Use Peripheral Heart Action Training to Build Size and Stamina

Want to transform your body? Go grab yourself a pair of dumbbells and follow these three workouts

Welcome to the Men’s Health Dumbbell Club, your new weekly plan for a fitter, stronger body, using just two dumbbells. Click here to head back and check out previous weeks or simply get stuck into our latest offering— week 21 – and follow the programme from here.

New This Week…

Over the next four weeks we’re going to be experimenting with peripheral heart action training. PHA training involves pairing upper body and lower body movements, back to back, forcing your heart to work double time to pump blood back and forth, from top to bottom. This method of increasing blood flow and circulation by rapidly shifting between different muscle groups results in huge benefits, such as:

Each workout will be separated into two or three, ten minute blocks, with each block containing an upper body and lower body movement. Your goal is to perform as many high quality rounds of each pairing as possible before the ten minute mark. Make a note of the total reps you managed for each movement, we’ll be referring back to these in later workouts.

Although each session will target your entire body, throughout the course of each week you can expect a major pump across your chest, back, shoulder, arms, quads and hamstrings.

Coach’s tip: Use a pen and paper to track your workouts and try to avoid Instagram doomscrolling between sets. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with this, staying mindful of your breath and focussed on the reps ahead will help you to optimise your rest, and ultimately— maximise your gains

After a thorough warm-up, grab your dumbbells, set a countdown timer for 10 minutes and get to work on your first ‘block’, working your way through as many high quality rounds as possible. Rest as necessary to keep your form on point, but push yourself hard if you want to see results. At the end of each round, make a note of how many reps you performed for each movement, creating a running tally for the entire workout. Keep this safe, we’ll be referring back to your ‘score’ in the coming weeks.

Rest for 3-4 minutes before moving into blocks 2 and 3 respectively.

Clean your dumbbells onto your shoulders, palms facing in. Take a breath and create tension in your core. (A) Dip at the knees and use your legs to help (B) press your dumbbells overhead. Lower with a controlled tempo to your shoulders and repeat. If your weights feel a little too light, don’t use any drive from the legs and focus on a strict press from the shoulders.

Stand tall with dumbbells at your sides (A), this time take a step backwards with one leg, bending the at the knee until the back knee gently touches the ground (B). Stand up explosively, pause and repeat with the opposite leg. Alternate back and forth, aiming for 20-30 total reps, counting both legs.

Stand tall with your dumbbells at your sides, hinge forward until your torso is almost parallel to the ground and allow the dumbbells to hang just below your knees (A). Maintaining a flat back, row both dumbbells towards your hips (B), squeeze your shoulder blades together and lower under control to the start before repeating.

Clean your dumbbells onto the front of your shoulders (A). From here, drop into a front squat, by pushing your hips back and bending at the knees until your thighs pass parallel to the ground (B), before driving back up explosively. Keep those dumbbells secured high, with a strong, upright torso throughout.

Assume a long arm plank position, with your core tight and, hands below your shoulders stacked on top of your dumbbells (A), bend your elbows to bring your chest to the floor (B). Keep your elbows close to your body as you push back up explosively.

Standing tall with your chest up (A), sink your hips back, bending your knees to drop your thighs until you reach a deep squat (B). Drive back up explosively and repeat. Keep a controlled tempo and tight form, but don’t dawdle. These may be simple, but they shouldn’t be easy.

Warm-up, grab your dumbbells, set a countdown timer for 10 minutes and get to work on your first ‘block’. Rest as necessary to keep your form on point, but push yourself hard. At the end of each round, make a note of how many reps you performed for each movement, creating a running tally for the entire workout.

Rest for 3-4 minutes before moving into blocks 2 and 3 respectively.

Lay flat on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the ground. Press the weights above you, locking out your elbows (A). Lower them slowly until your upper arms are resting on the floor (B), close to your body, pause here before explosively pressing back up. If you have a bench, use it.

