Hello everyone. I'm Namrata Rao and I'm here to talk to you today about how does product management, especially in the B2B space, differ between small enterprises and large enterprises. Without further ado, let me share the agenda with you today. The agenda for today starts with first my introduction. I'll talk to you about my journey that has led me to even talk about this topic. Then it will be the peeling the onion process, if you will. I'll start off with talking about what does B2B even mean. And then move on to talking through how does product management really fit in and what changes between a small and a large enterprise within B2B. Moving on, I'll be talking through to you about my learnings along the way and finishing it off with some of the key takeaways that you can probably take from here to your workplace. With that, let me start by talking through who am I. I'm Namrata Rao. I was born and raised back home in India. I completed my undergraduate in engineering there in the field of computer science. Post that began my journey as a QA engineer. And while working as a QA engineer, I wanted to expand my knowledge further and also expand my territory, if you will, in terms of the different cultures in different countries and what does that look like. This led me to Bristol. At Bristol, I completed my master's in wireless communications and then went on to a company there that was later acquired by Intel to work as their consultant. And this was in the mobile cloud computing space. Moving on when I landed in Singapore, I wanted to try out something new. That led me to two things. One, joining a startup and two, having a venture of my own. Both of these experiences really shaped me to get more inclined towards getting into a space that would let me bring in my technical knowledge and business acumen together to serve customer needs. At that moment, I didn't know what this area was called. Landing then in US, especially in the Silicon Valley, got me to this space called product management. I started my journey back in a startup here called Comfy. It began as an engineering manager, but quickly it moved to the space I wanted to be in product management. Most of my experiences that I'll be talking through to you today, especially working in a small enterprise with stem from my experience back at Comfy. Moving on, I've been working at many of the mid to large enterprises there is we were Cruz JLL. It has really shaped my experiences and shaped me even as a B2B product manager to be talking to you about this topic. So without further ado, let me start with the most basic of it all. What is B2B? Now, all of you here who are attending this session, of course, know that B2B is business to business B2C is business to consumer. And the other one that has come up in lieu of all the other models that have come up is B2B to C, which is business to business to consumer. Now, although there are so many other models in in market today. The B2B and B2C is most widely spoken of. And just as their names here, the crux remains very simple. There is a business that's offering a product and or service to another business, or there is a business that's offering a product and or service to a consumer directly. As with product management, it always starts with customer. So the last X, if you will, of whether it's a B or a C shapes who the customers. And what does it look like when we talk about B2B or B2C. So when you think of B2B, the companies in this space are HP Enterprise or AWS. When you think of B2C, then there are companies like Uber. And why do these companies fall in either of these. Let me talk you through a significant example keeping customer in focus. So in a B2B model, similar to an AWS, Amazon has AWS. And they are a business who are now selling AWS to another business. And when they're selling to another business that business is now comprising of their customer, who is going to make the buying decision based on a sales process that involves a lot of components going through it. And plus that decision is made in tandem with what their model looks like, what they are looking for and how they are trying to solve the need for their customer. So the approach here is different. And the way the customer manages or makes those decisions are very different. But at the same time, if you look at a B2C company like an Uber. There, we are I as a user and making individually the decision, first of all, to use Uber versus the other right sharing apps that exist. And when I make that decision, I'm making that decision most often, or, you know, even impulsively in cases of say Uber eats when I have to get something delivered to my home. There is some calculation you might argue but it's not as much as probably in the case of a business when they are making an investment. This is where the approach to customer and how a customer makes a decision really matters. You might think, why is this so important for a product manager when there are so many other aspects that we can talk about in terms of difference between a B2B and a B2C. This is really critically important because knowing how your customer operates is what is going to define how we as product managers not only build the product but make sure it reaches out to our customers in the best way possible. And the interesting thing here that you will see me talk through is how this is the main factor that changes things between a small enterprise and a large enterprise. There are many other aspects here than the three that I have mentioned, which will play to how product management differs between these two landscapes. These three are critical because they form the foundation. So what do I mean by that? For example, when I joined Comfy and became their product manager, it was a startup and it was one of the few times that they even had a product manager. Given this, there was no set process, even to the case of how a product requirement is written or what goes into a product requirement. How does that process work end to end for building and collaboration? We always continuously evolved on how those requirements are written, how the communication goes, who needs to be involved when it was a journey as we went along. And this not only showed up in product requirements, it was also part of up until the point of launch, which cross functional team gets involved. How do we communicate what is the usefulness or impact of that product? Who do we get in touch with? How do we get the word out? What goes into it? What are the different components? There's all a journey as it is in a startup. Whereas when I came to large enterprises like WeWork and JLL, there was machinery in place, if you will. Because at that point, these companies have been at it for a really long time. And they have set templates, set processes, set of expertise and people involved who know who have done it many a times before. And it's all about knowing and following that process to be able to do it. And that's one of the primary differences where things pre-exist versus where things need to be put into place, put into motion and knowledge sharing needs to be done to make it concrete. And this then conveniently permeates into the role of ownership too. And you might wonder how. So it simply comes down to this. At Comfy, we had a principal product offering, which was a mobile app. And then there was an insights product that would go with it. Whereas when I came to WeWork or even JLL for that matter, there are a suite of products. And I am either responsible for a particular portion of a product or only a single product out of the mammoth range that they have to offer to the customers. So in this case, what then happens is your scope changes. And depending on what your scope looks like, the kind of ownership that you have here is also different. So for example, at Comfy, whenever there was a launch or when we knew what we are offering to a customer was the single point of contact. And I would know everything about it. What the product does, what is the way we get to market? How are we trying to find product market fit? What are the offerings? How do they work together? How do customers use it? Everything. But when I came down to JLL for example, my product was just a piece of the puzzle. So I was centered around what my offering is and how does my product work in integration or in lieu with other products that JLL has to offer. But then I am not the owner or have complete end to end knowledge about the other products that is required to work with mine. That's where I am collaborating with other experts, other owners or other product managers to even take my product to the market. And that's the difference in ownership that comes along between a small and a large enterprise. This then, you know, definitely gets into the impact piece too. Because as evidently, it can be seen when you are a startup, the product offering that you have is catering to a small set of users. So you are solving a specific problem really deep because that is your only product offering. I guess comfy, we were offering the mobile app that would let employees in their workplace manage everything. Whether it be temperature, lighting, booking meeting rooms, all the aspects. And that was the product offering. And it had this well-bodied set of things. And we had few users and few set of customers that it was catering to. So at that point, as a product manager, there is a lot of depth into that. But in terms of the coverage, it is not as much. The tables just turn when you get to a large enterprise. As I said at JLL, it was I was managing only a single product in line with others that were going with it. So although I was managing only a certain section, which dealt with portfolios. The other aspects that had to do with analytics or any other grounding platforms, backend platforms, it was being managed by somebody else. But we would go together as a package and the range and the number of customers that JLL has ranges in huge numbers. And that again changes the way a product manager talks about the impact that my contribution brings. So the individual contribution in a startup would be often knowledge domain and aspects in the buck stops there as always. But the reach is not so much. There is although it's the other way around in the large enterprises, the impact seems larger just given the numbers. So what did this all lead to? This led to some of these learnings where it was evident that some of the product management aspects that we've been hearing and implementing all along still stays true. It just needs to be tweaked a little bit. And what do I mean by that? For example, you need to know your customer. It's basic. It's a ground rule. But to my earlier point, it is important to understand the business aspect of it on how to reach the customer and how to make sure that your product gets out there in front of them. So for example, at Comfy, we had a single product and that involved making sure that, you know, I really knew my customer. There were also times when there was a direct line with the customer that I had, it could solve point issues or work with other teams real time to solve their problems. And that's what comes across when you're in a startup. And when you go to a large enterprise, it's a different strategy altogether. If I am looking at launching the same product, then it's not just enough for me to know a single customer or a set of customers that I am going after. It is about the breadth and the different channels that I need to look into. Whether it be go to market channels, route to market, what is the attached strategy for the product so that I can increase the run rate of the business. These are all the aspects that comes through in terms of the business and the product that I need to look at when I'm going, say, with a JLL or a V work versus a Comfy. So the fact that there is a single product and the number of customers that you have that ratio and how you deal with it, the approach changes when you have a portfolio suite of products and you have a lot more customers with a well oiled machinery within your organization to go with. And this machinery is what brings me to the last point of the team. Of course, you need to know your team, but the aspects of what does know your team mean.  I always joke around that if you can't see it, then you're doing it in a product management world in a small enterprise, because you're not going to have an expert for every function. For example, product marketer is not a common thing in a startup. Then you are taking up that role.  In a large organization, you really must not be doing it. It's actually considered a failure if you're doing that because you have a specific role, you have a specific expertise. And as a product manager, my job is to focus on that. If I need a product marketer or if I need legal advice, then there are experts and I need to leverage their expertise to get it done. And that's why they exist. And that's why the way the organization works and is structured that I need to make use of it. So the mindset that you bring to the table definitely changes on where you're placed. So as we end our session today, I hope you can have these three key takeaways that would help you at your workplace. The first is just knowing the basic that yes, definitely B2B is what it sounds. It is selling your product and services to the other businesses. And as product managers, we are building products for those customers who are placed in as another business. And we are here to solve their problems and their needs. And between that itself in small and large enterprises, there are certain nuances for PMs like us that should be in the forefront. And the three aspects there as I discussed before is around the processes. Do you need to set it up in a small enterprise or do you need to figure out what that is in a large enterprise and make sure you follow it through. Leverage the people around you who are experts to help you build your product and take it to the market and help customers solve their needs. Or do you need to step up and take ownership of things end to end so that things move along. There's a sum of the mindset changes and nuances that you need to look into as a product manager. Last but not the least always remember that the basics of product management remain the same. We're here for the customer customer is always coming in first and solving their problems and providing them with impactful solutions and services is paramount. How we approach it is what makes the difference. As you leave the session today. I wanted to share with you some of the things that have helped me along this journey. Of course, everyone here must be aware of this really popular book by Marty Kagan inspired. Some of the aspects there that really helped me was when he brings about examples, even between B2B and B2C and the nuances there. And that really speaks to some of the things that even I have mentioned today and have noticed in my experience. The effective executive although is a much popular leadership book. I think it definitely applies to product managers, because we are leaders in our own right for the product that we build. And this lays out some practical suggestions that we can definitely take in in our day to day experiences. And last but not the least is this hugely popular podcast how I built this. Again, I know the focus here is on entrepreneurs and how they built their businesses. But there are points there which really strokes the entrepreneurial mindset of a product manager. It can definitely be helpful and be used in our function. I hope you had a good session today and can continue to stay in touch with my Twitter handle. Until we meet again. Have a great day.


