Setting Cardiovascular Fitness Goals

Once a cardiovascular assessment activity have been completed, the next step is to develop a plan for maintaining or improving your current level of fitness. This fitness plan should include activities that are safe, meet the recommendations for cardiovascular training, and are adapted to meet your personal goal.

A cardiovascular fitness goal should focus on the process of training and meet the SMART goal standards outlined in chapter 1.

Once these fitness goals have been identified, the Principles of Fitness Training such as specificity (targeting specific areas in a workout) and progressive overload (the practice of increasing exertion as the body adapts to ensure continued gains in fitness levels) can be utilized to achieve those goals.  Specifically, you need to apply the FITT principle (Frequency, Intensity, Time, and Type) described in detail in the previous chapter, “Fitness Principles”:

Applying the FITT Principle

When designing a cardiorespiratory program using the FITT Principle your flexibility program should include sustained exercises or movements that use large muscle groups such as running, walking, rowing, swimming and cycling.

The following represents the recommended ranges for safe and effective cardiovascular training:

• Frequency: 3–5 days per week for healthy adults.
• Intensity: moderate to vigorous intensity  (represented by your calculated Target Heart Zone).
• Time/duration: 20­­–60 minutes per session or accumulation of 150 minutes per week. Sessions must be continuous for 10 minutes or more.
• Type (mode): Use large muscle groups and exercises specific to cardiorespiratory exercise.

How to use this in training:  a person would set specific values for each of the above components of FITT that meet their current level of fitness and lifestyle. As the body adapts, and the specified workout feels easier (or a person is not able to maintain a high enough heart rate) the Overload Principle would continue to be used by adding to any one of the components at a time to increase demands on the body. These adaptions to a program may happen as often as every few weeks to maintain adequate demands on the body to continue to see improvements in fitness.