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The PHILLIPS FIT Principles
Six principles that guide every PHILLIPS FIT decision
The PHILLIPS FIT Method™ is built around a simple idea: good training decisions should be guided by the person in front of you, not by the programme alone, or by the Trainer's assumptions.
These six principles govern how PHILLIPS FIT thinks.
The 11 Decision Points™ determine what information is considered.
Together, they help determine what happens next.
1. Never assume capacity. Assess it!
What somebody was capable of last week — or even earlier in the same session — does not automatically tell us what their nervous system can successfully organise and tolerate now.
Capacity can vary with sleep, stress, recovery, previous training, illness, sensory demands and other influences.
It may also be constrained by the prediction the nervous system is currently operating from, meaning the body can possess the physical potential to do more while the nervous system is not currently prepared to express it.
PHILLIPS FIT therefore starts by gathering information rather than assuming that today's capacity matches yesterday's.
Assessment establishes the starting point for the decision.
2. Right intervention. Right level of demand. Right time. Right person.
An exercise is not appropriate simply because it is a "good exercise".
Its suitability depends on who is performing it, what it asks of them, how much of that demand is applied and how their nervous system responds to it at that moment.
Sometimes the correct decision is to continue.
Sometimes it is to change the exercise, load, range, volume, breathing strategy, sensory demand or another variable.
And sometimes assessment may indicate that exercise itself is not currently the most appropriate intervention.
The aim is not to apply more.
It is to apply what is most appropriate for you.
3. The response informs the decision.
Completing an exercise does not automatically mean the exercise was well tolerated.
An exercise can look technically correct and consciously feel completely fine while still producing an unfavourable nervous system response that would otherwise go unnoticed.
PHILLIPS FIT therefore uses the response to a demand as additional information.
If the response remains organised, training may continue.
If a defensive response occurs, the training decision must change.
Feedback is not something gathered after the programme. It helps shape the programme as it happens.
4. Fit the training to the person — not the person to the training.
A programme is a plan.
It is not an obligation.
Traditional programming can sometimes encourage the person to fit the prescribed exercise, load, repetition target or progression because that is what has been written down.
PHILLIPS FIT takes the opposite approach.
The programme provides direction, but the individual determines how that programme is applied.
Exercise selection, dose, progression and other variables can therefore be adapted to the person's goals, biomechanics and current nervous system capacity.
The person does not have to prove themselves worthy of the programme. The programme has to remain appropriate for the person.
5. Progression must be demonstrated, not presumed.
More weight, more repetitions, greater range of motion or increased complexity may represent greater demand, but greater demand is not automatically successful progression.
Within PHILLIPS FIT, a progression can be introduced and the response then reassessed.
If the nervous system continues to successfully organise the new demand, the progression may be retained.
If it does not, that information can guide whether the progression should be refined, reduced or reversed.
Progression is not defined solely by what was completed. It is also defined by how the system responded to completing it.
6. Expand capacity using the most appropriate strategy.