This is the SF Productions podcast network Six Wednesdays at 10 30 to 3 parents didn't understand the world of 60s and 70s television Welcome to vast wasteland Welcome home. Welcome to vast wasteland the video journal of popular culture. I'm Mark Smith Bauer along with Wilbert Neil and Marty Wiley Well tonight we're gonna talk about Local shows shows not only here in the Columbus area But shows in the Cleveland area and the Cincinnati area in the Dayton area basically covering Good deal of Ohio But first before we get into the big extravaganza fun They want to tell you that we're on Tuesdays at 6 Wednesdays at 10 and Thursdays at 3 p.m. Here on a CTV Cable 21 And also Also, if you want to write into vast wasteland you want to write into box 15 14 11 Columbus, Ohio 4 3 2 1 5 like this person right here Here's a letter Dan Donovan of Columbus writes just a note to say keep up the fine work I enjoy the show and try to watch whenever possible I'm really not that bored to actually be writing But I had a few extra minutes just kidding and then he has a little ps here Whatever happened to that fine comedic actor Joe E Ross of car 54. Are you? Thanks? Well, what happened to Joey Ross? Joey Ross he was born in 1905 or some sources give 1914 I guess that Joey Ross was on the Phil Silver show as mess sergeant Rupert Ritzick from 55 to 59 Then he was on car 54. Where are you as you mentioned as officer Gunther Tootie from 61 to 63 And then he was on that wonderful Science fiction epic. It's about time As a rock from 1966 to 1967, you know, it always seems like that show was on a lot longer than that Then well in August of 1982. He died. So he's not doing too much work I think he either did a lot of cartoon voices or his voice was imitated for a lot of carts I think both Yeah, and he also did lays potato chips commercials there for a while, but you can't eat just one Oh Thing that was that was his big trademark So there you go, Dan and thanks for writing in and for writing in you get absolutely nothing Get your letter written red right here on the show. So there you go Remember people if you're going to write one the shorter you write it the more of it will be able to read We had the channel changing effect first So anyways onto local TV shows Local TV shows have obviously been around since since the dawn because they're really cheap to do and Even when you've when you're a network affiliate You've got to fill up the time when the network isn't pumping anything out or or you just don't want to pay for their really Expensive shows with really cheap shows you do yourself And that's pretty much what most local shows now. We're not talking as much about the news shows We're talking about everything else anything else that was generated through through local stations and It was cheap to do you usually get crew people working like like weekends or something and you know So basically it didn't really cost you any money you usually get some guy at the station or some local You know like the janitor or something Right right because we were up early in the morning and we were home after school Right when you couldn't get anything fed to you through the network or whatever Well, those were the times they figured they had to fill in that's right Okay, fill me in since I'm not from Columbus Ever since I've come here. I've been told about this amazing wonderful show called Lucy's toy shop Well now let's let's let's start off by saying that um Lucy's toy shop was actually on in the mornings after the the wonderful network show Captain kangaroo Relate to the captain and so after that well For those who who cannot relate to the captain there is captain kangaroo There he is right there Bob kitchen captain kangaroo and here wait wait wait wait and he wrote a really good book about That old picture of it captain kangaroo the early years Captain kangaroo mr. Moose bunny rabbit mr. Green jeans grandfather clock grandfather clock had to wake this clock up Oh, yeah, right on channel to channel one yeah a whole Dennis Dennis the guy mr. Bainter the pain This was in the in the more progressive 70s when they right slim good body even got on there toward the 80s Kind of and then disappeared Well, the captain has gotten old. Well, yeah, but He could still do shows I think I think he still wants to do shows but but In heads of the networks won't put them on if you want to read a really interesting account of early television in his book What's it called? He's a librarian here. You're the person who was more about it He wrote it, so just like look for his name Bob kitchens Don't look for the captain kangaroo. You won't find him I don't think it's like a real interesting how he got started, but he got started when Television got started. He started like walked in. He was the janitor You know that Bob kitchens was actually claire bill the clown off of the old how do you do you say? original yeah, so That's that's one of those great television secrets after the captain I think all three of us had a different show that was on after the captain okay, and here in the Columbus area That show was for many years Lucy's toy shop And let's see Lucy Gosh, what is Lucy's I can't remember what Lucy's last name is or was at that time But anyway, it was Lucy and she had basically a toy shop She's a little she wore a little pin-off or a dress thing and she'd come in and she had her friends I'm Stanley mouse and dragon dragon had a special thing He could grow if he got mad Which was just another way to get somebody else in there to put on the big dragon suit and come on here So there was a puppet normally and then when he got mad I would be guy in the suit I think with the Hulk I did He got mad he would grow But they didn't really they never really looked at that as they but now if you look back on it That's pretty much what it was That was Pierre Pierre the dragon Pierre the French poodle who would Do the birthdays with her and magic birthday cake would appear and there was mr. True they'd wake up to tell stories and and then she would do a thing where she would get a little She'd open her hand. It'd be a little ball of clay in there and it they'd show gumby cartoons Let's see what else did they do on that show well chicken fat chicken fat exercises Preston Robert Preston did the chicken fat record and well Lucy just kind of made it an institution Like the first aerobic show in Columbus Robics for kids Doing that chicken fat But if you've got to go to the fair the back when the fair was something to go to You can be on if you got there early in the morning It could be on the Lucy's toy shop show and the kids all got these there were these turtle puppets Turtle pup tell her pit turtle pillows turtle pillows that the kids sat on and they got to take those home with them If you were on the show to you would get one with um well I was just never on there, so I just never was fortunate enough to get one of those bummer darn things, but scarred for life Lucy had a shop in In German village where you could buy a lot of the puppets and little things that they had on the show You could buy them right there at Lucy's little shop in the German village and he might be there In fact, she might even still be there selling the stuff. So there was that one and that one lasted G from Early middle 60s on up into the early 70s and then Lucy kind of Gave up the show idea and there was another character that kind of appeared on there because they would do it Christmas time They would do a Christmas thing where Santa Claus would make toys and he would send them out a conveyor And I think the same guy that it did the Santa possibly was on this Ron the mailman character who showed up Showing up in but they um get another show called friendly junction and it was Ron the mailman and then oh I can't remember her name. I know her real name is Leslie potkin and she would have had to do a hit single anyway, but There was a little show about this little it's like a little this little place and Friendly junction by golly, and well, I it's about the time that I really quit watching Or or maybe just a life One of those and also also also I cannot talk about local shows without mentioning Flip-o the clown Bob Marvin flip-o the clown who is still well He's actually come back to TV here just recently not to channel 10 as it was then Wbns, but um, he's on another station. Now anyway, flip-o was like Well, he was a clown and they had In the early 60s. He was they had a morning show and then late middle 60s early 70s he had um Show in the afternoon, which was called the early show because well, that's the Unhear on picture the early show Which is as opposed to the late shows which were on later Which were also pretty much local shows he would show movies in the afternoon and it could be any kind of movie He would just show it and he had a thing of commenting on them to after a while Which kind of was another thing that late night people did Right there we have flip-o and he had he showed one of this one cartoon that it took me years and years and years To finally find a name of space angel. It was done like um, that uh, was that clutch cargo, clutch cargo Yeah, okay moving mouth things except it was a it was a space show. So um Space angel Flip-o used to he used to appear in this costume. It was a bright blue costume with Blue and red and had white plums on there He had this car that would open from the front and he'd climb out and it was it was pretty neat It was the whole flip-o thing was just Just amazing. Yeah And then well, let's I'll let you go ahead and talk about stuff that happened down in southern Ohio there Southwestern Ohio, excuse me southwestern Ohio. Well, it's like I grew up right between Cincinnati and Dayton So actually I got from both big cities with with each of them had three stations So we were right in the middle of that after captain kangaroo. I really remember There were two out of Cincinnati One was the skipper isle show, which I actually got to be on and you got to wear this funky little sailor hat because the the whole premise of that show was You're on a riverboat going down the Ohio river So there was skipper isle, of course it's a skipper like and then of course he had like his first mate there and a whole You kind of went from place to place I guess we were supposed to have the illusion that we were actually stopping getting off and visiting things I didn't forget when the group I was with was on the show They had a tiger puppet and the tiger was angry. He was fussing He was going to come out there and eat someone and this one guy I never let him forget this because we went clear through high school together Well, Eric's out there. He actually said to the tiger. Well, you can just eat me This was an early 60s No, no way Another one of those angry puppets The show always ended though that we went to this cave and this scared me to death I wouldn't I got the two things when I showed scared me to death or They had a giant jack-in-the-box I was terrified of jack-in-boxes. Anyway, much less a giant one. I was the kid running up The other thing was the end of the show you went to a cave And someone had to run in and get the treasure chest before the ghost got them and there was a ghost in the cave They had come out So I was the kid at the very end of the lie I was not volunteering to go in and get any I didn't care how many sugar babies sugar daddy Whatever they put in there. I was not going after that So that started my television career, I guess Wow Right about the same time. Oh, the one thing about skip a row was they taped the show So you've got to see yourself on the show So like they you know, you'll get to see yourself the next two days or so The other show that came out of channel nine That ran about the same hour was the uncle owl show which actually went national for a year And then bombs miserably. Gee if you grew up with him, you'd just wonder why This was owl lewis And when allen suested his character uncle owl the kiddies pal on laughing This was the man he had to write and get permission to use that because uncle owl lasted for He might still be going on.  