But blaming it only on the PEDs is strange
This! On this forums and many others when talking about successful methods, from Sheiko, Westside, Chinese wlt team...steroids is mentioned and very quickly people argue that's the key. Going that road seems like a dead end to me; no longer we can learn from the method and people behind it.
My experience with squatting everyday:
Background:
- Much weaker compared to many of you. Weight about 70 - 75 kg most of the time. Current max back squat is 150 kg
- I ran squatting everyday from Nov 2020 (I believe) to Mar 2021. After that I ask Eric help for a meet and he pulled me back to squatting twice per week, one heavy, one light.
- Before squatting everyday I did the Texas method, before that doing sets of 5 for squat.
Success (modest one)
- 10 kg to back squat. From 135 to 140, then 140 to 145. All is atg
- A few kg of weight gain. Squat is the only lift I done with frequenly (I don't deadlift, bench or ohp much during that time) so squat is the main driver I believe.
- Less scared of squatting. This is the most important thing that I gain from this. I'm also more comfortable with pausing at the bottom position.
- Most of the time I feel fresh.
Drawback:
- Very hard in terms of planning/ programming. I remeber most of the time I just do a few sets of heavy rows, then squat, then come home.
- Other lifts get negative impact because of lacked of practice, mostly upper body push. My deadlift increased thought
- My friends at the gym said that I look like T-rex. Some said dyel
- It's hard to increase the volume to keep progressing. I believe 10 kg gain was from both squatting every plus a long duration of squat with sets of 5 before that. When the benefit of 5-rep squat duration ran out my progress stall. Greg Nuckol recommends doing sets of 3 and 5s after hitting daily max; I do it and noticed it became harder to recover. I ended up doing it quite randomly.
- A strange addicted to squatting. When I saw a squat rack I did a set of squat, and next thing I knew I drop my plan and just doing squat. Everything else feels meaningless. It's hard to explain.
Despite of all the drawback, I had zero injury and if I can come back I would definately do it again, of course with some change.