A new method of parameter determination in the fatigue residual strength degradation model is proposed. The new method and minimization technique is compared experimentally to account for the effect of tension-compression fatigue loading of spheroidal graphite cast iron and graphite/epoxy laminate. It is shown that the correlation between the experimental results and the theoretical prediction on the fatigue life and residual strength distribution using the proposed method is very reasonable. Therefore, the proposed method is more adjustable in the determination of the parameter than minimization technique for the prediction of the fatigue characteristics.