Oh, they had their show was live and You basically think it started out on a farm and then you went to the city and then you wound up at the circus And there was just a whole crew of characters some puppets some people in costumes The wringo wrango of a cowboy pow the dog Um, gee, let's see lucky the clowns. He had a clown too Kind of like big-time pee we And then there was always um the neat thing about Uncle owl something you never see really on tv a whole lot anymore was he had to do the commercials During the show and his sponsors were barks root beer and mama's cookies Two things that taste absolutely great together And he was real especially if you dip them. Yeah, he was real known for Getting mommies out of the audience to help do the commercials and uncle owl is also known for having kind of like wandering mommy The mommy wouldn't take me to that show Because she has just heard all these uncle owl rumors In the afternoon, you might live in a while, but his hands are definitely rolling Well in the afternoon I don't remember any of the Cincinnati stations have anything but the Dayton channel had Like an institution the uncle ory show I don't know what uncle ory's real name was but I later did find out that he lived down in hillsborough when he retired He was kind of like the world's oldest boy scout He had like a jug head hat on or a vest that had all these merit badges and stuff on it and Kids, you know by the bus load came sat in the bleachers no puppets He did have a sidekick named furty or something for it's no furty fritz was on skipper owl ship and They did a little flap stick And they play some games with the kids uh showed Roger ram dick cartoons and others. He's our heat. Yeah You were of our nation And it was just like and then he'd like offer like cut scout tips a boy scout, you know, it was just like a real kid kind of person And then he retired and They did the weirdest thing and if he could just start the slide down They took furty and put him through a machine and turned him into Ken And got him a sidekick named dawn and then they and they were like two vaudevillian guys and really awful clothes Doing the Ken and Don show which I got to be on because Uncle Laurie quit about two weeks before I got my ticket So the Ken and Don show was more slapstick More cartoons more pies more seltzer messier games kind of a prelude to the double their stuff and uh That kind of became after that both of those guys kind of disappeared And the show just became kind of a strictly saturday afternoon saturday Mid-morning afternoon kind of thing with a guy named charlie good time who was actually Crazy, he was just nuts. He did a lot of uh Of uh chroma key himself in front of some background and lip sync a spike lee song Jones Later on he got somebody in a yogi bear costume to co-host the show with him and they showed yogi bear cartoon And that's and then I don't know what happened to it On saturday's channel 9 and Cincinnati showed something that all it was was cartoons But the main cartoon they showed that nobody else showed was a funny company But the title was just precious because it was so 60s. It was called cartoons a go-go And yeah We had a lot more though because looks like grew up well when UHF with Maddie and Dayton both got their UHF about the same time They added afternoon shows Channel 19 got larry smith who was like kind of like a well-known puppeteer guy And this was my postcard from howdy the witch. He had a strictly puppet show No people And it was really neat because it was like always howdy the witch had some scheme and Her dog snarfy or her cat mock would Somehow find a way to mess her up. There was a wizard. She lived in a castle on the Ohio river Amazingly so opposite that from Dayton out of 22 out of channel 22 was clubhouse 22 with a man named Malcolm McLeod And a great big dog named duffy and a puppet named stand the man And it was this kind of a show where a lot of silly stuff people wrote letters They called you and asked you to pick a door pick a door was their big game pick a door pick a door pick a door to win a prize and You know just kind of that kind of uh, let's get the audience involved show they never Or they rarely had a studio audience That was in the late that was in the early to middle 70s They just don't really have those shows much anymore. I got that Susie chick, but she's What did you having well, well, let's see as far as daytime the big thing was really like The only really big daytime was Barnaby out of 43 And now Barnaby for you as you haven't seen this is a guy with a like a straw hat in it and he wears a blue A blue jacket very very natty kind of person, you know, and he's And he's really soft-spoken and he's and he's really tired. Well, let's go to the cartoon It's like and it's not very interesting really but kids little kids loved Barnaby Once you got past say six or seven Barnaby really tended to lose its attraction I've seen Barnaby. Yeah, I remember the empty bird cage that talks, right Yeah, it's really strange And and really his only big competition was on the the very same station Superhost So yeah, so superhost was uh, Ironically these guys were both announcers at the station In fact, you every once in a while You'd see the guy who played and I can't remember his real name Who played superhost? He was a guy in a fake superman type cosmonauts at sh and he had a big red nose And then and then later in the evening. He might be subbing in to do a news break And it was like we need to have this really low voice and talking really sternly He's like that's superhost. What's supposed to do in the news more so and superhost would do the Would show like bad bad science fiction movies On saturdays and now he showed like three suges and stuff and he did a little skits and stuff and And then on uh, let's see the only to see on channel 61 the old channel 61 now channel 61 is like Home shopping channel 24 hours a day or something Uh, what would we do? I know in the 70s was the ghoul Now now there was the the original character Who started there was like lots of ghouls all over northern, ohio In various stations and but the original was this guy ghoul arty who was actually his name I believe was jim anderson or something like that who became an announcer at abc And was the announcer you always heard when they said tune in next week for the He was ghoul arty in the 60s in In cleveland and then this other guy took over the job called and he called himself the ghoul And he wore like a fright wig and and like, uh, uh sunglasses with one, uh, with one lens out and and He he did lots of rather rude things on the air You know, but he was usually on like like saturday evenings Actually, it was a choice between watching that and like the old saturday a lot pretty much and They uh, he would he would talk during the movie and you know, put in little effects every time There was a chase you never this dippy chase music, but the he liked dubbing, you know And um, he did this one thing that got him basically kicked off the air was that uh at the time This is like the turning the time of mayor ralph perk in uh cleveland Was they were doing this ad campaign saying the best things in life are in cleveland And they showed all the wonderful things in cleveland Well, the ghoul took the music and went out and shot they got got a whole video of slums It showed it and and supposedly during the show the mayor's office called and said you will not show that again Or you're off the air and he went okay So he went out and shot new footage Of the slums and showed it again the next week and then he was gone That man we need him here. That's right the ghoul. So we had a similar situation at channel 19 in Cincinnati A man named dick von hain was a news announcer Right, they did very little news on the station, but he was an announcer But he was better known as the cool ghoul.  Yeah now then to counter him Dayton in 22 got this guy Who I swear it must have been his real life was dr creep Big mutton chops dressed like an undertaker drove a hearse right they each had basketball teams and went out against each other Quite often speaking about it. I certainly can't not talk when i'm talking about cleveland's team I can't talk miss uh hulan and big chuck now. This was done friday nights Before I think it's still it's now big chuck and little john because hulan was also an announcer at the station And I think is running a christian radio station in florida or something But at at the time that was like the the big show and they'd and they'd show bad science fiction movies And they did sketches and because they're such a big, uh, polish Um population cleveland they would do the certain ethnic Blah blah fill in the blank and that would be a lot of their sketches And they did pizza eating contests and I remember I remember once I was actually at one of the pizza eating contests I wasn't a participant. I was a viewer. They did it at a mall or something and This is this is the kind of links people would go to to win these really dopey prizes was this guy had a Pizza in front of him. He had a guy go and run and get him a thing of water He threw water over it to cool it off so he could eat it faster And he's like But anyway, so So you had so you had the hulan big chuck and also Uh the canton market um station wj an which in 17 and can which no longer It's now Uh a christian station Actually, it was it was one of the flagship stations of the ptl club At one point, but Before it was that there was the most uh mild-mannered post you could ever have Milton the milk man And And he would just show cartoons and stuff, but anyways, it looks like we've been given the uh, well, let me let me just quickly Like right, he's right right here. We had chiller theater which went on to be hosted by um by fritz the night All later on it just went uh, oh jeez. We couldn't get out without talking about fritz the theater thing and then um Channel four the NBC thing here. Um back there. It was w Well, it still is They had a guy out there tonight gerry back He would do all night theater which was like an idea that came up from the sensitive area because my sister used to talk about it And it was hosted by Jerry back I Looks like we're we're being taken out because here come the graphics Next time on bass waysland. It's the second part of our big history of dc comments Done with marty with wilbur and i so and it looks like we're out of here because here come the graphics


