Why Chisel Exists

Philip Pape 0:00

I decided to drop a quick bonus episode today because I just finished building something I'm really excited about and I wanted to tell you about it before the workshop next Tuesday. We have a workshop called Get Lean in 45 Days. And to go along with that, I decided to create a workout program called Chisel. It's a four-day upper-lower training template. And I call it a template because it's flexible, it's very flexible, and that's why it's great for fat loss. And that's not the only reason. I'm going to go into some of the details here. But when you're in a calorie deficit, oftentimes people try to radically change how they train.

Training In A Deficit Without Losing Muscle

Philip Pape 0:34

For most people, I say, hey, if how your training works out of fat loss, it's probably going to mostly work during fat loss, with some exceptions. Your body is looking to lose some of that muscle you have if you're not training properly, if you're not progressively overloading. But you also don't have as much resources or energy coming in. So you're like, well, what gives? How do I do that if I feel like I'm losing strength? And so you're losing weight, but then you may come out the other side not having kept all the muscle you intended to. Most people, again, either keep training the same way they have before, even if it wasn't effective, or they don't account for the reduced recovery, or on the other extreme, they back off so much, and then they end up losing muscle, you know, doing more cardio and things like that. So I think chisel is like the optimal middle ground from the years of my own experience for myself and coaching clients and working with people coaching me. And it's built around preserving your strength, not progressing as in creating new PRs per se while you're in a deficit. But the goal is to keep as much muscle and strength. So when you come out the other side, you actually, you know, you look better. You do what you want to do, you hold on to that muscle, but you also don't make an excuse that, oh, I can't get stronger at all during fat loss, so I'm not even gonna try. It kind of knocks all those balls or, you know, the plays the game of whack-a-mole quite

The Four-Day Upper Lower Split

Philip Pape 1:53

well. So here's how it works: it's a four-day upper lower split. Two days focused on strength with heavier loads in the four to six rep range, two days focused on volume with moderate loads in the eight to twelve range. Day one is upper body strength, things like bench, rows, shoulder press, lap pull downs, some optional arm work. And when I say optional, by the way, I have three different tiers of how flexible it is. So you can cut stuff out, both sets and exercises, and you have specific instructions on how to do that in case it's too much, or you need to sleep more, or you just don't need that much volume. So that's day one, upper body. Day two is lower body strength, things like squats, RDLs, leg press, leg curls, calves, you know, core work if you need it. Day three is upper body volume. So here's a little more on the hypertrophy side where we have variations of the lifts like the incline press, um, some lighter shoulder work, maybe face pulls, lat raises, the things that I really love that I find effective for most people, tricep extensions, for example. And then day four is lower body volume, deadlifts, split squats. I know we love them. I know we, I know we all love them. There are alternatives, don't worry. Leg curls, leg extensions, some calf, some ab work, right? And so it's quite flexible. You run the template for six weeks straight that align with our six-week mini cut. Obviously, you can do this indefinitely if you want. You can rotate it, rotate out exercises to do another six-week block. But during the six weeks, you're being very consistent, you're not hopping around, and you are just progressing on those lifts.

Progression, Rest, And Biofeedback

Philip Pape 3:20

And each exercise has flexibility built in, where not only can you swap movements and cut things out based on your recovery, it describes a certain way to use the rep ranges and progress them. So from week one, you pick the right load so you don't feel like you're falling out of the rep range as soon as week two or three. And of course, you're still aiming to increase the load within the rep range across the six weeks. It's a pretty simple concept, but a lot of people get this wrong. So we make sure to explain it for you. And then rest periods are sticking to what I like, which is a little bit higher for compound lifts, like three to five minutes, and down at the say 90 second to three minutes for isolation work. And then based on your biofeedback, or if you start, you know, not feeling as strong, we give you some notes to check on biofeedback like sleep and carbs around your training, stress, things like that. So it's not just the training piece, it's also a little bit of how does this align with your nutrition and recovery capacity. We can't override a lot of bad sleep, a lot of poor sleep or underfueling your workouts, but some of that is par for the course when it comes

Workshop Details And Instant Access

Philip Pape 4:26

to fat loss. So I built Chisel specifically to go along with the 45-day protocol I'm teaching in the get lean and 45 days workshop. So if you're looking to get ahead of the big rush toward that summer body that you're looking for, which many of us we wait too long and they're like, uh-oh, summer's technically like just a month or two away. I'm doing a workshop this Tuesday, January 20 at Noon Eastern. The replay is included as they always are for my workshops. You get the downloadable guide, you get the access to the template, and here's a surprise bonus we just created this week. I finished recording it, an eight-week guided course that's that holds your hand through the whole protocol as you go to help you actually customize it with your numbers as you get support along the way. So here's the thing you don't have to wait until the workshop to get Chisel. If you sign up right now, when you hear this episode, you will get instant access to the Chisel template. I've already released it. And then you can start looking at it, planning your lifts, getting familiar with the structure, asking questions before we even go live for the workshop next week. So go to live.wits and weights.com to register and get instant access to that as well as the workshop. You'll get Chisel instantly, and then you'll get all that other stuff. Go to live.wits and weights.com.