The article focuses on the problem of the program-target approach to the management of the professional training of the future teacher of physical culture. The peculiarities of the program-target approach are revealed and the ways of its realization in the conditions of the credit-module system of training are grounded. An attempt has been made to prove that this approach is one of the effective mechanisms for improving the quality of educational services in higher education. The following research methods were used for solving the tasks: analysis and generalization of psychological and pedagogical and educational and methodical literature that gave an opportunity to find out the current state of the theory and practice of optimizing the pedagogical process, to systematize and generalise information about the object under investigation and to create a model of optimization of a professional training of teachers of physical culture. The following programs are used to achieve the goal at different levels of their development and implementation, in particular, general, faculty (institute), department (group) and personal, which made it possible to significantly optimize the professional training of future teachers of physical culture. The effectiveness of the work of the head of the pedagogical team (structural unit) in the high school on the optimization of relations, which are managed and evaluated according to the following criteria, is determined: a) the content of the activity (volume and quality of the work performed); b) degree of unity of the collective for a certain period of work; c) the authority of the head (election leader).