PHR for Weight Loss

Ready to try something new?  This is one type of training that will give you an awesome workout, kick your butt and put your heart into overdrive!  It is called PHR, or Peripheral Heart Rate Training.

First, let’s go through the concept.  Have you ever worked out and felt that muscle get really tight, or pumped up?  That pumping up action is the body doing two things.  First it is increase blood flow to that muscle to bring energy and nutrients to it and help it perform by using vaso-dilation.  Second your body is decreasing blood flow, hence energy and nutrients, to the muscles that you are not using through vaso-constriction.

Your body is really smart and it understands that you save energy but limiting the amount of blood flowing around the body.  For example, let’s say that you are doing bench presses, there is no need to keep as much blood in your legs so your body in essence redirects that blood to the muscles that are doing the work.  This causes your legs to cool down a bit and burn less calories.  Your legs in this scenario will burn less energy, or calories, than they would otherwise.  So your body being as smart as it is is trying to burn the least amount of energy possible at all times.

So in this scenario, using PHT, we are going to use your body’s system to burn as many calories as possible.  A warning before hand, this is not for the faint of heart.  This type of workout will make your heart want to jump out of your chest and make you feel very short of breath.  It is meant to be done with the same weight as you normally would use but your are going to ask your body to burn more energy so you will feel very depleted quickly.  As always you need to use your brain before you start because I don’t want someone who is unprepared to do this and give themselves a heart attack!

Here is what you do.

1. Choose 1 upper-body muscle that you want to use.  The bigger the muscle the more calories you burn.  It can be a multi-joint movement like Chest Press or it can be an isolation movement like Pec Deck.
2. Now choose 1 lower-body exercise exercise.  Again, it can be a multi-joint movement like Squats or it can be an isolation movement like Leg Extensions.
3. Start with either exercise and do as many reps as possible, and I mean you need to go to absolute failure.
4. Then Switch to the opposite exercise immediately and do the as many reps as possible.
5. Then switch back and forth for 3 full sets.
6. After you complete the first exercise group then choose another upper and another lower and do it again.
7. Repeat the steps until you can no longer continue!

This forces your body to keep blood flow high to all parts of your body on an ongoing basis.  This burns a TON of calories and is one of the most effective and most physically difficult styles of training.