What I've noticed in the past with both myself and my clients is that when you come back from times like this, if you've actually continued to train or exercise or whatever you want to call it but with some consistency, I bet many of those people will come back and set PRs. In LP, three sets of five sort of PRs, then the ones who didn't and just let themselves get really out of shape won't set PRs. You're listening to Barbell Logic, brought to you by Barbell Logic Online Coaching, where each week we take a systematic walk through strength training and the refining power of voluntary hardship. Welcome to the Barbell Logic podcast. I am your host, Matt Reynolds, and I'm here with my good buddy. Rarely do I have somebody on the show that's bigger and more jacked than me, but today that is not the case. I have Michael Wolf on, the Wolf. Welcome to the show, man. Thanks for having me back, Matt. It's great to be here. Not your first time, although it is your first time under quarantine being on the show. So really, I wanted to have you on the show because you are one of those people, like most many of our listeners, who you've been training at a gym in Austin for the last few years. And now that we're in this sort of lockdown, you're at home in your apartment with your pup chops, and you don't have much equipment and you're doing the best you can. And so I wanted to have you on the show today and let's just talk about training at home under kind of suboptimal conditions. Yeah, it's obviously a very good topic for now. And the good thing about it is you get to set a new quarantine PR every day, if you want to. That's right. That's right. It's like home gym LP all over again, and you're just like, set a new push-ups PR or a new air squats PR. So yeah, you have been training at a public gym. When did they close down? How long have you had to train at home? It's funny because I had been training for a meat that was trained real hard. And I actually part just bad luck and part my own pushing too hard. I sustained a couple of not major injuries, but enough that I kind of had to revisit, well, whether I was going to do the meat and I decided not to do it. And I took a week and a half off from the gym right before this all happened.  So I was coming off a week and a half off and then the gym closed the first week of March, which was before they were required to, but they just felt they had been implementing stricter cleaning policies and they were even closing midday to do a full gym clean. And then the day I was going to go back, I think it was like the first Monday in March, like the seventh or something like that. They decided to close down. So at that point, I already hadn't been to the gym and a week and a half or two. And starting back up had to start back up with what I had at home, which was what, what equipment did you have at home at the time?  It's not a lot of weight. Not a lot of weight. It was kind of mentally very easy for me to tell myself, Oh, it's, it's so light. It's not even worth doing anything. But I also realized that if I did that for an extended period of time, I would just get so out of shape that coming back would be brutal when this was all over. Sure. So I definitely want to spend some time talking about the workouts that you've done at your house. But I actually want to back up a little bit before that and talk to people who literally have nothing. I want to start there. They're the most dire situation because they don't have any kettlebells. They don't have any dumbbells. They have no equipment whatsoever. You know, the question is, where do you start? If you're that person and you have nothing, what do you start with? That's that is the hardest question, because if we're, if we're strength coaches and we're talking to people who are interested in the pursuit of strength, you can't, you can't optimally load strength with no external resistance, right? It just there's no intensity. There is no intensity. We're already dealing with a very suboptimal situation, but at the same time, again, if you, if you do absolutely nothing for four or six or eight weeks, however long this lasts, you are going to be in really bad shape when it's all over. Like even if it was just going to be five days, I'd say, don't worry, you'll be, you know, you'll be fine. Come back, but if it's going to be six weeks, seven weeks, who knows? And you know, your air squats and your push-ups and stuff like that, they're going to be a lot better than nothing. So the way I think about it for all of these, whether it's no equipment or limited equipment, I still think about how can I best work the same basic movement pattern? So instead of thinking like, all I've got is barbell squat, barbell press, barbell deadlift, barbell bench press, and chin up or pull down. I think what is the movement pattern that's at play there? What is my body doing? And how can I closely mimic that or as close as possible, mimic that with no equipment and then a little bit better with limited equipment? So a squat is still a squat, right? That doesn't really require a lot of creativity. Now, I've got some people who have had no equipment, and they're holding, they do some air squats, maybe the first day to kind of get into it.  Some of them tried piggyback and they said didn't work that well, which makes sense.  But yeah, the people are front holding their wife and their kids to add a little bit of resistance. I mean, we're pretending that it's a heavy triple. No. But is it better than an air squat? Yeah, probably. Yeah, and is it slowing down D training? Probably, probably for sure. And so most people, even those who don't have any equipment at all, I have first off, do you have a handful of clients like this at your training right now with Barba Logic, who don't have really hardly any equipment at home? I've got one or two. Yeah. So I have maybe six. And, you know, it's been interesting to see what they use. So I've got clients that are using 50 pound bags of dog food. I've got clients who have used like the five gallon Kulligan water containers, which is like a giant kettlebell because it's got a handle in the middle. It's kind of interesting. You got to really do the splits. It's a big time sumo kettlebell swing if you're going to do something like that. But you know, you can find things are heavy. I've got a client who found some big rocks like it's a Midwestern guy and you know, like found some, you know, big, heavy stuff tires. I'm gonna say a spare tire, spare tire works really well. Like any of those things you find that's just heavy, right? Anvils or stuff out in the shop. Those things tend to work really well. So even without equipment and remember, this is how people quote unquote trained before 100 years ago, you know, like for all of human history, up until maybe the early 1800s, when they started to invent these things, then that's, that's what they use. They just use like the normal stuff they could get their hands on. So it's working okay. And like you said, it's not, there's no way to continue to incrementally load the weight. That's the hard thing. But you can certainly continue to work the muscle groups and the full range of motion as best you can, using the same sort of standards that we've always used. And because intensity really isn't the, it isn't one of the things that we can change. It isn't one of the variables that we can change. We can just continue to sort of LP with volume with with more reps or more sets, you know, more total work, or even things like density more work in a in an amount of time, are all things that that have worked pretty well. I haven't gotten to to anybody where I'm playing with density yet. But one thing I have done with a lot of them was either no equipment or they're using something improvised like they're holding their kid or, you know, a tire or whatever. I've used tempo with them. Yeah. Yeah.  Yeah. Yeah. Whatever it weighs. It's not it's not heavy for a guy who squats 300 or whatever. But you make that squat descent five seconds. And then you know what, a set of eight isn't that easy. That's right. That's exactly right. Yep. Yeah, I've used I certainly I have clients that have pull up bars, chin up bars in their doorways, but a lot of them don't and they're doing inverted pull ups like on the edge of their dining room table, or a countertop. It's kind of been interesting to see that certainly dips on the on the back of a chair, right on the two chairs put together work pretty well. It's a pretty good chest exercise. You can get your hands up on books and do bigger range of motion push ups, things like that. So those body weight exercises are the first place we start for people that literally have nothing and we grab whatever odd implements we can that are heavy, right? Yeah, I have a guy who he's got he's got one kettlebell now, but he didn't for the first week. And so he was using he putting towels like around his table or closing the door in a towel and he was kind of rowing that way. Yep. Just do what you can, right? So then you get to the next step, which is really where you were when you first got put into the quarantine and that is you had a kettlebell. And so you started to make videos for us that have been incredibly helpful. I've used them a ton with my clients. You went out on your deck out on your concrete deck with your kettlebell and you started to go through lots of different kettlebell movements to just do the things that we talked about to work the most muscle mass through a big range of motion as best you could. And what are some of those movements that you're utilizing and that you feel like work better maybe than others? Yeah, it's funny because a lot of the stuff I thought I would never use again on a broad scale. I've been in I was in kettlebells before I really was into barbells and now it's all all coming back really useful. So I like to still think about the the basic movement patterns. But the kettlebell kind of kettlebell is interesting because it crosses so many movement planes. Yep. But it doesn't always neatly fit like you can do a kettlebell goblet squat where you pull the thing close to your chest and just you can weight load a squat that way that kind of fits neatly into the squat pattern. But with a kettlebell you can also do a kettlebell clean. A kettlebell clean is different than a barbell thing because it's not just like a close vertical line up and down you kind of swinging it out and then catching it back in so it's kind of you know it's kind of a deadlift pattern it's kind of a squat pattern it's kind of a pulling pattern. So I like the clean and then once you learn the clean you can go into the clean and press.  