This is a session that meets every once a month. And recently, it's been allocated to different members of the committee to sponsor the one-hour session and to talk especially about what's happening in their own state. And we are in Vermont now.  But blacks were sentenced at a 7% level to prison in Vermont in the last few years. So I mean, I think that's the average for the country, unfortunately, that there is that dichotomy between numbers of black folks in the state and numbers of them in prison. So we're going to talk to some of the people who are experts on all this. And so I welcome you all. This is great. There's 12 people and maybe a few more coming on still. And we wanted to start with Charles Sullivan. And I want to tell you a bit about him. He and his wife started Cure, Citizens United, for the reparation, no, not reparation, or rehabilitation of errants, such an interesting title. Way back in 1969, he and his wife, his new wife, devoted themselves to basically serving. They were both former religious people, devoted themselves to serving the people at the bottom. And they were living in a VW bus and taking part in demonstrations when the protests at Attica started in 1971. This led them to commit their work full time on jail and prison reform. Now there are Cure chapters in most states, and it will be very interesting to talk to some of the people on this call. Do you have a Cure chapter in your state? So Charlie, I think he's, we can call you Charlie. I've known you from a distance for a long time. Could you tell us what is currently happening with nationally and internationally with Cure? And of course, we have a very limited time on this whole thing, but I think people would be interested to know that Cure actually has an international component. So please go ahead. Can you see me, Robin? OK, now you can. OK. You can hear me. Yes. And I can hear you in just one thing, that George Friday will have the stopwatch. And I mentioned seven minutes. So I'll jump right into it. And let me say, to start off, when we were incarcerated back in Mayday of 1971, I was introduced to the Free Vermont Movement. And we ended up going to Vermont. We were living in a Volkswagen van then, and we're going to Vermont then. And of course, we have gone back to Vermont since we have a very active chapter that you're going to hear from. And a wonderful inspiration who's no longer with us, Robin. I think there may be a little static. But anyway, it's Faye Honeyknot, who is the classic book way back instead of prisons. And we had a wonderful visit with her a couple of times. So anyway, well, normally we usually start with where we started, which was in Texas. But let me jump to the international and come back to the national. Well, we're about ready to announce the ninth international conference that we're going to have in Nairobi, Kenya in next May. And these conferences are looking at prison reform and human rights. And so we will be following up in announcing this. And hopefully people can come to it and the details. And Robin, what of course I can do is put people on email or whatever to receive the information. This is the ninth one. We've had him all over the world, really. And Bangkok, Costa Rica, Rwanda, the last one was. And usually average about 20 countries represented. And hopefully this will be the same in maybe even more. Who knows? With the virus and hopefully that would not be any obstacle. So anyway, people might want to follow up and to get back to us in regard to joining with us next May in Kenya. So that's the first. And then secondly, nationally, of course, you've had such wonderful members of Congress that we have been leaders. And of course, Senator Sanders has been wonderful. I wish the other day, my father, I grew up in Alabama. Maybe you can tell by my accent. But my father was a dentist. And no longer, of course, with us. But I wish that Bernie and I hope that he continues to push for the dentistry in this wonderful bill that's so moving through Congress and hopefully and will be signed. And I think there was growing up in Alabama something that people don't consider. There's a lot of racism involved dentistry in that people, African-Americans did not have access to dentists. And so it's something that I think that should be brought out. And hopefully, Senator Sanders knowing him will not abandon this issue, but to make sure that dental is covered eventually. The only other thing, and it also concerns the issue of the 13th Amendment. The 13th Amendment was passed and freed all slaves, except those who commit crimes. And so there is a move. And it's a very strong move now in Congress where we have close to 200 members of Congress who are co-sponsoring at a constitutional amendment to repeal the 13th Amendment exclusion clause, which says that all people are freed.  So the exception clause would be finally eliminated after all these years if we can pass this amendment. Now it takes, as people may know, takes a constitutional amendment. You have to have two-thirds of Congress. And then you have to have four-fifths of the states ratify it. So it's something that hopefully Vermont will be one of the leaders in ratifying it once it is passed by Congress. And then the final thing, and I hope I'm not going to overdo it, I know he's got the joke. Is it close? Seven minutes? I want to mention one last thing with Senator Lay. Senator Lay has been wonderful and such a leader. But I know he's very interested in international issues. And I hope even being a lame duck that he might raise the issue that the international, inter-American Commission on Human Rights, it was ratified by President Jimmy Carter, but it's never been actually passed by the Congress. And so I remember Senator William Praxmire back in the late 80s, every day talked about the needs to ratify the Convention on Torture. And as a going away president, they did ratify it. So something that, if you get a chance to talk to Senator Lay, he doing this august recess to bring to his attention that it would be wonderful. He probably knows it, to talk about the ratification of something that Jimmy Carter signed as president, that we need to be part of the International Commission on Human Rights. So I can certainly talk about that if you, someone decides to talk to Senator Lay, he of course, thank him for all of his wonderful leadership, but that if he might be willing to talk about that before he leaves the Senate in December. So under the seven minutes, sure. If so, I'll pass it on. Well, Dan. Well, Robin, we forgot to do the check-in. I see a lot of people I don't recognize. So could we do the check-in before we go on? Yes, yes, yes. I'm sorry, I completely forgot about that. And so what check-in is, is everyone says, hello, where you come from, whether you're in a branch of Will for an organization and you have, what is it? One minute, two minutes to check-in. And I- 30 seconds, actually, 30 seconds. OK, this woman is very strict here, Carissa. So maybe I'll call on people. And a new person who's right next to me in the screen is Eric Agnero. Could you just introduce yourself? He's muted. Hello, hello, yes. My name is Eric Agnero, originally from the Ivory Coast. And a new, I mean, the Monter now. And I'm very pleased to be here. I'm a board member of Media Factory in Burlington, a board member of so many, so many organizations, but a very good friend of Will. And then I'm glad to be here, very interested in that topic because I, myself, experience this issue in Vermont when I came for the first time 10 years ago, so much so that I had to leave the state because I couldn't find a way to go up the ladder, the social ladder, because all blacks, all Africans were just doomed to be in the factories or in the peripheries of the society. I rebelled. I went and then