The physical culturists of the early 1900’s have always fascinated me, these strongmen were in a league of their own when it came to across the board domination of total athletic ability. They were circus strong men, weightlifting champions, bodybuilding gods and quite often masters of hand balancing.

One thing that I have learnt about how they used to train is a method of weightlifting circuit training called Peripheral Heart Action (PHA).

This form of training has almost been forgotten about, many strength training enthusiasts don’t believe that there is a link with increasing both strength and muscle size simultaneously.

But, in more recent years as more and more people are starting to focus on functional strength training and putting more emphasis on health rather than just how the body looks, it’s starting to come back into the gym’s and being embraced.

So what is PHA training and what are the benefits of using it?

Let’s go over a few of the key factors to know.

The objective of peripheral heart action training is to perform a number of exercises back to back with very little rest in between in order to get the blood circulating throughout the body and keep circulation high.

As you train with PHA, you will alternate between muscle groups around the body to prevent too much of a lactic acid build-up that would prevent you from continuing on. When lactic acid builds up in the muscle cell, intense burning is felt and this can lead exercise to come to a halt, so PHA training aims to avoid this. In most cases, you will aim to perform five to six different exercises, doing four to five rounds per exercise.

Setting Up Your Workout

To set up your workout, you will alternate between muscles in the various regions of the body, going from an upper body movement to a lower body movement. Moving from weighted exercise to bodyweight works well, also compound to isolation is a good option.

An example circuit could be:

Barbell Squats – 10 reps

Pull-ups – 10 reps

Dumbbell Alternating Press – 10 reps

Sumo Deadlift – 10 reps

Push-Ups – 10 reps

Bent Over Row – 10 reps

A Closer Look At The Benefits

Now that you know what PHA style of training is, what are the primary benefits it has to offer?

PHA style of training is going to help to not only improve blood circulation throughout the body, but since it’s going to keep you moving the vast majority of the workout, this can also assist with burning up calories very rapidly and enhancing fat loss results.

As you’ll also be focusing on primary compound exercises as you do this workout routine, this also means that you will be gaining great strength training benefits and increasing your lean muscle mass.

With rest periods kept lower, this can also assist with ensuring that you are keeping your heart working the entire session as well, boosting cardiovascular progress gains.

Those who are performing this as part of their regular workout program will find they have a reduced need to perform additional cardio training as well.

So whether you choose to use PHA style of training as a form of X-training or you use the workout on its own without any other form of weight lifting, there are definitely benefits to be had from doing it.