You can work the press pattern once you learn how to get it into the clean rack position you press from there. So that really takes care of our overhead pressing movement. You've also got the snatch kettlebell snatch which first you learn the high pole and which is also gets you a little bit of upper body pulling. Then you learn how to snatch. So you've got you know some more of that kind of leg and arm upper body and lower body synergy going with the kettlebell snatch. Sure. And even the basic swing like if you can't the hardest thing to make harder with all this is the deadlift right we can kind of figure out a way to load squats pushes you know the deadlift it's like how do you load a deadlift if all you've got is 35 pounds. Well you could do like a 20 second tempo.  Yeah, it's obviously not incremental loaded strength but it's it's a pretty challenging movement for the similar to the basic deadlift pattern. So I really like the swing for that. Yeah, then I saw was it yesterday in the last couple of days you were doing some kettlebell good mornings, which probably put significant more moment on your back than kettlebell deadlift would right because you could actually get the thing up closer to your neck or head in that area and then go down and it's it's a pretty intense movement as well. Yeah, one of the things I found doing the tutorial, I was like man, I'm just doing a few reps and I really feel my hamstrings. Yeah, because I did the tutorial before I had used them in a workout. Yeah. So I was you know, I was holding it to my chest and doing a good morning.   Yeah, yeah, it's a pretty good movement.  And and the other thing I actually really like is is some of those bands that originally were called jump stretch bands a bit rogue and everybody makes them now like all the all the equipment manufacturers make their own bands and and you can add quite a bit of resistance that way as well.  It works pretty well to kind of load pushups. You can do the one of the thicker bands work pretty well to also do banded good mornings and and it's not that hard to actually just put the band around the back of your neck, especially if you put kind of a towel around the back of your neck so the the rubber band doesn't pull on your skin and then still hold the kettlebell and just put the band underneath your feet. I'm sure it looks incredibly goofy if you're standing out on the back deck, but you're talking about that's a pretty that's a pretty hard good morning to do with but the band around your neck and the kettlebells sort of cradled up against your chest. And so there are a lot of movements that you can do with those bands and certainly there's tons of stuff you can do with the shoulders and internal rotation, external rotation, lateral raises. You can do rows. You can do tricep pushdowns. You can stand on it and do banded curls. All of those things work pretty well. I've had people, you know, take the thin one and step on one foot and do lateral raises, yeah, tricep overhead stuff. One of the things I want to clarify though, I've I ran into this so I quickly learned I had to clarify this is the bands that you're talking about are this like single looped.  It's literally like a giant rubber band because I had some clients tell me oh I got some bands and I was giving them this kind of stuff and what they meant was single tube with handles at the end. That's right. Which is a different set of logistics that you can do different things with. Sure. And then there's actually the bands that are probably my favorite. Again, I can make a case for any of them being more useful than the other depending on what you're trying to do. The ones that I like are the ones where you can either put them in a door jam or loop it or, you know, loop it and tie it to a post. Yep. And then it has two separate handles on two separate leads that you can kind of control independently. So I've been starting to do stuff like chest presses, rotations, banded because you can you can load those in a horizontal vector. That's right. I have to something that's like waist height and then I can kind of it's kind of like a cable row. Yep. So I've been able to do some rows with those. So those are three different types of bands you can get and depending which type you have you can do all sorts of different things with. That's right. So then I've got some clients that have some TRX straps or some gymnast ring straps that will attach often to like a door post or the top of door or pole and there's a lot of stuff you can do there as well with body weight movements. Basic curls, basic triceps, rows and rows and push-ups off of them. That's exactly right. And you can do some extra, you know, we hate to say the word core, but you can do some extra core work. You can kind of do walkouts or lean outs where you kind of mimic, you know, the barbell or wheel roll out. That's exactly right. If you're if you're gymnasty enough and light enough, you might, you know, you might be able to do ring dips or you're probably not going to have something to attach it. I'm to try to try your muscle ups, but that's right. Something like ring dips might be possible depending where you can hang them. Yeah, try to head a client that did those just the other day. So those are all really good options for people who don't have much and you can probably procure some of that stuff relatively quickly and relatively cheaply, right? I know that the next investment you made, next purchase you made was with loadable dumbbells. You got you got dumbbell handles that were loadable so that you could incrementally load those and I think those are incredibly versatile for training at home. Yeah, I had a bunch of clients get the kind of their fixed ones where they come with, it goes up to 50 or 70 pounds and you kind of click something in. Yep. I got ones that you can plate load and I got the specifically got the ones with longer handles so I could load more weight on. Now I'm still waiting for some more plates to come so I'm currently limited in how much weight I can use but they're super versatile because they're designed to not only be able to load a bunch of weight on but also they spin so if you want to do something like dumbbell cleans and snatches you can with the individual handles you can do that or you could just use them for traditional stuff like curls and presses and I've been starting to use them for floor presses. Yeah. I've done them with kettlebells and I did a tutorial that's up on the YouTube channel with kettlebells but I like the dumbbell better for floor presses. Yep. Kind of doesn't doesn't sit and bang on your wrist. Did you get some good clips for them? Some to make sure you hold the weight on this. The only thing that I found is a lot of times people will spend some money on a nice loadable dumbbell set and they have the old spring collars or or even I mean you've got to get a really good set of collars are going to hold the weight on especially if you're going to be going through a big range of motion with them. Yeah you definitely don't want to rely on spring collars or or a cheap clothes are caught like the knockoff. Yep. At the very least get the the good version of the one that kind of like locks closed. Yeah the HGs. I actually happened to already have a set of what are they called lock jaws. Yep. That was super useful so those don't budge at all. Yeah they don't yeah I've got the aluminum it's the new you know Rogue Bot the the company Oso that's got those they had the the clip that folds down and I liked those I mean they they won't move at all they'll tend to take your finger off they're almost like a mousetrap if you're not careful when you undo those things but when the the aluminum ones that Rogue Bot Oso that made some changes to the design and now they got some really light aluminum they're not cheap like 50 bucks for a pair and I've got a couple pair of those they don't move at all but you start getting just like we talked about I mean it starts getting relatively expensive pretty quick if you're not careful and so figuring out what to do with what you've got is extremely important.  Yep. So if you're if you're pretty new to this and you're not that strong and I probably say just get like a 12 and a 20 kilo kettlebell. Yep. You know that that will probably cost you you know with shipping maybe you know $200 or less and you can do a lot with it the reason I say to specifically it's very hard to tell somebody just buy one kettlebell even though that's what the when at least when I was learning about it 15 years ago that's what the kettlebell people I'll just start with one kettle and it's like but if we're trying to train a whole body you get a kettlebell that's appropriate for your pressing it's going to be too easy to swing. That's right. You'll have to go challenge if you get one that's challenging enough to swing you won't be able to press it. That's right. Yep.  