stayed in the African Union for quite a while. And then here I'm back. Things have changed. Thank you, thank you very much. Have to do be done, voilà. Yeah, all right. Sandy, I don't see your face there, but can you unmute yourself, as they say? Hello, Sandy. Yeah, hi. Oh, good. There you are. And just turn the computer a little bit so we see your face if possible. Yeah. So we're just asking your name. And where you live. And then we'll be coming back to you because you're one of the speakers. OK, but I don't have a heck of a lot of time, but I'm Sandy Bear and I'm an attorney. And I'm here for the Caroline Fund. All right, thank you. And George Friday, can you tell the newcomers who you are? Hi there. I'm George Friday. I'm in the Southern Piedmont branch in North Carolina. I'm a co-convener of this subcommittee. And I'm also the person who lets you know when the time is up. This means you've got two minutes left. After those two minutes, I might mute you if our time is short. But I'm glad to be here. Wonderful, thank you. OK, Timothy, good to see you. You'll be speaking later also. So please feel free to call me Tim. OK. My name's Tim Burgess. I am the state leader for Cure Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Arons. And I am just glad to be here. I've previously incarcerated and very politically active. So that's my story. Wonderful. All right, Julie Siegel, if you can unmute. Hello, everyone, I'm Julie Siegel. I'm in Louisville, Kentucky. Yes, there are Wilk members in Kentucky. I'm starting a branch here in Greater Louisville, which includes Indiana and Kentucky. And I was on the National Staff of Wilk. In the 1970s, Jimmy Carter was president. We were working on the SALT II Treaty and the Neutron Bomb. And I was national membership director on Race Street for the US section. I worked with Milbert Scott Olmsted, who was a friend of Jane Adams. Oh, my goodness, way back then. Yeah, way back then. And Kay Camp was the international president. And she was at the signing of the peace treaty for the Vietnam War. Wilk was there. Yes, I loved her. Wonderful. Thank you. Wonderful to see you. OK, Donna, can you unmute? Yes, hello there, Donna Peel from Cape Cod. Steamy up here. I'm in the Cape Cod branch of Wilk and the new chair of Advancing Human Rights, which I'm very proud to represent. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, great. Deborah, hi. How are you from down south there? Hi. Glad to see everybody. I'm Deborah Livingston. I'm the chair of the Tucson, Arizona branch. And I've been a member of Wilk since, I don't know, back in the 70s and been in Tucson for 40 years. And I'm just glad to be part of this group right now. Great, great. OK, Joan. Hello, everybody. I'm Joan Goddard from the San Jose, California branch in the San Francisco Bay Area. And I've only been a member of Wilk for about 20 years. So I'm a newcomer. Well, you've been, you've stayed up for lost time by being such an involved member on the National Board and everything. Thank you. Teresa, you wanted to say hi? Thank you, Robin. Teresa Alamein. I'm in the Fannie. Lou Hamer branch in Columbus, Georgia. And I'm co-convener of this group on ending mass incarceration. And I first joined Wilk in 1988 in Cleveland. And I kind of lost my way for about 10 years. And then I reconnected with Wilk in the Triangle with the Triangle branch. And so I'm now in Columbus, Georgia. And we started our own branch here a little over a year ago, the Fannie Lou Hamer branch. And I'm so glad to see people here from Kentucky and Arizona, because those are new states to put on the rotation. You hear me, Donna? So they can talk about what's happening in their states at the next meetings coming up. So thank you so much, everyone, for being here. Great, yes. And let's see, Odeo, are you in this continent, or are you still in France? I'm still in France. Thank you. My name is Odeo Lugano-Heber. I am a member of the Michigan Ann Arbor branch. But I am in Burgundy in France. And what else? I have been in Wilk for about 30 years. And I was an activist before with Woman in Black. Great, thank you.  Can you hear me? Yeah. OK, so I'm on the road. But I've been a Wilk member on and off for maybe only 15 years, so I'm probably the newest comer. And I've been working on a project with bringing a pilot program to the incarcerated women here in Vermont in our prison. Yes, and teaching entrepreneurship to people coming out of prison. That's wonderful. So I hope you can stay on and give your opinions as we go along. Maybe since Sandy seems to be anxious to leave, maybe she could speak before Timothy. And then you would be able to leave the, let me explain who Sandy Barrett is. She's a lawyer. She's been a state, Vermont state representative, a professor of history, and international relations at the multitude of places, especially Burlington College where I was also. And she has founded a nonprofit organization aimed at helping women after her daughter was murdered in 1998 in an incident of domestic violence. The Caroline Baird-Critfield Memorial Fund for Women in Need has been offering financial and legal support in emergencies to women and girls since 1998. She's as a retired lawyer. No, no, no, I'm not retired. May I finish the sentence? Well, I need to say that because I still practice the law, Robin. That's just what I was going to say. She is now working full-time in the offices of the Association of Africans Living in Vermont, offering legal services to mainly immigrant women. She hopes to see a people's law center open up in Burlington soon. There is insufficient legal assistance offered to poor women and men in our so-called justice system. So if you could just take maybe five minutes to explain what you're doing and your connections with the legal system and the so-called justice system over time. As Robin said, my name is Sandy Bann. I've been an attorney since 1977. And then a professor as well. When I left Burlington College, when it collapsed, financially, on 2016, I was privileged to have a legal space here. I have my own, I have an office here where I represent largely black and brown women and new American women in the family court. And I find that this is a real need. Women need, for instance, they are often victims of domestic violence. They are often the victims of family situations where husbands or mace leave them with a lot of children, with no visible child support, or no way to get child support. They often sometimes lose custody of their children because they lack legal access to the child. There's something weird happening with your sound. Can you keep yourself close to the computer so we can hear you? Yes. And so I find that most of the work I do here is for free or pro bono or low bono, if people have a little bit of money to contribute. That's the Caroline Fund. I hope to expand the Caroline Fund into what I would call as a People's Law School, Law Center for the Study of Law and Public Affairs. I also present Wednesday night seminars on either a legal topic or on a topic affecting public affairs. I feel like the need for women and children and their families has been totally neglected by Burlington and, in fact, by almost all organizations that I'm familiar with. So I'm here to say that to Willf that because Willf is pledged, I believe, to the empowerment of women and girls, the People's Law Center would be a very important thing for us to cooperate on. And I guess that's why I'm here to say that today. And thank you. Thank you, Robin, for inviting me. Okay, so when you say where you are right now, could you explain a little more about the Association of Africans Living in Vermont? Maybe Eric could do that better because he's been associated with this place longer than I have, right, Eric? All right, thank you, Sandy. I'm also glad to