Over the past six months the Internet has being going wild over Cory Gregory’s new Squat Everyday program and the sequel including his Bench Most Dayz program. In order to weigh in on what seemed to be a ludacris program, I said “why not” and went for it. My squat max starting out was consistently 445 to competition depth with a belt, no wraps or sleeves.
The basic layout of the program is simple enough. Pick a squat variation everyday (7 days per week), and work up to as heavy as you can go in that variation for 3 sets of 1. Sounds like overtraining waiting to happen, right?
Wrong. The way the variations are stacked, you’re not actually going to your heaviest weight everyday. For example, one day I would do a powerlifting style squat with a belt and knee sleeves for a heavy 1, which would be my absolute max weight. Other days I would do front squats or pause squats, sometimes as long as 10 seconds. On 10 sec pause squats, I couldn’t hit much more than 315 for 1 rep.
The program prescribed finishing the squat session in 30 minutes or less, which pushed my endurance. If you’ve ever trained for powerlifting like I did, your max squat sessions take up to 2 hours sometimes.
For the next 30-45 minutes of the workout, I worked other parts of my body in a maintenance style circuit fashion. For example, on my back day, I would follow something like this:
Squat variation: 10, 10, 5, 5, 3, 3, 1, 1, 1
Deficit Deadlift: Same
Circuit
Pull-ups x 20
T bar row x 15
1 arm row x 15
Weighted crunches x 30
3 rounds
Seems simple, but extremely exhausting. On days 6 and 7, I would perform only squats or squats and deadlifts.
After the first 3 days, I had two things to say. First, this f*$&@*! sucks. Second, I think my knees are going to explode if I drop down into a squat one more time. By the end of the week, my legs were feeling awfully tight and sore.
At the start of week 2 is when I saw some real changes. All of the sudden my legs weren’t getting sore any more. My mobility was improving, and I was taking heavy squats at lower depths than I ever had. Even my bench press and number of pull ups were going up.
By the 4th week my legs and butt were noticeably growing, to where my jeans were getting very tight on my thighs and hips, but loose on my waist. And I was so used to squatting everyday, I wasn’t really sure how to go back to working out without it.
So I didn’t. At the end of the month I combined Cory’s Squat Everyday Plan with his Bench Most Dayz plan, and tweaked my workouts to fit everything in. Now this program was tough! I wouldn’t recommend trying this unless you’re pretty advanced, and even then, not for very long. It’s extremely taxing on the CNS and your body in general. In order to fit everything into my busy schedule, my workout week was split into 7 squat days, where 2 of those days included heavy benching, and 2 of those days included light benching. In combination, every bench day, I also performed a series of pulling motions.
So here is an example:
Day 1:
In a Tri set
Squat Variation to a heavy 1 rep
Flat bench – work up to 3 rep max
Pull ups – 5 reps every set
This went for about 8 rounds
Accessory work for shoulders
Day 2:
In a Tri set
Squat
Incline bench theb flat bench for volume
Barbell rows or cable rows to match each set
Accessory leg work
I would have 2 more days like this, then the remaining 3 days of the week were strictly squatting and accessory motions.
This program was unbelievable. Not only did I drop down from 194 to 186 during this month, my competition squat topped out at 475 with belt and knee sleeves. My bench press, which has always been my weak point (long arms, short body), shot up 40lbs. I went from being able to hit 285 (on a signal or 1 second pause) to 325 using the same method. And I can hit 225 for ~20 reps, when only a year ago I could hit it for around ~11. I believe many of these adaptations are a direct result of motor learning by performing the movement often, and the anabolic effect of directly loading the axial spine during every workout.
Despite the great gains, by the end of the 2nd month I was exhausted and depleted. Most of you know I opt for a low carb, high fat diet approach centered around eliminating grains and inflammatory foods from my diet. Performing a program like this doesn’t match well with no carbs, so it didn’t take long to get burnt out.
For now, I’m backing off to squatting and deadlifting 3x per week, benching once (maybe twice), and moving more toward hypertrophy now that I have my strength where I want it.
Time for an insane cheat meal for my girlfriend and I’s 4 year dating anniversary!
Happy Lifting,
Ken
KDS-Strength 