Yep. Like if I could have started with a 20 and a 32 I would have been a little happier than my 16 and 24. Sure. So that's kind of a good place to start for you know 150 to $250. Again if you're if you've literally been laid off work and you don't have I mean you have almost no money I think the cheapest thing you can do is go up to Lowe's or Home Depot and buy a couple of 50 pound sandbags which costs nothing literally cost a few dollars and bring them home and stick them in a duffel bag duct tape them together put them in the duffel bag and as long as you got a decently heavy duty duffel bag which most people have in a closet somewhere then you've got a pretty good implement to press to squat to swing and you can you can mimic a lot of those movements and it's pretty easy to get a hundred pound one you can almost make like a 50 pound version and a hundred pound version and get a lot of work out of that as well and you're talking about for less than 20 bucks and so for those of you listening to the podcast right now you're like man I've been laid off and don't know when my next paycheck is coming I can't afford $200 to even go get a couple kettlebells like we got I got you I understand I've been there before right then you certainly can can make do some things with some other makeshift objects like sandbags or again heavy bags or heavy heavy rocks or dog food bags things that you already have around the house you'd be surprised at what you have that's relatively heavy and the other thing about that is for for those who aren't in super urban environments all the stuff we've been talking about with the kettlebells the dumbbells and also with the really cheap stuff that you can get like a sandbag if you've got a backyard or if you're you know a little suburban or or or rural you can do all kinds of carries farmer carries over the shoulder carries front-loaded carries fireman care like if you get a hundred pound sandbag shoulder carry you know a hundred feet in each direction you're getting the decent you know a strength and conditioning effects from stuff like that and you know you do five of those passes and then you do 20 kettlebell swings and then walk into one of those and then you do some squats and like you're gonna burn out in like 20 minutes sure yeah i always liked uh you can turn that into a competitive thing even even if it's just you right too you can time the time yourself so i would i just love taking a just a handful of odd implements this is when i first started training strawman and i didn't have any strawman equipment i would just you know i'd had a big rock and i had some sandbags and i had some you know it's like whatever and i would set up a and a spot to finish like maybe it was a big countertop or a table or maybe it was just to throw it over a pole or something and you'd set your timer and here we go three two one go and you'd pick up one object and you run it down and you know put it on the table you run back you get the next one you do it again and you take keep your time and the next time you do it you got to beat yourself that's the that's the that's the deal and so it brings in a lot of that conditioning aspect and i think i just think it's a lot of fun and at the same time we know it's slowing down the detraining effect that you would be you would be deep into if all you were doing right now is sitting at home eating junk food ordering doordash and uber eats and and watching netflix you know so i i think we have a responsibility to continue to do this and for those of you that are listening i would assume the vast majority of people that are listening to this podcast train because the podcast is called barbell logic so you know it's about training but if if you have you most of us have put in a lot of time and and for some of us years and for some of us decades in training and what a ways to sit at home and do nothing right and so honestly for people like you and people like me who have spent most of our life focusing on getting really really strong maybe even at the expense of some of the other physical attributes it can be a nice change of pace to train the other physical attributes for a change and what i've noticed in the past with both myself and my clients is that when you come back from times like this if you've actually continued to train or exercise or whatever you want to call it but with some consistency you'll come back to the gym and yes you'll be weaker but you won't be weaker very long and often you'll come back and listen most people are going to go back to the gym in another month or two months or however long it's going to take and we're all going to start lp again right because that's what we were going to because like people haven't trained and i think what people people are going to find out is that the ones who continued to train while they were home or exercise and do the best they could with some consistency i bet many of those people will come back and set prs all-time prs in lp three sets of five sort of prs things they've never hit before in their life and the ones who didn't and just let themselves get really out of shape won't set prs they'll get stronger again they'll come back and they'll get stronger they'll get back to 90% that's right and then to switch it up again that's right and the other people i think you know good percent of them will set prs and that's actually a really good point i don't know what percent of our our listenership is kind of the more advanced lifters who have really focused on strength at the you know certainly to the to the specialization degree and sometimes to the expense of other things but what this has done for me i've been lifting for 20 years but i would say it's probably only been the last 10 or 12 that i've really specialized and focused on strength uh it used to be i was i would say you know at certain point i was reasonably strong and more balanced and i've let that slip to focus more on strength in the last 10 years and i've actually found them enjoying getting back to that you know little more conditioned not just in a single mode you know do some sprints on the bike but you know do some kettlebell circuits and i'm like you know this might be something that i i come back to doing once a week even after this is all over because i'm actually finding that i'm enjoying doing that stuff again yeah i i thought about this too yesterday i was thinking as i was programming for clients i wonder how much of this stuff will keep you know these some of these body weight movements there's so many people doing push-ups and um chins which we do pretty much anyway but dips and kettlebell swings and things like that like how much of that will we keep and i think some of it is i obviously i want to be very careful when choosing my words carefully it i don't know that you're healthier but i bet you feel healthier you know i bet your range of motion i bet your joints feel pretty good i bet your range of motion your shoulders feels good i bet your you know your your resting heart rate is lower i bet your blood pressure is down a little bit so some of those markers that certainly people would attribute to being quote-unquote healthier i think it it helps with those things and so you know then the crazy thing is it doesn't take very much time so as you go back here in another few weeks or few months back to the gym and start training heavy again how much of that time is it going to take to add some of that stuff just in at the end of your workout 10 or 15 minutes 150 minutes twice a week yeah that's not very much for a pretty good benefit and again i every time i train this way i always come back like man i feel good when i do this i just feel better you know like i just feel like my my again i don't know if it's my cardiovascular system is actually healthier it's just my energy systems are more efficient right i'm not sucking wind is hard right i feel like my blood pressure is a little lower i feel like my heart rate i know my heart rate is a little lower like all of those things and it just seems like i feel better i think to myself why can't i just go in the gym and train heavy and then do this stuff for 10 or 15 minutes the answer is i can you can do that stuff yeah i agree even without without trying to get outside of our expertise into the into the medical stuff i think even if it even if all we stipulate is i kind of just feel better when i do this for 15 minutes right you know once or twice a week how much how much higher quality of life do you have when you feel better that's right how much more motivated are you to train when you generally feel better how much more motivated are you to like go for that pr that maybe you would have challenges because you generally feel better you know i feel good today i'm going to go for it right so i think even if it's all even if it's just the psychological aspect of it we could make a pretty good case for it that's right and i think maybe it's the most important piece of that right like we know we probably can't prove that doing push-ups and dips and body weight movements are going to make your bench press go up not not from a physiological standpoint but from a psychological and sort of field standpoint it it matters and i think the strength community in general has sort of shit on that stuff for years as saying like listen like that doesn't that doesn't really matter and the reality is is we've done this you and i both i mean we've been strength training for decades and we've both been and we've been coaching for decades at this point and to look back and say you know i've noticed that when my clients enjoy what they're doing feel healthy feel good don't feel beat up right their training is better their strength training is better and i think you're right i think that um you know that that emotional psychological thing that happens with training this way can be very beneficial and so you know that certainly there are two ways you know you've got the old adage of you know is the glass half full or is it half empty i think if we attack this with you know what like i don't have heavy barbells and weights a lot of you guys don't out there i do by the way i've got a sweet home gym so this that's why i had to have you on the show because i'm like uh i don't you know i've been programming for people but i'm like i'm yeah i can just go in there and train with my sweet bumper plates and my in my uh in my ball bearing bars and but listen as much as we talk about how how good this stuff might be i still am jealous yeah sure of course of course but you know what at least i don't live in that hat anymore where i wouldn't even had room to do what i'm doing that's right and you probably have coveted right now so that's the other that's the other thing if i live here so you probably dying of uh you know tuberculosis like symptoms so uh yeah man i i think there's a way to look at it in that glass half full is you know i don't have the things i really want to train with right now but i can still do a lot of these things i can feel really good about about myself i can feel better and i i'll bet it carries over to other things too right going in and just saying like look you don't have anybody right now breathe in you don't really anyway because you live a life of freedom but you don't have anybody breathing down your neck being like you know michael wolf you got to be at work at this time you got to be at the gym at this time you got to do this at this time and my guess is is that the discipline in in being consistent with exercise will carry over to a lot of other things in your life as well to your online coaching to your to your creating content and putting it out there on the internet to you know just to reading to making yourself better probably to taking showers and putting real clothes on and brushing your hair and stuff even when you know