say that as your paralegal, your assistant and on the project of the People's Law School, the Association of African Living in Vermont started, let's say 15 years, about 15 years ago as an association of Africans living in the state a place where new migrants and new Americans could get some help, you know, in terms of the illegal and immigration, many immigration problems. And then, thank God, the association has evolved into a very big organization now that encompasses or that covers all the new Americans. So you will find Nepalese, you will find the Vietnamese, you will find people from all over Africa and other newcomers. And I'm pretty sure the Afghans have maybe started going there. So the African Living, the association has found a very useful to bring in Sandy to help the ladies, mostly the ladies and the kids who have trouble navigating to the legal system in Vermont, especially now that everything is online, most of these women, most of these people don't know how to write to read, nor do they know how to read even in their own languages. So they have a lot of needs. And then so far, so good, we haven't lost any case yet. It ranges from domestic violence to, you know, a problem on the roads with some of them, you know, driving under influence or many problems that, you know, we try to solve. But it's important because they are bearing or they are giving to Vermont the future of this state, all these kids that, you know, hopefully could be good actors of development in our community. But if these women, if these families are broken, are not assisted, all of the kids or the majority of them will end up in the street. Peter Clavel, who is a good friend of us and who's helping us also, have noticed that now you can find more and more of these young Africans, young new Americans in the street. They are, some of them are becoming homeless people and they're having problems with drugs, we've been witnessing, yeah, we've been witnessing the rise of crime in these communities. So it's important that we give them the tools to understand the legal system, but also the tool to defend themselves when they are facing sometimes a court system that is very implacable, especially to people of color. Yes, and I would just like to add that I think Vermont has been unique insofar as yes, we're about the widest state in the union, but there has been an effort through Bernie Sanders who was our mayor for a long time to work with the refugee, the federal refugee assistance program to bring Africans maybe, you know, maybe 50 people at a time from the Congo or from Kenya or from different places and work at integrating them into the community. And I think that's been very, very positive and of course lots of problems connected with it. So the association for Africans living in Vermont, I think is, I don't know, it's maybe whether to what degree it's unique to our state but it performs a very important role and it's not only for Africans, there's four people from Nepal and so on that come here and need legal advice. Okay, well, thank you. And so now let's get back to Tim. Tim is a, I've written something down here about you but you introduced yourself perfectly well.  Maybe you can explain how that must be out of state. And so I'm just wondering what specifically is pure Citizens United for the rehabilitation of parents, what is pure doing in the state of Vermont? And we want to spread the news of what it's doing and become part of it. This is five minutes. Five minutes, that would be good. So my name is Tim Burgess and I was incarcerated from 2004 to 2009 and then 2009 to 2017, I was under community supervision. What pure is doing in Vermont is we're advocating a mediator for people who are incarcerated because there's so many flaws and failures for those people who are incarcerated. What I mean by flaws and failures is, for instance, people in close custody are not getting outside, they're not allowed outside. So I take an issue like that, I go to the commissioner and his representatives and I just let them know what the A, that's unacceptable and B, what are we gonna do to make a plan to make it better? When I was incarcerated, I had lived in California for 12 years and I came to know quite a few different communities and when I became incarcerated, I remember my mother visiting the first time at Chittenden was a male facility at the time. She said to me, are they incarcerating every young black male in Vermont? The number, my experience with a number of young African-American people or even Hispanic people that get incarcerated due to, excuse me, due to simply being black and being in the community. I mean, I practiced, I was honored when a judge here in Vermont allowed me to act as a jailhouse lawyer and present a case. That's where I focused my work while I was incarcerated on research and how to help people move beyond the circumstances they find themselves in. Because it's easy to get mired down. I know this. It's easy to get mired down and say, well, I have no resource, I have a lot of people incarcerated, my experience are, they have not a strong support network in the community. They have very little information on the resources that are available to them. They have no information on getting a job, how to get a job with a conviction. So those are all the things I do to work with people who contact me from usually the prisons. I think I have eight, maybe nine clients. To figure out what are their next steps? Okay, we made a mistake. We made a huge error in judgment most of the time. So how do you move beyond that? How do you incorporate the voice of the victim, take responsibility for your actions, and at the same time get housing, which is almost impossible right now, get housing, get a job, get reestablished in the community? I ran a voter drive because Vermont is one of those few states that has always allowed inmates to vote. So I ran a voter drive with the League of Women Voters two years ago, and they actually went into the facility and signed people up to register to vote. I'm very politically active. I've run for office myself. In my little town here in Waterville, Vermont, I serve on four or five different commissions just in the community. So I'm also a registered minister with the Universal Church, and you know, that's sort of where we are right now. Right now the biggest need, if someone were to say, what do you need the most? Fundraising is an issue because I don't charge people and I say, if you got it, please donate it. If you don't have it, please consider if I need someone who may be able to donate. So I'm on disability right now, so. Okay, I see the time is up there. And I think this is, people who may not have heard about cureization before, you are being a having been a jailhouse lawyer as the sort of person that cure reaches out to. And I gather it kind of empowers while you're in prison so that you can learn the ropes and maybe Charlie can clarify that later on when we have a discussion. But thank you so much, but could you just add one more thing? You were in a corrections corporation of America facility. Now is that out of state of Vermont? And why are we sending our prisoners out of state? I think that's the stupidest thing and painful for families.  