Peripheral Heart Action (PHA): Training for Weight Loss

), is the name of a total body workout aimed at aesthetic culture.

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Peripheral Heart Action Training is not a recently conceived system, even if the principles on which it is based still remain quite popular. Conceived by Arthur H. Steinhaus under the name of "Sequence System", it exploded in the 1960s thanks to the testimony of Bob Gajdav - formerly Mr America (Amateur Athletic Union, AAU) and Mr Universo.

(circuit training) with the use of resistances (resistance training), mainly consisting of weights or isokinetic machines (dumbbells, barbells, pulldown machines, tilting and reclining bench, ercolina, pulley, press, multypower, etc.).

The PHA theory is based on the uninterrupted and prolonged stimulation of all muscle groups, using the so-called multi-joint exercises (squats or squats, pulls or tractions, pushes and presses or distensions) and taking care to solicit each district only once ( it is to be avoided, for example, to insert squats and deadlifts in the same workout) per circuit lap.

To organize a good Peripheral Heart Action Training it is also essential that the stimulus recruit the most distant muscles, alternating large and small, alternating the upper and lower parts. Its creator was convinced that PHA could first develop the small muscles around the heart, and then the larger ones in the peripheries; however, this is an outdated conjecture.

The number of exercises to be included in the circuit is ideally 5 or 6, each of which consists of a variable number of repetitions, which allows you to maintain an "intensity between 60 and 75% of a maximum repetition (1-RM). , for 5 or 6 laps of the circuit. The choice of the number of reps varies according to:

• Number of circuit laps
• Chronological position of the circuit
• Goal of the training
• Athletic level of the subject.

We reiterate that there should be no passive recoveries between exercises and not even between laps of the circuit. To obtain a more effective Peripheral Heart Action Training, it is good practice to increase the intensity (and therefore the load) of the individual exercises at each turn. The overall duration of a PHA workout is approximately three quarters of an hour.

In fact, the intensity of Peripheral Heart Action Training is quite high, but not as high as that of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) - high intensity interval training - and also does not provide effective recovery. It is therefore difficult to determine whether or not it is a proper HIT - High Intensity Training. In fact, PHA has the characteristic of determining a high general metabolic fatigue, which prevents reaching peaks of strength instead obtainable with "interval training. In addition, Peripheral Heart Action Training, urging a continuous migration of blood from one muscle to the other" other, in a certain sense it opposes the accumulation of localized lactic acid. Moreover, very rarely it determines the exhaustion or muscle failure, maintaining a level of local fatigue in "buffer".

Due to the aforementioned characteristics, not everyone agrees on the real efficacy of this system in stimulating strength and hypertrophy; first of all because the "metabolic fatigue" should not "allow you to rise to the apex of the intensity that can be reached in the individual districts (especially those used last), but also because keeping acidosis low (assuming it is actually possible) is consequently reduced stimulating the release of somatotropin (GH) - which would promote the action of IGF-1 or similar insulin factor responsible for muscle anabolism. Regarding the ability to develop strength during PHA, it must be specified that an old study instead revealed a greater potential in the same, probably by virtue of a sort of "mental distraction" from "specific fatigue.