Stand tall with your dumbbells at your sides, feet at shoulder width(A). With a slight bend in the knees, push your hips back and slowly lower the bells towards the ground (B), pinching your shoulders back and maintaining a flat back. When you feel a deep stretch in your hamstrings, pause and explosively return to and upright position.

Assume a long arm plank position, with your core tight and, hands below your shoulders stacked on top of your dumbbells (A). Shifting your weight onto your left hand, row the right dumbbell towards your hip (B). Pause briefly, then lower the weight under control. Repeat on your left side. Aim for 16-20 total reps, between left and right.

Step one foot backward and sink into a deep lunge, with your rear knee lightly touching the floor (A). Explode upward, jumping into the air and switching legs mid jump (B) to land in a lunge position with the opposite leg forward. Repeat the movement, alternating legs each rep. Keep this movement as fast paced as possible, focussing on maximising the height of each jump. End the set as soon as the ‘explosiveness’ begins to drop off.

Stand upright holding a single dumbbell with both hands, gripping the outer ‘heads’, your palms facing each other (A). With minimal momentum, curl the dumbbell upwards from your waist until it’s beneath your chin (B). Squeeze here and lower the weight under control. Keep your form tight here and go until you can no longer perform a rep without momentum.

Lay flat on your back, with your heels just off of the ground, your dumbbells behind your head- gripping them as an ‘anchor’ (A). Keeping your feet together, ‘curl’ at the stomach- lifting your legs towards the ceiling until your hips peel from the floor (B), pause here for a second before slowly lowering. Once you start, keep your feet off of the ground throughout, once they touch down- your set is over.

As with days one and two: warm-up, grab your dumbbells, set a countdown timer for 10 minutes and get to work on your first ‘block’. Rest as necessary to keep your form on point, but push yourself hard. Today only contains two blocks, so make sure you give your all in both of them. At the end of each round, make a note of how many reps you performed for each movement, creating a running tally for the entire workout.

Rest for 3-4 minutes before moving into block 2.

Stand up and hold your dumbbells at your side. Hinge at the hips to lower them to your knees (A). Stand back up with a slight jump, using the momentum to pull the dumbbells on to your shoulders (B). Stand up straight, then lower under control to your sides and repeat.

Hold a single dumbbell close to your chest (A). Sink your hips back and slowly over a count of 4 seconds descend into a squat (B). Your elbows should come in between your knees at the bottom. Drive back up explosively. Repeat. Pay attention to that tempo, it matters.

With your dumbbells on the floor just outside of your feet, hinge down and grip them with a flat back and neutral spine (A). Engage your lats and stand upright, ‘pushing the ground away’ with your feet, keeping your chest up and black flat throughout (B). Lower them back to the ground in a hinging motion and repeat. Avoid excessive rounding in your lower back, keeping your form tight throughout.

Assume a long arm plank position, with your core tight and, hands below your shoulders stacked on top of your dumbbells (A), bend your elbows to bring your chest to the floor (B). Keep your elbows close to your body as you push back up explosively.

With almost 18 years in the health and fitness space as a personal trainer, nutritionist, breath coach and writer, Andrew has spent nearly half of his life exploring how to help people improve their bodies and minds.

As our fitness editor he prides himself on keeping Men’s Health at the forefront of reliable, relatable and credible fitness information, whether that’s through writing and testing thousands of workouts each year, taking deep dives into the science behind muscle building and fat loss or exploring the psychology of performance and recovery.

Whilst constantly updating his knowledge base with seminars and courses, Andrew is a lover of the practical as much as the theory and regularly puts his training to the test tackling everything from Crossfit and strongman competitions, to ultra marathons, to multiple 24 hour workout stints and (extremely unofficial) world record attempts.

You can find Andrew on Instagram at @theandrew.tracey, or simply hold up a sign for ‘free pizza’ and wait for him to appear.

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