So I spent two years in a for-profit prison. I'm also part of an organization now that is abolishing working to abolish private prisons. So what they do in Vermont just very quickly is if you have a sentence greater than whatever number they decide to get, but if you have a sentence and you're gonna be in prison a long time, they generally will send long-term or life people who are in for life to different prisons right now, Mississippi, sorry. That's crazy. That doesn't apply to women though, it's only men. Yeah. Uh-huh, uh-huh. The women prison in Vermont has had a lot of problems and they're actually just have funding to start another one. Okay, I saw Sandy, you have a question and then Cheryl will be speaking after that. Go ahead, Sandy. Oops, you're muted. I have a comment. The reason I left the room was that I just got a call from a prisoner in Montana. I get calls from prisoners often and one of the real problems that nobody faces, I don't think either in Vermont or any place else is the needs of the prisoners themselves. For instance, they usually have to buy their own stuff like toothpaste, like whatever products that they have to use. They don't have any money to do that, especially that's true, particularly in private prisons. They are limited in the phone calls that they can make. In other words, our prisons really, especially the private prisoners, prisons are more or less like concentration camps in a lot of ways because they have very little contact prisoners with the outside world. And so anything goes within prisons often. And private prisons in particular are supervised by the corporation itself, not much even by the state. In other words, this mass incarceration while it affects mainly a lot black and brown people, we have to remember it also affects white poor people, mainly males who have been discarded by society with long sentences, no access to the outside.  And I don't know, I have no idea how to bring that consciousness to our country or even to the world. We are the worst country in terms of mass incarcerations of prisons that I can think of almost. I mean, not really, I guess, but we have discarded many particularly young, white and black and brown men in these pits where they are cut off in the whole rest of the world, you can't call them. That's why I ran out of the room because he has to call me. I have no ability to call him. And it's all, by the way, on credit, you have to, he has to call me collect. I can't call him. You have to mail things to prisoners in a certain way or they don't get the mail. I think it's one of the most important problems that this country faces. Okay, we want Cheryl to speak. And she was on this call a couple of months ago. She's worked very hard. Cheryl Deer, she lives here in Burlington, has worked very hard to establish a kind of educational organization that works with the women in prison and helps them think through what kind of future they want to have outside of prison in terms of their jobs. So could you come on, Cheryl, for maybe five minutes, if you'd like? And then we'll have a general discussion. Yes, can you hear me? Yeah, yeah, can't hear you, so. Oh, you know, I'm on the phone and I don't know how to do my Zoom on my phone. So I'm sorry about that. Oh, that's okay. So, yeah, I don't, I mean, everything that Timothy and Sandy said is absolutely true. It's a very punitive system. Unfortunately, the only thing that these people did wrong, which is criminal, is they were born into poverty. It's a generational poverty, it's generational incarceration, at least for the women. Everything is a profit center, as far as having to make phone calls or buy products at the commissary. The lockdown is just, it's brutal. It's brutal, how they have to stay in their cells. You mean during COVID or just regular? Well, during COVID, absolutely, they had to stay in their cells and they couldn't mix units. But I think just general, like what Timothy said, it's an international law if you spend 23 hours in a prison to get an hour of daylight. And these women are not getting that. And legislature said something to the Department of Corrections a couple of years ago, and they got a facility with fitness center, but they always say it's not open because they don't have the staff to staff it. So, they don't get to use it. Then legislature said they had to improve the nutrition. And so like, I don't know how many years ago, four years ago, they got a salad bar. It's never been filled. They get three to four simple carbs on their dishes. They get fruits and vegetables a few times a week. It's very common for the women to say they're pre-diabetic and they gain 70 to 100 pounds. The first three months they were in there, in prison. The two main issues with women in incarceration is they're not healthy and they don't have any job experience, training, or education. So, what our program, we bought our program, it's evidence informed from Oregon. And it changes, it's based on a transformative learning theory and it's written with learning strategies and methodologies for transformative learning. And what makes it transformative is that it's cognitively and psychologically. We change their attitude and belief system because you have to have a belief to be internally motivated to guide you to the next steps of action. And so we want them to vision a future rather than being victims and seeing this is their life that they've been given and handed down and they have to do. And they've all, the way I see it, they're entrepreneurs. They've either been prostituting their bodies or drugs. So, I mean, I don't know what else I can say. I can talk some more, but I don't know if it's interesting. No, it's fascinating and it's so wonderful you're doing that and women have recently graduated from your program. So it's, you're on a roll now, right? Yes, unfortunately, we got our contract with the Department of Corrections in October and then it's a 69 hour class and we got shut out for two months in January and February because of COVID. We went back in in March and then we were shut out for May and June. And we had a great momentum going. The women were coming to work, they were doing the rigor. They were, it was a lot of peer learning happening in the class. It's very important that we have this cohort. So they learn a lot of communication skills, negotiation with this group and they support each other in their decision making, whether it's in transitioning out of prison or it's when they start their new businesses. So we offer them a $500 monetary incentive. And I think that's huge. They stay in touch with me, where I've been hearing from Vermont Works for Women, they don't stay in touch with them. And I think it's the money actually. Hmm. Well, great. Well, thank you. We just have less than 15 minutes more to go. And I have a couple of questions for Tim, namely, and maybe others can answer it. The rumor is that our Republican governor wants to build a new prison. And what do you think of that? Would that be in the location of the current women's prison outside of Burlington?  I mean, should we try to join your chapter and if so, do you need often and so on? Well, let me start by saying that the conditions at the women's prison in Chittenden or what they call the Correctional Center is off. I live there, so I know it's awful. It was awful in 2004 and it's just getting worse. So there has been a lot of talk and I believe it's done now, the deal's done. They're building another prison. Don't know the location for women. And I don't know the location where that's supposed to go or what they're gonna do with Chittenden, but those are other issues beyond my pay grade. I can speak a little bit to that, Tim. Okay, I just had a meeting at the prison on Friday with the director of women's programs and the two superintendents and it's a done deal. They're going to build a new prison and legislature gave them like a $500,000 to start finding an architect to design it. And they told me that it's gonna be for men and women. They don't know the location now, but it's gonna have a reentry unit for women and men. Okay. The more I know. That's what I heard from them on Friday. Now, I find this very interesting because I got involved in all of this maybe 20 years ago working against the juvenile jail. And that was when I met Fayhoney Knopf who was a wonderful abolition