The fundamentals of circulatory mechanisms (such as those pHx™ incorporates) are discussed at length in most any basic physiology textbook. Some of the elements are discussed below:
The Body'Fit pH Fitness™ exercise program opens up blood vessels in the five anatomical organ groups in a specific sequence while exercising the sympathetic & parasympathetic system in a specific sequence, for good reason. As we know, high pressure in arterioles is due to their much smaller diameter compared to arteries. Also any change in pressure affects each organ group separately because arterial blood only passes thru one set of arterioles before returning to the heart, that is, each of the five fundamental organ groups have vascular resistances that are 'in parallel'. Whenever vasodilators are released into one anatomical cavity, circulation increases in the corresponding organs, while the other groups remain unaffected until the vasodilators reach them. It's important to note that the release of a vasodilator in a large organ or group of organs can significantly lower overall peripheral resistance in the body.
Therefore the pHx™ routine starts out, after the initial inversion of the body to get more blood into the brain to stimulate the pineal gland, by opening up vessels in the abdominal cavity because that's where the largest volume of blood in the body is stored. Bye the way, opening up these vessels has the effect of lowering total peripheral blood pressure reducing the possibility of adrenaline damage damage to artery walls as the speed of blood flow increases with rising heart rate.
It's like this… since the vascular network of a living organism is a closed system, in order for blood flow to increase in one area it must decrease in other areas. Typically during physical activity, this means that blood vessels in the organs, including eventually in the skin, have to contract in order for total peripheral resistance / blood pressure to remain consistent, because dilating arterioles in working skeletal muscle pull most of the blood out of the body. That is as the deep arterioles in the viscera constrict, blood flow is diverted to the muscles to the corresponding degree. This imbalance never occurs during performance of Body'Fit pHx™ because the sequence-specific movement-specific exercise pattern is designed especially to release hormones that dilate visceral vessels, early in the series.
Otherwise stimulation of aldosterone secretion of ADH (vaso-pressin) contributes to the constrictive effect as soon as physical activity begins. Angiotensin II directly stimulates vascular smooth muscle to produce generalized constriction. While the sympathetic-adrenal system stimulates alpha-adrenergic receptors with norepinephrine and to a lesser degree with epinephrine. Note that the release of adrenaline causes adrenergic fibres to increase in activity within the viscera and skin, and decrease in skeletal muscle. This contributes to the vasoconstrictor effect in the skin and deep organs. And because acetylcholine activity increases in skeletal muscle as adrenergic activity decreases, total blood flow to muscle tissue increases as a result of the vasodilator cholinergic sympathetic fibres. Blood flow is thus typically diverted to exercising muscle, just as the catecholaImine-5-induced vasoconstrictor is raising total peripheral resistance and blood pressure.
On the other hand parasympathetic effect on arterioles is always cholinergic and always promotes dilation -- but only in the digestive tract. Hence Body'Fit pH Fitness exercise is engineered to utilize increased organ circulation produced by an increase in parasympathetic and decrease in sympathetic activity with balanced and timely stimulation. Adrenaline is converted into a vasodilator with release of the adenosine hormone as the first exercise for the lumbar spine produces a sudden compression of the abdomen. Further on in the pHx sequence mitigation of excitory sympathetic stimulation is calmed with parasympathetic stimulation; the lumbar and thoracic series is followed by the cranial and pelvic series. Also while the sympathetic-adrenal system has a positive introphic effect on heart contraction increasing both stroke volume and cardiac rate, the parasympathetic system, while lowering heart rate, does not affect contraction strength or stroke volume. This provides another mechanism by which pHx distributes oxygen more equitably between organs and muscles.
Pressure differences within the venous system are due to the size of vessels (highest in venues, lowest in the vena cave). Pressure goes up with sympathetic activity, the skeletal-muscle pump, and pressure differentials between the thoracic and abdominal cavities. Venous pressure is much lower than arterial pressure, mostly due to compliance (veins have thinner less muscular walls than arteries holding up to 2/3 of total blood volume), but also in part due to the pressure difference between arteries and arterioles. Although sympathetic stimulation doesn't cause nearly as much constriction in the venous circulation as it does in the arterial circulation, adrenaline makes capacitance vessels less compliant than they usually are. This has the effect of further raising blood pressure with sympathetic stimulation.
This is an important point, because although adrenaline does not affect large vessels as much as small vessels, it plays a key role in the ability of blood vessels to expand under pressure. This is why we speak about the possibility that adrenaline can damage artery walls under pressure… because we know that in an athlete, damage is usually is not due to things like cigarette nicotine or car exhaust fumes, since athletes usually don't smoke and usually try to avoid training where air is highly polluted. And yet, arteriosclerosis has been found to be present in the high majority of athletes who die during training, even at a young age. And while short interval training for cardio conditioning is advantageous, it does not, however, account for the mechanisms of dilation and constriction which requires acceleration of deep body oxygenation, that adding a pHx warm-up to a cardio workout is specially designed to accomplish.