that the only person that's going to see you is chops and so i would imagine there's some carry over there it's a person that's right he's literally your best friend because he's the he's the only human you've seen in a while chops the dog right he listens patiently to all my rent that's right and he's always excited no matter what like you when he sees you he's always that's the best thing about a dog right like you're you just you know you can leave your dog locked at home for two straight weeks which you shouldn't do but if you show up there he is they're excited see i have a gate in my i've got to keep a gate in front of my office because my uh my little boxer like or my boss and terry likes to come in here and mark her territory she's like listen i know you think it's your office but i want to make sure you understand that it's mine that it's and they don't ever do that don't be anywhere else but in my office because she wants to know she wants me to know it's hers to her office so so i gotta put a gate on my friend so one one point really resonated with me so i just want to bring you know just for a moment you talked about how you know a lot of people in the strength industry have kind of shit on this stuff and i will to some extent admits it even being one of those people now i don't think i really truly shit on it but there's a i think there's an extent to where we we've got so caught up in trying to convince people to do what we consider to be real strength training because there's a lot of people out there who would say under ideal conditions you just need push-ups and sit-ups and pull-ups or whatever and we do need to educate against that because that really isn't true but i think sometimes we get so carried away in trying to get people to do what is best or what is better that we uh lose sight of how maybe some of that other stuff can to to in a certain context not as the only thing or the main thing but in this certain limited context can still be good that's right that's right i think i've been as guilty of that as as as others so sure this has been a good a good reminder for me yeah certainly me as well i know in my early in my early days i was i was much more kind of drew the line in the sand and said this is what you do and this is what you don't do and it's crazy as i as i've as i've become older and hopefully a little more wise and and also a little more beat up from all the years of actual competitive strength training for myself and and training hundreds and thousands of coaches or hundreds of thousands of of clients i realize that there is benefit to some of this stuff and so um but you're exactly right you cannot get strong without barbells and weights like that's how you get strong but that doesn't mean that the rest of the stuff is worthless and that there isn't some some piece of this that can make you feel better and and you can enjoy and that's the other thing i've said this before in the podcast i'm not in the business of crushing dreams man if people want to people want to go jog five miles and they love it they love jogging five miles like man let him go jog five miles it's fine like it's is it going to compete some with the strength training yes it is right but for some people for most people the reason that we're doing this especially once you're out of your 20s and maybe early 30s and you're not you're not records chasing anymore like why are we strength training in the first place except for quality of life improvement i mean isn't that the primary reason we do the thing like sure we all want to look better and we all want to be jacked and we all want to be strong and all those things but ultimately even all of those things are really contributing to quality of life improvement and so if we can let people do some stuff that makes them feel better so that their their quality of life improves let's do it let's not throw out the barbells and the like i can tell you this when the gym's open back up barbell logic online coaching is an online coaching business that utilizes barbells it's in the name of the business but it doesn't mean that we aren't going to do the other things so when the gym's open back up we'll get back to squatting we'll get back to deadlifting but i hope there's some lessons learned here on some of the things that we can do to sort of branch out and feel a little better and have a little better range of motion and a little more health and in cardio vascular fitness for sure yeah there's there's a great quote i remember reading from last year i read Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land which is like a so award-winning sci-fi novel from like the 60s um and he had a line in there where he said only the extremes are logical but the problem is they are absurd that's right that's right so it's kind of like that you know we have to we have to stand on our principle that you need barbells and weights and a bench in iraq to get strong but standing on that that's the only thing that anybody in the world should ever do that's right puts you in a slightly absurd place that's exactly right yep agree yeah and you don't take it so far to the other side where you say well just do whatever feels good all the time or you know if you want to get strong just as long it doesn't matter you know how you lift or what your programming looks like or what the form is like we all of those things matter and we we've staked our careers on those things um but it's not the only thing that matters right and it goes far beyond the weight room as well we've talked about this before like certainly i'm sure you know there are people in your life including your including chops who are probably more important to you than your back squat and for me too right and um and so there are things in life that matter more than just strength training strength training is extremely important to us we love the voluntary hardship aspect of it and that's a lot of what this is too with the training at home like that you are you are choosing to do a thing that's voluntarily hard when you don't have the thing you're used to like you don't have the bar bells and the weights and so i think a lot of people who are our listeners and our fans will walk around kind of with their chest puffed up like yeah i do voluntary hardship i back squat and dead lift all this weight and that is super impressive and and it's something to be commended but when it's not there do you still choose voluntary hardship yeah it's almost a test of it's a it's a you know psychological voluntary hardship to make yourself use a 20-kilometer ball in your own body weight and that's all you got to still find a way to get to get out of breath you're not used to getting out of breath to still find a way to get a good workout in with something you're not used to is it it's a different time that's right that's right love it dude well hopefully the training keeps going well uh i'm excited to see what more you know it's depending on how long this lasts and hopefully it lasts not very much longer but if it does i'm interested to see what you come up with because i know as time goes on you're going to adapt to the movements that you're doing right now out on the back deck with the kettlebells and stuff it'll be interesting to see what you start to go like okay i can tweak this a little bit i can do this a little bit make these changes to connect to continue to increase the stress which is really still a goal right and by the way i i meant to say this i was thinking before i even interviewed you on this was that you're seeing a ton of stuff right now online on on social media especially about you know these these these homework outs which are great i'm super glad everybody's doing that stuff and it's great to have access but if if we're picking home workouts like it's a crossfit workout in a hopper right oh what what home workout am i doing today that's that's not training and i think we would argue that while training isn't optimal in the position that you're in right now in the equipment that you have you can still train you don't have to exercise the thing that makes it different for us and different for you is that we are still systematically adding more stress every single workout and while we can't systematically add more intensity every workout necessarily right now because not everybody has access to that incrementally loadable weights you can do more reps you do more volume you can train more often with more frequency you can train you can get more work done in a period of time you can slow things down and do tempo like you talked about like there are lots of options to continue to incrementally and progressively increase the stress absolutely that is probably something we should have led with that we're we're still trying to make this training to the largest extent we possibly can that's right understanding their limitations we're still trying to make this training and not just random exercise and we're still trying to have a systematic logical approach to progressions whether they be a difficulty progression a volume progression a density progression that's what we're still trying to do and what you've noticed what i've been posting like i've been posting just single lift tutorials and i will continue to do that until i get as many out as i think aren't necessary but what i'm going to start to do after that is combinations like instead of just here's a kettlebell snatch like okay here is a swing into high pull into snatch into windmill yeah if you've already kind of exhausted yourself on that try this combo yep and things like that yeah we like uh we've i've been doing a lot of like 30 seconds on 30 seconds off or 20 seconds on 20 seconds off and going through a basic maybe like a three movement circuit so 20 second kettlebell swing you know 20 second kettlebell press 20 second lunges uh and then a lot you know and then maybe i'll even do like a sit up or something core and then go through it and 20 second press and go through right around again and so just trying to figure out some of working some of the antagonist muscles and and things are sort of fun to to play around with and so i there's lots of weight lots places to go yeah i didn't know how granular you wanted to get on this but that's i i love for for our population of strength focused but not not only uh kind of target workouts um i love that like the two to three move circuit me too i think it's perfect it's it's it's low enough on the like your heart rate won't get crazy high for so long that you can't use any kind of resistance and you're just doing cardio but it's enough of a heart rate challenge that it it just in terms of like perceived general difficulty makes up somewhat for the lighter weight that you're forced to that's right that's right yep it's