By, Caroline Newton, Discovery Learning Programme Director

I have been going to gym about 4 times a week for a while now and have started to get bored. So, I dug out my old workouts and came across the PHA training system that I used to use. I dusted of the cobwebs and decided to try it again to kick start my training again. The reasons why I came back to these systems was because it is fun, time efficient, ideal for toning up muscle, it works the whole body, excellent calorie burning workout and a excellent CV session.

PHA is short for ‘Peripheral heart Action’ and key aim of the approach is to train at high intensity without lactic acid building up and developing local muscular fatigue. It is specifically designed to keep the blood circulating through the whole body without it localising in one area. It is similar to circuit training, but your choice of resistance exercises are on the opposite ends of the body (e.g. upper body and lower body), therefore preventing blood becoming localised and lactic acid building up. The objective is to allow one muscle group to rest, while working another at the same time keeping the heart elevated, therefore eliminating the need to do a separate aerobic workout later.

There are a number of variations for the PHA depending on your goal and what you want to achieve. But the basic sequence of exercise is similar for most goals which is:

• Compound leg
• Compound upper body push exercise
• Compound leg (separate exercise from the first exercise)
• Compound upper body pull exercise

Run through all the exercises in sequence one after each other without rest until you get to the last exercise in the sequence. You can then have a rest 1-2 minutes then. The rep ranges and number of sets you do of the sequence will depend on the goal you wishing to achieve. But you would normally do about 3-4 sets of the sequence of exercises. You will have about 2-3 separate sequences of exercises in one workout (depending on your time).

I wanted to focus on my Muscular Endurance, CV fitness, toning up and weight loss. So my goal was to keep my heart rate up between 75% and 85% max heart rate.

Therefore my routine looks something like this:

• Front squat (20-25 reps)
• Dumb bell chest press on ball (20-25 reps)
• Persian one legged squat (20-25 reps)
• Bent over row (20-25 reps)
• 500m row (on ergometer)
• Repeat 3 times

Then move onto:

• Travelling lunges (20-25 reps)
• Press ups (20-25 reps)
• Hamstring curls on TRX (20-25 reps)
• Back row on TRX (20-25 reps)
• 500m row (on ergometer)

Repeat 3 times

Finally I finish off with a core circuit with 4 abdominal exercises back to back repeated 3 times.

By the time I finish this workout – I feel truly worked. I have lost 3 kgs in the last 3 weeks by performing this 3 times a week plus a personal trainer session and an extra CV session mixed in! I will keep you informed of my progress and hopefully more weight will come off!

Comments(0)