of prison activists. She lived in Brandon near Brandon. And I know Charlie knew her and she has written books on prison abolition. Could you say something about Fayhoney Knopf and her movement because I wasn't able to get a speaker from the Safer Society Foundation that Honey Knopf founded. But she's been an important force in our state for abolition. Yeah, so go ahead, Charlie. Sure, okay, sure. Well, she not only did that, but she also I went into the prison with her in Vermont and she was really ahead of her time on treatment for those who had persons who had committed sex offenses. And she was just a wonderful. And I think the moratorium on prison construction really came out of that back 25, 30 years ago when we first moved here to Washington, D.C. And that we would delay building more prisons until we have community corrections. And to bring that up to date, I was really struck by Al Gore, what he said the other day on national television that we'll never get the climate control if we continue to use fossil fuels. And I would say that we're never gonna address mass incarceration until we quit building jails in prisons. It just doesn't follow. That's all there is to it. Now, having said that as a principle, I don't know.   And what Tim has said, how bad things are, but I don't know if the solution is to continue when there is overcrowding to build another prison. And that seems to be what Vermont is doing. And I think Huntington would agree with that, that the solution is not more prisons. In fact, that's what her book was. Instead of prisons, that should be community programs. Yeah, and Charlie, another question about the war on drugs. I mean, there started the glimmers of sanity coming into government that were incarcerating people for far too long for two very minor infringements. And so I believe in California, a number of prisoners were released. And I'm just wondering, has that been a national phenomenon or Tim, do you know whether some long-term, people long-term sentences were 20 years for having a marijuana joint? Have they been released here? I don't know much about that. Yeah, well, Sandy, do you have any thoughts? I don't think that was ever the case what Robin said that people went to jail for 20 years for a joint. No, I don't think that was ever so. There was something called three strikes and you're out. And if you were convicted of three felonies, the third one meant that you went to jail for a very long time. Maybe that's what she's referring to, but having one joint was never a felony, not in the state of Vermont. So I'm not exactly certain. All I know is that people are still going to jail for very long amounts of time and they are, and I can't even, how can you comment on a society that locks people up for a long amount of time and also still has the death penalty? How can you even talk about having a decent society when that is the case and that those incarceration rates and the death penalty affects black and brown men, mainly the long sentences and the long terms in jail, but also so does the death penalty and that it's really, okay, so this is my final pitch. People in this country have no understanding of the law. They have no understanding of the law. They have no understanding of the prison system. They don't, honestly, as some of you know, on last Wednesday night, we have a very important election here in Chittenden County tomorrow where a reform prosecutor is running for her life against a guy that has received total support from the police union. That's Sarah Kenny, who was the reformer, Sarah George, excuse me, who was the reform prosecutor, a very close friend with Chesa Boudin out in San Francisco. He was also perceived as a reform prosecutor like Sarah. And he was just recalled. I'm very worried that Sarah herself is a reform prosecutor, is interested in ending mass incarceration. I think she's gonna be defeated tomorrow. Right now, I'm so afraid too. Yes, Odeo, you have your hand raised, please. I want to say that in Ann Arbor, we have a very strong program of restorative justice that is official and running on with Judge Timothy O'Connor. Maybe we could interview him or some of the people that work with him. Yes, good. I mean, you could be in charge of a session of this group next month or something. It's good to bring this together and learn what's happening. I can't do it until October. Robin, could I make one final comment because I'm going off the court in like three minutes? And that is, I think that the proper role of one of the proper roles of wealth, one of the proper roles of the Caroline Fund is to educate about the law. I mean, I'm so surprised that again, this little group though I want to call something like People's Law School presented Sarah George simply on her role. What was the prosecutor's role within the judicial system?  That's, I think that the key to everything almost is first the empowerment of women and girls throughout the world. And secondly, to educate, especially here in the United States about the law and about public affairs, it's not been done. Thank you, thank you. I see we just have a few minutes more, Tim. And then Teresa, go ahead, Tim. So there was a second part of that. First of all, Sandy is an amazing person. I know her legislative work. I've seen her work in the community. She does a lot, but that's not what I wanted to say. What I wanted to say is if you know people in Vermont who are incarcerated or family members of people who are incarcerated that need assistance sort of navigating this crazy process, I am taking anyone who's interested in coming and talking to me. So thank you. All right. Thank you. Teresa. Well, just a couple of announcements. And forgive me, I have a very unstable connection. So it helps to keep my camera off. But the one thing we need to do before we close is to choose which state is going to be covering in September. We always meet on the second Monday of each month. So I believe that maybe September 12. I'm not sure. But the second Monday if somebody can check. So we have Michigan in the house. We have Arizona in the house. And we have Kentucky in the house. And I would prevail upon. Oh, deal. Because Michigan is one of those big states. With big cities and lots of incarceration. So what we're asking. Oh, deal is for people to do what Robin did today. And you can do it any way you want. But what we really want to know is what's happening in your state in terms of the numbers of incarcerated. So will you be around. I can do it in October, not in September. You can do it in October. Okay, that's perfect. Because I just remembered the other announcement is that we have a webinar on Palestine and Lebanon, what is to be done. And the date will likely be the 13. We're looking at the 12 for the 13. But I'm pretty sure it's going to be on the 13, because all of the speakers are confirmed for either day. But we needed to be on the 13 so that's going to be an international webinar with people speaking from Palestine, Lebanon, Norway is going to be great. And I know you'll hear more about it. I cannot be on it because I have so sure he's sorry. Yeah, I know you told us you're just such a busy woman being in France all this time I said who can afford to stay in France for weeks. But you have family there I guess. Yes, I'm staying with a family place. Well that is wonderful. Yes, all I have, we know when the next meeting is George will send out the information. But I want to prevail upon the Tucson branch or our long time will sister in Kentucky to see if they will be willing to take the next meeting on the 12. I'm sorry. My family connection I have with prison right now is I had a friend whose husband was sentenced to an extremely long sentence for growing marijuana when he had a permission from California to grow it. And he