"The Best Damn" Questions

Hey y’all,

Long time lurker / reformed shit poster here. I’ve been using a combo of “The Best Damn” workouts and Primer 52. My results have been decent. I’ve gained roughly 10 lbs in as many months. Although an exact measurement is difficult since I lose weight SUPER easy. (Like, 10 lbs in three days if I cut carbs and work - I’m an emergency nurse so I’m walking 5ish miles a day). I feel like I’m still not doing something right, so I bought the “Best Damn” workout plan and have questions.

  1. I usually do a periodization model (Prep / hypertrophy, strength, speed / agility) but I’m not sure how to do a speed or agility phase using these concepts, or if I should. So- do I just bulk until I reach goal weight and worry about the rest later? Or can I take a four week pause for speed and agility and return after?

  2. Is the primer 52 diet better or should I follow the general advice in the “Best damn” program I bought?

  3. Should I care about neurotyping or just stick to the “Best Damn” programs?

  4. My quads, calves, arms, and forearms always lag behind my back and chest. What, if anything, can I do to address this.

If my questions are dumb, are answered elsewhere, or otherwise don’t deserve a complete answer- don’t hesitate to let me know.

Thanks in advance for the help.

The only thing I can probably answer here is I’m a Type 3 and have had great results with that program. I’m on week 6 right now. I eat like a Type 3 as well so high carbs, 1g/lb for protein and fill in fat. I tried primer 52 and cannot handle the fasting days, all I think about is food and hangry is a real thing for me. My advice is to always run a program as is. Anyway, that’s my two cents. Good luck.

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Any advice on speed / agility training while using the “Best Damn” programs?

Seems like I need to cough up the money for the neurotype testing to figure out my diet.

Edit: Thanks!!!

Not from me on speed and agility. I took the test even though I knew I was clearly a type 3. It’s a good test to take though. I would suggest answering the questions and if you have a significant other have them with you to help you answer. An outside opinion is nice.

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I am obviously not CT, but if you have hard time to put on mass, why just not exclude agility/speed and other conditioning part of work for the duration of the program or some designated time?
Especialy since your job is already conditioning itself.

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That’s a fair question. I use that phase to work speed and explosive movements, as well as some skill work like cartwheels and handstands.

I will work speed, skills, explosiveness for 4 weeks out of 24-34 at max. I feel it helps my knees and shoulders as well, especially the handstands.

I understand, totaly legit.
Just wanted to say to give yourself some time to focus on one goal(or at least compatible goals).
And keep us posted :slight_smile:

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Hello, CT,

I know it’s not good to “change” training plans/splits and you dont in general answear this questions. But I would like to ask about frequency.

I’ve been doing your “Best Damn Program - Part One” for roughly 6 months and still love it , but am forced to drop the frequency 4-5 times to 3-4 times a week (new job, small child, and I’m building my house…). So is it realy a problem to do this program only 3 times a week or EOD style (complete the whole 6 workout in 2 weeks)?

I don’t want to change the program because I like the structure, etc. and I don’t like the Upper/lower splits…

Thank you.

Honestly, the volume is too low for an EOD split. It might work for 4 days a week.

But after 6 months you should change program. Even the most effective plan cannot keep working for that long. At least, not optimally.

Coach do You think that we should also change split often or rather just method for exercises?

Methods and exercises are sufficient

But the main exercises should stay the same I think?

Not after 6 months

How this apply to athlets when they need to be good in some movements/skills. For example weight lifting/crossfit. I also remember that You wrote in the past about not changing main exercise to offten but rather practice them

Thank you for your response.

was going to ask as well, refering to your article about it…Even Dorian Yates (I guess Paul Carter) mentioned that program could stay “long” only stalled exercise should be swapped.

Absolutely. Different goals = different approaches.

It’s NOT: with all types of training you need to change exercises.

When the goal is hypertrophy there is value in changing the exercises: when you change exercises you will have lesser level of intramuscular coordination on the new movement. This means that the muscle fibers involved are not working as well together to overcome the external load. The result is that, at any given time, less fibers are working together to lift the weight. This means that each fiber has to produce more tension when it is recruited. This leads to more muscle damage and a greater training stress and explains why when you first start doing a new movement you are more likely to become sore. And the better you become at an exercise, the less soreness you have.

That’s also why when you come back from a layoff, your get sore again: you lost intramuscular coordination.

For athletic performance this is not necessary (unless you really need to build muscle to perform better) and can even be detrimental by:

  1. Increasing the length of the recovery period (hard to be efficient in your sport when you are sore from your workouts)

  2. Increase the neurological stress (the less efficient you are at a movement, the more neurological resources you need to perform said movement). When I was training an olympic track cyclist and utilizing a rotation (every 3-4 weeks) in the squat exercise we noticed a significant drop in cycling performance (sprint cycling) for the first 1-2 weeks where the new exercise was being used.

Now, you can still use more exercise variation with athletes, but only in the accumulation period, far away from the season or where there is a lot of sport-skill training.

Right.

To keep building muscle you need to gradually increase the tension imposed on the muscles. The main way to do that is to add weight.

Increasing tension means that all the muscle fibers involved are under greater tension and thus the stimulus for hypertrophy is still good.

See it this way: the longer you perform an exercise, the more efficient (better intramuscular coordination) you become, so the less tension per fiber there is, because the load is spread over more fibers working synchroniously (referring to my previous post). To compensate for that decrease in per-fiber tension, you need to increase the overall tension to be produced, which means adding weight.

As long as you can progress on an increase you can compensate (and more) for the improvement in intramuscular coordination reduce the tension per-fiber.

So as long as you can progress on an exercise (not necessarily every week) you can keep that movement in. When it stagnates (can’t progress for 3 or more workouts in a row) you should change it.

Training for movement efficiency is not at all the same as training for muscle growth.

Those are awesome rrsponses. This “Training for movement efficiency” subject sounds really interesting. Maybe you will consider an articlle about it?