[Program Review] Candito 6 Week Strength Program
TL;DR: 0+ Squat, 2.5kg+ Bench, 5kg+ calculated Deadlift. Disliked the shortness and change on focus week-to-week. Available here or I used this app
My stats: Male, 29, 172cm, 74kg / 163lbs
History: After training powerlifting style since Jan 2016 I attended my first meet in October 2016. Meet report is here. I hit 145kg squat, 100kg bench and 165kg deadlift. In the interim I hit 152.kg squat, 105kg bench and failed to even hit 160kg deadlift in the gym.
Goals: My deadlift is abysmal and I’m struggling to find a way to improve it. I’d heard good things about Candito from someone at my gym. It didn’t really work that way for me!
Diet: Slight surplus, 2,800kcal with ~180g protein and splurging the rest between Carbs and Fats. Supplements: Coffee, occasionally my proprietary preworkout blend, Vit D, 5g Creatine Monohydrate, Zinc and Magnesium.
Training Review: I had high hopes which unfortunately weren’t realised on this program. I’ll admit that I had one week where I could only train once so I repeated the fourth week. I don’t think this should have had a massive effect on things, but maybe it does.
I really enjoyed areas that Candito pushed me – e.g. the second week had me squatting 122.5kg for 10 reps, which I would never have tried. Doing Squats and Deadlifts on the same day was tough – I should mention that I used conventional deadlifts all the time as I am rubbish at sumo and have had poor results with deficits and paused deadlifts in the past.
Candito is odd in that each week has a different focus:
Week 1: Muscular Conditioning,
Week 2: Muscular Conditioning/Hypertrophy,
Week 3: Linear Max OT Phase,
Week 4: Heavy Weight Acclimation and
Week 5: High Intensity Strength.
My (unexpert) opinion is that there’s not enough time for proper adaptation to any of these. E.g. you don’t get much hypertrophy or conditioning as a result of Week 2, and you’re on to something else too soon!
I struggled with recovery for my lower back which was hammered by the pairing of heavy squats and heavy deadlifts on the same day. I did appreciate the lack of accessories on those days, but overall missed doing volume work.
Training Results: On the fifth week there is high intensity low volume, and I managed to squat 147.5kg for 2 reps, bench 102.5kg for 2 reps (then go on the same day to hit a PR of 1 rep of 107.5kg) and 160kg for 3 gnarly reps. I then attempted 170kg as I had hoped to hit a PR but failed this twice. Video is here.
What would I improve if I ran it again: Well I’d not miss most of the workouts for week 4 (even though I repeated week 4), and also have children who sleep at night instead of waking up a lot – this obviously impacted my recovery quite a bit. I struggle to know how much accessory work to add in – I missed doing it, but I think adding too much in will affect the quality of the heavier work.
Where next: Considering I wanted to improve my deadlift I wouldn’t call this program a rousing success (which may partially be imperfect conditions including the 4th week). I plan to implement Mag/Ort for deadlifts (but unsure whether to use a 165kg or 170kg max) next, either starting next week or trying to get that 170kg next week and starting Mag/Ort the week after. I’ll likely stick to GZCL style training for bench and squat which I’ve used in the past to some success.
Any suggestions are very welcome!
Posted Apr 7, 2017, 2:00 PM UTC
This is a peaking program though. I think ideally you want to do a hypertrophy block beforehand?
Yup, but that's kind of my point - why does one week focus on hypertrophy then? Just my take - I didn't feel like I peaked as well on this as I have, for example, on GZCL 5 Week UHF.
I agree, but I think for someone who has just gotten off a linear progression program this would still be helpful though.