was arrested in Kentucky she lived with me and when he was released he lived with me for a while too. But I'm starting a branch here. I'm pretty, pretty full up with doing that and I'm uninformed about prison reform. Teresa I'd like to jump in here and really for solving your problem. Thank the people who have come on and especially Charlie and Tim and because okay Tim works in what is called personal assistance to individuals but what are we doing in the state to try to make sure that the commissioner of prisons become is a is a progressive person that he is he or she you know in other words we need to have some issues that we can work on together so I urge everyone to join cure. I want to put the label the name or address or something in the mail and or in the in the chat. What what do you propose Charlie. So that would be very good. What I could do Robin if you wanted to send me the email. The names and the email addresses of the people here. We do a weekly report. And we don't overdo it. We get so many emails but a weekly report on prison reform. But that's coming out of Congress. And of course I think Tim would be coming out with a newsletter that he could send to particularly those people in Vermont that are on the call. Is there a way that you could send me there the emails. I just saved my chat and whatever I think I can save it. Okay and just forward it and I'll put it on. It's this male champ idea you didn't cost anything up to 2000. 10,000 a month emails. So we send once a week less than 2000. Also, Robin since we're coming up on our hard stop at three. George and I will co-facilitate for next month. So we're going to have the 12 and one of our big issues is ending the death penalty. I know you don't have a death penalty in Vermont, but we got a death penalty big time here in Georgia. They just killed someone last week. And the death penalty is bad in Alabama. So we'll probably have a speaker on the death penalty. So we're going to have a speaker on the death penalty here in Georgia or either in North Carolina or both. Because those are still death penalty states. So George and I will co-facilitate next meeting. Okay, wonderful. That sounds good. And that should bring some Vermonters in because there, there are some people who are urging that we should have the death penalty here. Oh no. I will send the recording when it's ready. Robin, are you ready to adjourn? Yes, I am. And thank you everyone for taking part. And I hope we'll be in touch again soon. Robin, this was absolutely wonderful, Robin. We learned a lot. Thank you so much for organizing. It's Robin. It's been great. It's been great. All right. Take care, everyone. Thank you. Bye.


Boom! This is mine, with the world's number one fitness health entertainment podcast. All right. Would you like to win a free Maps Prime program? Of course you would. Here's how you can win free access. Leave a comment in the first 24 hours we drop this episode. Make it a good comment. If we pick your comment, you'll get access to Maps Prime for free.  Go to mapsprime.com, use the code Prime50off. That's Prime50off. Now if you'd like to win stuff, we give stuff away all the time. So turn on your notifications, subscribe to this channel so you know when we post these episodes. All right, enjoy the podcast. We've been doing this for a long time and every so often, you get your, you just, everything you think gets flipped on its head.  Actually, let me see if you guys are the same. What's one of the biggest changes you've made in how you look at training over the last, I don't know, 15, 20 years? Oh my God, bro. That's so vague. Can you take me closer to where you want to go? Yeah, where you did, you thought of a value of something, you did a particular thing and then you learned something else. I'll tell you one of the most, okay, so I got one for you. And it's recent, right? Okay. Or relatively recent. I want to see if it's the same one that... Phone rolling before I work out. Yeah. That was something that I didn't do. I did thought, whoa, what a huge difference this was doing and became like a ritual. Like that's how I started every workout. I spent a good 10 to 15 minutes phone rolling before... And then you're applying it to every one of your clients after that too, right? Yeah, totally. I'm 100% guilty of that. Even up to when we started the show, when we first started the show, I was still phone rolling. It wasn't until I met Brink, Justin Brink, Dr. Brink, he moved me away from that and moved me into the direction of more like mobility and priming stuff. That was the biggest switch. Yeah, that's specific. But generally speaking, for me, it was warm-ups. My idea around warm-ups completely shifted later on in my career. So when I was a train, for a long time, I would get peak clients and I'd have them warm up on a little cardio, right? Get the heart rate up and warm the body up. Maybe some light type of stretching, foam rolling with the other one. Now is the truth be told? It was a little bit of that.  That guarantee that's part of it. That was the added value. I'm like, I got enough time to get a Starbucks coffee. Yeah, just keep moving. I really think a lot of us traders... He's calling everybody out. I am. I think we all kind of justify that because when you run... When you're going clients back to back. Yeah, when you run an 8, 10 hour day and you're hitting them all on the hour. Yeah, you're on all day. Yeah, there's no break. Nothing. There's no break. So you literally have... And sometimes you secretly are praying for a client to be late. So you have the opportunity to shovel some food down, right? Yes.  So the 10 minute warm-up on the elliptical or whatever. I had some clients mess that up because I would have everybody warm up on cardio. First of all, we were taught that. We were taught get the heart rate up, warm up the body, reduces risk of injury, blah, blah, blah. We're going to get into why that's almost completely bullshit. But we bought into it. And then, of course, like you said, Adam, it was great because it bought you 10 minutes. But then I would have clients that would ruin the whole thing where their appointment was, let's say, at 5 p.m. They came in early. They come in early to do their warm-ups so they're ready by the time that it's time to trade. I was like, ah! You know who always did that? You want to know it's funny? You know what clients always did that? It was not my clients that were highly motivated. It was the ones that were like the penny-pinchers. And they were like... In every dollar. I'm paying this guy $80 an hour. That means I get 60 minutes. If I spend 10 minutes on this elliptical, this is silly. I want to squeeze everything out of this. Yes. Those were the clients that were smart and would come in early. Not the ones like, oh, I want to put the extra work in. I need to do this. It was like, I'm paying this dude for... I'm going to come in here before this. Now here's where my mind started to get blown. It was understanding what warm-ups really do. So what we're taught is they warm up the muscles, right? So warm... More elasticity in the tissue, that kind of stuff. Yeah, warm tissues are more elastic and pliable. And they even give me this example. They said, imagine you have a rubber band and you put it in the freezer, right? You can't stretch it out very much. It snaps. But if you put it in the... If you warm it up, it's much more... So I literally thought of muscles like that. I literally told people that. Did you really? Yeah. That they're like rubber bands. This is actually not true. The reality is what makes the muscle pliable or not or whatever is your central nervous system. The reality is a warm-up is not warming up the muscles. It's getting the CNS to start to fire and function in a way that is beneficial. When you understand that, then you look at your warm-ups completely different. No one really communicated the CNS very well to me. It was in every certification, in every book we had to read, but it was always a daunting chapter that I never enjoyed and I never really learned how to apply it to clients until much later. Yes. I feel like this is definitely an area where I adjusted my training completely as well as addressing the feet and ankles, too. That was one of those things that none of our certifications did a good job of addressing. In terms of mobility. Yeah.  