Candito Advanced Deadlift

What is Candito Advanced Deadlift?

The Candito Advanced Deadlift Program is Jonnie Candito's free deadlift spreadsheet for experienced lifters. It trains the deadlift two days a week while you keep training your squat as normal, and it moves in phases from a variation close to your competition deadlift, to one further from it, to the competition lift itself.

Phase 1, weeks 1 to 3, is the close variation: beltless pause deadlifts, paused just after the bar leaves the floor. The first workout opens with one single that leaves some weight in the tank, then 3 x 6 at 70%. The phase climbs through 4 x 3, 3 x 5, 4 x 2 and 3 x 1 to a test single at 102.5% of your pause deadlift max, with snatch grip stiff-legged deadlifts after the first four workouts.

Phase 2, weeks 4 to 6, is the distant variation: moderate stance snatch grip deadlifts in a linear climb from 65% to 100% of your 5-rep-max goal, with competition deadlifts at the same weight straight after. The last workout tests the 5-rep max.

The optional bridge, weeks 7 to 10, is high-volume competition deadlifting off your 10-rep-max goal, sets of 10, 7 and 5 from 75% to 97.5%, ending in a 10-rep max test. The competition peak, weeks 11 to 14, runs off your deadlift goal max: from 4 x 4 at 75%, through heavy singles at 87.5%, 91% and 94%, to a max-out day.

Is Candito Advanced Deadlift right for you?

Advanced deadlifters who already run their own squat training and want a structured deadlift peak. Candito wrote it so you can keep training your squat normally, and he asks you to plan every variation across all phases before you start, to avoid peaking early. Durata builds it for a conventional puller from his own ranked list of variations; the FAQ covers sumo.

How progression works

It runs off four numbers, all entered when you start: your pause deadlift max, a snatch grip 5-rep-max goal, a 10-rep-max goal and a deadlift goal max. None of them moves on its own; every weight is a fixed percentage of one of them, rounded to your plates.

Candito wants the pause deadlift max entered after the first workout, as the single you did plus the weight you had left in the tank: his own example is 550 lb with 50 left, so 600. Enter your best estimate at the start; after that workout, Durata re-sets it from the single you log, using his key (about 25 lb in the tank at a 300 lb max, up to 65 at 800, half those in kg). The week 2 single is that max less 10 lb (5 kg), his key at his 600 lb row.

The goals leave you room. In phase 2, if a 3 x 5 gets harder than RPE 7 you can cut it to 2 x 5 and test at the next workout, and plate jumps near the suggested weights are fine. Pick your goal max before the peak: Candito's rule of thumb is that a conventional puller's 10-rep max is 75-80% of the goal max, about 77.5%, and a sumo puller's 80-85%, about 82.5%. You can change any of the four under Training Maxes.

Accessories have no percentages: Candito gives a rep max instead, such as a weight you can do 15 reps of for 2 sets of 8, and you pick that weight. His ranges are built at the low end, with the top in the lift's note: the phase 1 test single is 102.5-104%, and the peak's sets of 4 are 82.5-85% and 85-90%. Each peak lift also carries his hype level out of 10, how worked up to get for it. He gives no rest times.

Durata runs this progression for you — every session's weights are computed from your training maxes.

Candito Advanced Deadlift — every set, every session

Percentages are of your training max (TM).

Candito Advanced Deadlift — common questions

Candito Advanced Deadlift side by side