Kingfish I wish I could find this long write up on max aitas squatting from Glenn, the short version is, he had gone and trained with ivan A. in bulgaria, with a premium on pushing his squat up since he was hurt/wrist pain. He improved quickly at first, then stalled for around a year if i recall correctly. Still squatting daily, he returned to cal strength and pendlay got him to go into a 5 x 5 squat program, with the exception he could continue his daily squatting. This gave him one volume day, which was all he needed and likely could handle with his daily squatting on other days.
after a few months he destroyed his previous pr's, I want to say it was by well over 100 pounds. The videos of those squats can be seen on the cal strength channel, the story leading up to them is golden though.
IMO, most bulgarian programs work around a steroid cycle. i can't follow a routine like that and recover with just steaks and eggs.
i agree with the incorporation of the volume day. looking at the bigger picture of my squat program, i'm actually pushing the top heavy single in order to get my sub max higher also. i've spent so many workouts in the past few years repping a single 405-425 and then dishing out an 8rep x 6-8 sets using 365-385s. the last volume workout i did without the pause reps was a 405x 4-6, 20 total reps.
i plan to do the same soon but seeing that i've used the 455x1 with a strict pause for 25 singles already, the 475x1 became mentally doable as a goal IMO. 475-425 backoffs, then a 495-455.. that would be a big lifting milestone for me. all paused reps. i've never been broken before.. not going to mess it up now.
Those guys of pendlays that went there are drug tested athletes, and compete under usada testing. There is literally no way to cheat for them, which is why his guys all hit PR's within a week or two, then stalled big time, some regressed.
Dr. Hartman and Pendlay did a very nice study on testosterone levels on drug free lifters when put under constant heavy loading daily. Every single lifter experienced drops in testosterone after a time period until deload/lighter weeks. What you have to watch out for is, they CONTINUED TO PR, with dropping test levels. This of course wont continue indefinitely, and for a drug free guy THIS is where you have to pay attention when using high frequency training. If youre getting your test from an outside source, your natural levels dont mean much right then, and you can continue with that frequency and loading until you run out/competition. You shut that shit down, youre running on cns fumes, those will peter out eventually, so making sure you dont get to that point is key.
I think those goals are very realistic for you, I think you could already be there though if you changed things up a little but you know yourself well enough. If youre still progressing keep doing what youre doing.
