Jonnie Candito's 6 week intermediate program

is it good? Does anyone have any experiences with it?

I have heard lots of positive feedback, but I haven't done it myself (yet). Week 2 squats will kill you though.

It's a very good program, I made a lot of gains on it. Squat went from 460 to 526 on it, bench went from 275 to 340. Granted this was after doing about 6 cycles of the program.

The 2nd week will make you want to die with the squats though, just warning you. The first two weeks in general will be really tough if you're used to doing lower rep ranges

wow dude those are insane gains. Can you tell me more? What was your diet like? Is the routine in general enjoyable? I have heard about the infamous second week but ive done high volume squatting before so its nothing out of my realm. Also, this is very exciting to hear my stats are almost identical to your starting stats. 440/285/285

*485 dead

The routine in general is enjoyable because you know what you're doing every week, and it's always variable. I should also mention that those 6 cycles were over the course of about a year and then some, with multiple starts/stops, doing different things to mix things up. So yeah, I gained a lot, but it wasn't over a short time frame. I also weighed about 210 at the end of the whole thing.

My diet was just me eating a lot to be honest because of how fucking difficult everything was. Normally I have a big protein shake in the morning, chicken/rice/beans for lunch, protein bars, eggs when I got home from work, I'd eat during workouts, and then pasta after.

I'm sure you've done high volume squatting before, but this is something else. Soon enough you'll get to a point where you're squatting near 4 plates for a set of 10, and then you do 5 sets of 3 with a weigh slightly below that.

Best of luck my friend. You'll do well with those numbers on this program, I'm 100% sure of it!

solid program

I did 2 or 3 cycles and it boosted my squat from 335 to 405. My other lifts increased more modestly. There's a lot of volume in the first two weeks but it's not that bad imo

Great program, starting my 3rd run now. Went from 335x1 high bar to 325x5 on my first run. Week 2 is absolutely brutal but won't be so bad if you have a good cardio baseline, something I learned after incorporating biking for 30 minutes post workout. Deadlift went from 365-405 conventional, hookgrip, on just the first cycle alone. Highly recommend.

I was on it for a year and it's the best powerlifting program I've ever done.

It's genius in the way it uses squats to build up deadlifts. You pull rarely, but your CNS is recovered and ready, while your leg strength is built up by squats.

For bench press, I made solid, but not impressive gains. It was always the hardest one for me to increase. I suggest you include auxiliary lifts that target chest.

Second week squats are brutally awesome.

6th week isn't really necessary, because 5th is close enough for you to know what your max is. Also, it gets very taxing.

thanks a ton man looking forward to trying it

yeah ive heard bench can be lack luster on this program so ill have to just make adjustments accordingly. What kind of auxiliary chest exercises would you recommend? Are we talking like flies, cable crossovers, and other fluff bb'ing stuff or more of pin presses, close grip, floor press type stuff?

good shit brah, those are some hella gains.
I'm a fukken noob so I'm doing Candito's LP (strength + hypertrophy)... dude seems to know programming bretty gud.

jonnie's an ugly faggot but a fukken beast

I did it for two cycles and it worked pretty well for me. I like how structured it is

Bench 190 to 230
Squat 250 to 330
DL 300 to 380

After a few cycles. I actually enjoy EMOM squat week desu.

Weeks one and two are so difficult but you walk away feeling accomplished.

It's fun as fuck

I did his periodization program for 6 weeks and hit pr's. Really good stuff, just make sure to eat a shit ton and sleep a lot

I did it 4 cycles back to back and made amazing progress on pretty much all 3, including my below average bench.

Squat ~140kg to 175 kg
Deadlift 180kg to 205kg
Bench 83 to 95kg

Currently doing his advanced bench program and loving it also, making amazing progress after really getting my form down pat. Will return to the 6 week int program after bench program is done.

Oh and I went from like 75kg to 79kg BW

>after bench program is done.
what are you doing for other lifts then ?

In to week 2 of the bench program, I might work in some low weight squat+dead as a 6th day to keep the movements going, but first I want to go to a chiro and sort my back out since I've been having some low back pain. Really, the rest from doing any lower body has been a good relief for now.

First two weeks are 5 workouts per week. Can I make it 4 times per week somehow?

It's pretty important that you do it all as programmed, seeing as it's a peaking program it will throw off your recovery times.

did it as a late beginner and added 20kg to squat and dl (10kg to bench)after 5 weeks
140-160kg
180-200kg
90-100kg

I'm currently on cycle 1 and have made great gains, my training was limited to 3x5 so the 12 rep press and 10 rep bench murdered me. Had fatigue issues after week one but eating more helped it, gained 1kg since I started eating ~3200 kcal a day at 6'2".

It's taking way too much of my time tough so sadly I won't be doing it again...

I'm currently doing my first cycle of it.
My lifts before starting were 220/140/250kg but I put 210/130/240 into it as the first 2 weeks looked insane. Even with the lower 1RM the firat 2 weeks, particularly week 2 squats was extremely tough but I managed to do it and was a huge confidence.
On week 5 Monday there I did 205x4 squat which felt really good and I'm doing 127.5x1-4 bench today.
Really looking forward to testing 1RMs next week and hoping for 260kg deadlift.

Its gud.

Added 10 kg to squats and 10 kg to deadlifts last cycle. Did some homemade stuff for bench but also added 5 kg there.

Ended up with 196/125/215

i ran closegrip instead of normal bench and did dumbell bench as an optional to drive up my weak triceps and got a 10kg pr at the end