

The ability to train successfully can also be influenced by how well the nervous system tolerates changes in autonomic state.

Breathing patterns, breath holds, longer exhales and shifts between more activating (sympathetic) and more calming (parasympathetic) 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

Just because you can change something, doesn't necessarily mean you should.

Before choosing an exercise, modifying the training, making a technique correction or using another intervention, PHILLIPS FIT first asks:

Does anything actually need to be changed or corrected right now, and if so, what is the most appropriate intervention?

• A muscle that feels tight does not automatically need stretching.

• A muscle that feels weak does not automatically need strengthening.

• And a visible compensation does not automatically need correcting.

Sometimes a compensation is the nervous system's best solution for keeping a movement organised around a current capacity limitation.

Under load, that matters. If a compensation is helping you manage the weight, coaching it away can suddenly reduce your ability to produce force and control the load, potentially turning a well intentioned technique correction into a safety issue.

That's why PHILLIPS FIT doesn't automatically try to make every movement look more "textbook".

Movement that looks better is not automatically movement your nervous system can handle or tolerate better.

However, leaving a compensation alone during training does not mean ignoring the underlying limitation indefinitely.

A compensation may allow the nervous system to remain organised in the short term, but repeatedly relying on the same strategy can redistribute more work and stress to other areas of the body over time. Strategic non-interference may therefore be the most appropriate immediate decision, but it is not necessarily the best long term solution.

Where appropriate, a separate Neuro Reset Technique (NRT) session can be used to investigate and address the capacity limitation that made the compensation necessary in the first place, before reassessing the movement and returning to appropriately matched exercise.

Sometimes the appropriate decision is to continue training.

Sometimes it is to modify the exercise or level of demand.

Sometimes the safest immediate decision is to leave a compensation alone.

And sometimes the longer term strategy is to address the nervous-system limitation itself through NRT.

Assessment doesn't automatically lead to intervention. It leads to the most appropriate decision — both for right now and for what happens next.

This Decision Point helps inform: whether intervention is needed at all, what is most appropriate right now, and whether an underlying capacity limitation should be addressed before progressing further.

The Decision-Making Framework

The 11 Decision Points™ are not separate from the PHILLIPS FIT Method™.

They provide the information the Method considers when applying its three-stage process:

Assess → Match → Expand

WHY — The 6 Principles define why PHILLIPS FIT makes training decisions the way it does.

WHAT — The 11 Decision Points™ define what PHILLIPS FIT considers when making those decisions.

HOW — The PHILLIPS FIT Method™ brings them together through Assess → Match → Expand to determine how we decide what happens next.

Never assume capacity. Assess it!
Train to your capacity. Expand what's possible.