good so i you know i don't i don't get into these eight move circuits where you just know elevated for eight minutes at a time because we're we've moved too far away from strength training which is what we're trying to do that's right but you know you just do one thing at a time with a limited weight you're kind of just not working hard enough right very vague general level right yep agree the two to three move circuit i think is a great sweet spot for most people agree and and then you can also even in in that you can then rest three to five six minutes and then do a different two to three movement circuit right which works really good get nice full body work are you doing mostly full body workouts right now are you splitting up between upper and lower i'm not splitting it i'm doing all full that's kind of what i figured and how many days kettlebell is a main tool that tends to be like the way you kind of have to do it right because everything can you know anytime i press i have to clean first yep you know where do you categorize a snatch is that upper or lower yeah it's mostly lower but there i mean if you do if you do three sets of 12 snatches with a 24 kilo kettle that's right you haven't done those in a while you feel your upper body like immediately sure it's hard to categorize it i've been doing full body workouts and another another way i've been playing around with it is adjusting the rest period like for a three move circuit if you're in great shape you can go boom from one to the next yep you could do a 20 second rest between each movement and a two minute rest or three minute rest between the whole thing so you can also you know it's still a circuit but you have a little rest between each movement and big rest between the whole set so yep there's there's lots of different ways that you can play with that awesome are you training three days a week four days a week how often you go every other day so i've been it's been sporadic for me only because i've been finding that when i film tutorials i do better doing like 10 or 15 at once instead of like one or two per day so then you're saying i'm gonna film tutorials and train and then i only have to film just so i don't know if i should count that as right right right i'm basically going for four days a week okay got it so it's like every other day plus one yeah is kind of how i've been going for it so doing four days a week so of total body yeah makes sense well thanks for being on the show man i hope you you guys got some good practical takeaways we'll get away a little bit from the depressing stress talk and actually get into the practicals of what we could actually do and so let us know what you're doing if you come up with other great ideas of things that you're using for weights or movements around the house for those of you don't have all the equipment that you need please send us an email questions at barbell-logic.com and in the subject line put put train at home and we'll read those on the air and give good examples of how to train at home so dude thanks for being on the show how do people find you words is instagram the best spot instagram is probably the best spot right now it's at wolf underscore strength there you go but i did just i started this youtube channel because of this i had you know it's i had a a bunch of videos from like 2013 to 2015 up on my personal youtube and then i actually just on accident got like 600 subscribers from that so i thought about continuing it on that one but it's my personal one so i just didn't want to mix it so the youtube channel is wolf strength to separate words no doubt or underscore where all these 30 tutorials are up so you can you can subscribe and is what you got 30 of them up there now yeah i don't know if i could name it like you know if we were playing like a like if it was a board game at home like scatter glories or something and you had to come up with 30 kettlebell movements i don't know if i could write down 30 kettlebell movements i know when i'm programming for my clients i type for those of you guys that don't know like when you're when you're programming on in true coach the software we use i just type kettlebell and then i see all your stuff come up and i'm like ooh this one and i'm like this is great and i watch the video i'm like yeah this is awesome so yeah so for the great kettlebell movements to learn how to do those basic movements at home check wolf out what is the youtube channel name is it awful also wolf strength it's wolf strength two words no hyphen or underscore or anything and there are dumbbell and a few body weight up there now so it's like 22 kettlebell perfect and i'll be adding as we go so by the time you look at this there may be more but the youtube channel is wolf strength and the instagram those are the two best places uh instagram is at wolf underscore strength because some bastard already had wolf strength we will uh we'll link both those in the show notes today for sure so you guys get to training out there do what you can don't just exercise don't just pick those exercise programs out of the hopper or pull them off it off of instagram or social media actually think about what you're doing and making making sure that you're adding stress every single workout be a a group of action people of action and get out there and actually do it uh you'll be surprised at how much better your training will go when you get back into the gym and you add the squats and the deadlifts back in so thanks for being on the show man we will talk soon if you guys love what we're doing please give us a five star review on itunes or any of your favorite podcast uh hosts what do you listen to you listen to podcasts on what what app do you use when you listen i use the apple you do i'm an overcast guy i don't i just i don't i like overcast and what they do is when there's dead just automatically when there's when there's dead dead silences like just even like one second of silence it sort of automatically cuts that out so the flow is better i you know i haven't been super thrilled with it so what is it called overcast i'm overcast i love it i love overcast i i can't i'm not a big fan of the uh of the itunes actual like podcaster app but they're the ones that create the ranking so uh go in and say nice things about us if you can and we will see you in a few days thanks for listening


What's up internet? Intel 4th Gen came out around a month ago and you might be wondering what motherboard to pair with that upgrade that you're going to get. Well, the latest and the greatest motherboard spec you can get right now for that CPU is the Z790. And we have the ROG Strix Z790 here. We're going to examine it if this is perhaps the board you want for your premium high-end build. Pero since hardware sugar to, ididiskas din natin. Ano ba yung pakaiba ng Z690 and Z790? Intel has made it easy for us this time as there is very little difference between the Z690 and the Z790. The Z690 has 12 PCI-E4 chipset lanes compared to 20 for the Z790. On the Z690, you can have a max of four 20 gigabit USB ports versus five on the Z790. For memory, the Z790 theoretically supports slightly faster memory, but most users just set the RAM way higher than those specs anyway. So the ROG Strix Z790a gaming Wi-Fi is a DDR5 motherboard. We've had some difficulty with DDR5, but the stability on this particular motherboard solid when it came to our testing for memory and it is rated at a bonkers 8,000 MHz for RAM. The MOBO has 16 plus 1 plus 2 VRM stages, which is what you would expect from an upper-tier board. And the VRM's job is to make sure that each component is getting the power it needs at the timing that it needs. Things can get hot. That's why you want VRMs with good cooling. We stress tested this guy and stability was flawless, even on a 4900K, which is pretty much as hot as you can get right now for a CPU. This board is Wi-Fi 7, the latest standard, which is capable of a theoretical max speed of 46 gigabits per second. Wi-Fi 7 is of course backwards compatible with all other versions of Wi-Fi, but if you want the latest speed, stability improvements, and other upgrades of 7, your other devices need to be Wi-Fi 7 also. Kung baka backwards compatible yung Wi-Fi, para yung benefits ng Wi-Fi 7 hindi backwards compatible. It's also one of the first motherboards I've seen with a PCI-E5 slot, so that's where you want to stick your graphics card into. Along with all of the belts and whistles are the usual refinements from ASUS that we really like for their motherboards, so for the graphics card, you just need to press a button, no more fiddling with the release lock at the base of the GPU, which can be really hard to find if your GPU is large. And for the M.2 drives, instead of using a screw to keep it in place, there's a simple latch. Again, very simple things, but super useful, especially for builders. There's a lot to like about the ROG Strix Z790A gaming Wi-Fi 2, and I'm tempted to call it the board which will position a new build well for the future. Except that the Z790 chipset is the last gasp of the socket 1700 of Intel. That's a socket which covers 12, 13, and 14th gen CPUs. But the next generation and up, 15th gen pataas, ibang socket na siya, the Z790 won't be compatible. But if you're thinking of getting a new rig centered around the 13th or 14th gen CPU with DDR5 RAM and you don't plan to upgrade the CPU at least for the next five years or so, then the Z790A gaming Wi-Fi 2 has a lot of value. On paper, there isn't much difference between the Z690 and the Z790, but in terms of actual hardware experience, this motherboard really impressed with its rock solid stability. We tested it with a 4900K with DDR5 memory. That's really at the bleeding edge currently of technology and some other boards would falter, not the Z790A gaming Wi-Fi 2. On a practical level, this is the kind of board you would want to have for high-end rigs. And it comes with useful bells and whistles like 5M.2 slots and heat sinks for all of those slots and Wi-Fi 7. It is the end of the year where people like giving out best-off awards. So in that spirit, I think the Z790A gaming Wi-Fi 2 deserves an award. Our inaugural, the last motherboard that you'll ever need award through to the ROG Strix Z790A gaming Wi-Fi 2. With the caveat that that complete title is the last motherboard that you'll ever need for socket 1700. Thanks for watching. Sama na rin yung excellent table management namin and CPU cooler repasting sa cleaning. We also clean and repaste GPUs. Nasamakati yung physical store namin and you can also buy from our site www.hwsugar.ph na 100% palaging up-to-date yung inventory dun. Kung instock yung item sa amin, available yun sa site. We also ship nationwide. Thanks for watching and maybe one of these days, magkita tayo sa shop.