It'll have a certain amount of stretch to it. It's not doing anything. It's just sitting there. If I have a tight hamstring and I tear it out, it's not tight anymore because I tore it off my body. Now it's on the floor. It seems pretty flexible. In fact, if you talk to, so I used to train a lot of surgeons and doctors and when people are under anesthesia, they would always comment how remarkably flexible they were, right? Because the CNS is dampened and shut down, right? So what makes a muscle do anything, whether it's be tight or contract or relax or stretch is the central nervous system. So to give you an example, let's say you go to stretch your hamstrings.  And the furthest you can get initially is where your fingertips barely touch your foot. Now if you stretch and you hold that stretch for 30 seconds, a minute, two minutes, you will find that eventually within a minute, you'll be able to go down further past where you could go before. And now you've added, you know, three, four, five or six inches of range of motion. Now what didn't happen was your hamstrings change. In other words, the hamstrings themselves. They didn't get longer or more elastic. No, they didn't change at all. The difference was the central nervous system. Relaxed. Told the hamstrings, okay, we're okay here. We're safe, stretch, stretch, stretch. So really warm-ups are all about the CNS and have very little to do with muscle.  So it's basically like it's limiting you for a reason because it feels like there's instability there. There's low support. And so, you know, that being able to channel the central nervous system to support those joints and provide that kind of stability allows you then to go even further, you know, angle-wise. Right. And so the promise of warm-ups in the past was to reduce the risk of injury.  That was the promise. Now, did they actually deliver? Maybe. Depends on how you did the warm-up, but they delivered very little. They didn't do much at all in terms of, you know, promising that delivery. In fact, there were studies that showed that the traditional ways, and I remember learning this, the traditional ways people warmed up for a long time, like static stretching, actually increased the risk of injury. Now, you might ask yourself, how's that? Why is that? Why is it that static stretching before workouts or warming up wrong is worse than not warming up at all? Well, you're just passive. Well, you just alluded to it, right? You said that what happens after you do a static stretch for 30 seconds, you tell this, the CNS tells the muscle to relax, to relax. Not protecting as much. That's right. It's not, it's, it's, it's relaxed.  There you, and you just got done sending a signal to say, relax, calm down. That's their, their conflicting signals. Right. And that's where the danger or the risk is. Or you move in a range of motion you don't own. Right.  So where does the injury come from? Okay. Injury comes from weakness and injuries come from weakness. Now, some people might be thinking, well, I know super strong power lifters and body builders that hurt themselves. Yes. That's true. But they were weak at one particular point, whether it be stability or in a range of motion, they didn't own. Right. And that's where the injury happened. So what a warm up should do is improve your strength and your function. That's what reduces the risk of injury. Not necessarily increasing range of motion or just making your body feel warm, but rather getting the central nervous system to fire more efficiently, more effectively and to be stronger because you don't hurt yourself in a movement that you own. That's the bottom line. If you own the squat, if you own the deadlift, if you own a fast twist or throwing a baseball, if you own the movement from beginning to end, acceleration to deceleration, stability, the whole thing. If you own it, you're not going to get hurt. It's when you don't own the movement that you injure yourself. So what a warm up should do is get you closer to owning more of the movement in order to prevent injury. If you can't generate any force in whatever position you're in, you're going to leave yourself susceptible to some kind of an injury. And so to be able to work on that and be able to address those weak points in the chain is going to be crucial for you to have long-term success. And this is really the only thing that makes heavy load dangerous. It's not owning the movement. Of course. This idea of heavy weight, heavy squatting is bad for the knees. This exercise is dangerous. It's only dangerous. It's only bad for the knees if you don't own that movement. You don't own that range of motion. If you haven't done the prerequisites to be able to do that, then when you load something, they're more likely to move out of that range and injure yourself. But if you do a good job of actually priming the body and owning that movement, then you're less likely to get hurt. Look, I could squat 200 pounds very easily. I will not hurt myself squatting 200 pounds.  Same weight, right? The difference is I can own that weight and that movement and she can't. So really this is what it all boils down to. And when you realize this and you realize that the paradigm around warm-ups should be getting the central nervous system ready, also known as priming the central nervous system, then you're going to have much less risk of injury. Number one, number two, you'll also have a far more effective and efficient workout.  Do either of you know the history on warm-ups, the whole callus that you remember when we were kids? Do you remember PE class, getting in the line, the rows and the windmill things that you would do? Do you guys know the history? I have no idea. I don't know what the history is. Where did we land on that and where did this become the kind of traditional way everybody warms up? There was a few pioneers in calisthenics and Dr. Ed Thomas was one of them. But it was all with a lot of intent behind it which kind of got lost in the weeds. I think that it just got distorted once it made its way into schools and they saw and tried to mimic certain movements and like arm circles and things but there was no real intention behind it. It was just aimless. That's such a good point because this was something that I always had a hard time communicating to clients and because it almost comes off like we're anti-stretching. No, there's value to it. It's very similar to I feel like when we communicate cardio, right? People think we're anti-cardio because really what it is and I tell my clients is we have to learn to stretch with purpose. So there's a lot of value in stretching and static stretching but knowing what you're stretching and why you're stretching it is extremely important and when to do that. Right. And there are certain places to do a static stretch and there's certain places it doesn't belong. Right, because if you have instability within your normal range of motion let's say you have a little bit of instability within your squat or whatever and then we just give you more range of motion. We just say here you go which static stressing we'll do in a short period of time give you more range of motion but not increasing any strength or stability. We've actually made a situation worse. It