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Candito 6 Week Strength
Jonnie Candito's six-week block changes shape as it goes: it starts as muscular conditioning and ends with almost nothing on the page except the heaviest set you have done. It is built into Ægir Iron and free to load.
What this program is
The shape is the program. Volume is highest in weeks one and two and falls off a cliff in week three, while intensity does the opposite. Weeks one and two are muscular conditioning across five days, and week two repeats week one's loads with more work on top rather than adding weight, which is deliberate. Weeks three and four cut the volume hard and move to eighty two then eighty seven percent. Week five is one all-out top set per lift. Week six is an opener and a heavy double, and then you are done.
Both lower days carry a squat and a pull
That is Candito's own layout rather than a simplification: the squat and the deadlift share a day rather than being split onto their own, twice a week, with the second lower day running lighter and more technical. The upper days follow the same idea, a volume bench day and a paused or close-grip day. It is why the program can fit five training days in its first fortnight without any single day being enormous.
At a glance
| Discipline | Powerlifting |
| Experience level | Intermediate, with a meet or a test at the end of it |
| Length | 6 weeks |
| Training days | Five in weeks one and two, four in weeks three to five, three in the peak week |
| Equipment | Full power gym |
| Loading | Percentage of a true one-rep max, not a reduced training max, which is why week six can ask for 97 percent. |
| Price | Free for individual lifters and rostered athletes |
Free for individual lifters and for athletes on a coach's roster. Coaches pay only for roster tools.
How it works in Ægir Iron
Candito writes against your real best rather than a reduced training max, so Ægir Iron prices it that way and says so when you load it. The bench variations, the paused and close-grip work, price off your bench rather than asking for maxes nobody has set. Week five's top sets are the only sets in the whole block flagged all out, because they are the one moment whose job is to tell you what you are worth right now, and that is the reading the app uses when it offers to move your maxes for whatever you run next. Assistance work can be turned off at load time if you would rather keep only the squat, bench and deadlift prescriptions.
Start Candito 6 Week Strength
Open Ægir Iron, go to Program and choose New Program, then the Program Wizard. On the first screen pick Powerlifting, then choose Candito 6 Week Strength from the cards under WHAT DO YOU WANT TO RUN? It is free on iOS, Android, and the web, with your data synced across all three.