would end up happening. So static stretching definitely has a place it's to increase range of motion but you need to connect to that range of motion and so the way we've warmed up in the past was almost a waste of time. Now the traditional warm-ups of getting on cardio for example it's a little better than nothing because will that turn on your central nervous system more than just coming, you know, driving to the gym and then walking and then starting to work out? Well, yeah. You're gonna get more of a central nervous system turn on from doing, you know, walking on the treadmill or going to the elliptical then you are from just going straight to the workout a little bit more but not a whole lot more, you know. Well, there's definitely value in prepping the body for, you know, intense movement and intense loading of the joints and so, but there has to be that intent behind it and so to be more specific to your own needs is something that, you know, hasn't been really voiced in the past and I think that people need to really figure out like obviously we tried to make this a lot easier in terms of like just doing three movements to identify these things but to really understand their body more and their needs in terms of where their imbalances lie you know, what type of exercises will help kind of set them up better for, especially with the compound less better performance in the gym. Right, now back to foam rolling like what does foam rolling do? Well, foam rolling can allow you to move in ways that may be beneficial and that's where the benefit comes from, right? So, tread lightly here. Right, so if I do a foam roller and that didn't fix anything but what it might do is allow me to then do priming movements or exercises in ways that are more beneficial to my body or at least get to them a little faster so foam rolling still has some value but when I first started foam rolling I thought that was the value, that was it like, oh foam roll, now I can do all these exercises and what I ended up finding was I got to the point where I had to foam roll I could no longer do movements without foam rolling because I never followed it up with movements that made it Yeah, it kept reoccurring the same pain. Yeah, you want to make the foam rolling obsolete, essentially. If you use a foam roller you want to get to the point where you don't need a foam roller anymore that won't happen unless you do the proper priming and real warm-up movements which I think we'll get into. Well, the challenge with foam rolling was that I think we misunderstood exactly what it was doing for so long and it was one of those things that you could feel the difference. Oh yeah, you feel it right away. And so it was really hard to kind of overcome this one also because I think I explained foam rolling wrong for a very long time. Oh yeah. I was under the impression that we had these adhesions like scar tissue that was built up over the muscle foam.  Yeah, and they were, yeah, exactly and that's what, we had all these adhesions this was limiting the range of motion in the muscle and you're going in with these foam rolls you're basically breaking those all up and then that's then allowing you to do that and when you would take somebody what do they feel? They feel like these knots and then they would do it and they would feel looser and better so it was like, this is what it's doing.  They're there because again the CNS is making it be there and pressing on it just tells the CNS to relax. That's a focal point. It is. Yeah, your CNS is telling the muscle to kind of be in this light state of tonus and so when you press on it you're sending a signal back to the CNS and then the CNS says, oh okay we don't need to be in this state of tonus or what kind of tricks it and cause it to relax but the tissue itself you're not breaking up a... And what causes that? Is that just a neurological over application to that area? Like your body is firing more neurons than needed to that area and that's what causes the over state of tonus. It's firing what it thinks it's needed, right? So because it's trying to protect.  Yes, so all this is because your body is trying to keep you from hurting yourself so it's going to make you tight and feel pain in a certain way limiting your range of motion so you don't do things that you don't necessarily have the stability to perform and so this is where the problem comes in so you got to solve the root issue. Now what warm-ups can do for you if you do them properly is definitely reduce the risk of injury in a very, very big way but it does weigh more than that and this is where I think where I want people to really evaluate what they're doing before the workout the 10 minutes or 15 minutes before the workout. A proper warm-up increases your functional range of motion. This is very different. I don't care if your body allows you to squat all the way down if you've got no stability all the way down don't do that, right?  What I want is functional range of motion so you're able to go deeper but you still own usable. Yes, that deeper range of motion. You guys remember the type of client that you got when you first saw this like when you saw somebody who had incredible range of motion and flexibility but then when they got down in the squat the knees went all over the place and they were all wobbly like crazy. I can remember one woman in particular where she would come in and she would talk about a lot of pain and so I was testing her flexibility because back in those days I thought, oh it's because you're tight, right? And she was hyper flexible like fold her in half sit all the way at the bottom arm, she could touch her elbows behind her back and I remember thinking like what the hell is going on? Luckily I worked with a really good physical therapist and she's like, well, she's hyper range of motion and no strength. She's like a baby. You take a baby you can move all over the place. Super moldable but yeah, they don't have the strength to get out of these positions. Nothing supporting it and that's actually one of the that's a very high risk of injury under load. So with that person I had to really focus on getting them to own range of motion before we'd move into deeper range of motion and make her strong and her pain went away it was all about increasing strength. Yeah, it was all about control. Those were difficult for me to deal with because for the majority of people you're trying to open up range of motion you're trying to unlock because we get so locked into these certain positions because of our daily habits and rituals and whatnot but somebody like that to be able to slow down and really have and gain control and really add tension and strength so I would apply a lot more like isometrics I'd have them stop and really hold and squeeze and there's ways to address that but you really need to work on the ability to ramp up and summon this force that you need to feed in to strengthen the movement. This was when I was really unaware of the benefits of isometrics when I first had a client like this that was foreign to me and that's why I struggled a lot I remember having a handful of clients early on. It's because it's not common. It's not. It's really rare to see it and you're so used to people being tight all the time. Tight and weak is more common than loose and weak. Yeah and to see somebody who could actually perform the full range of motion the exercise but just is all over the map you're kind of like where do I start here with this person and I didn't understand what was happening in isometrics I just thought I actually thought that was a methodology of training and that was dead and we've moved on from that at that point in my career and didn't really understand what you were doing on a neurological level when you're doing isometrics and that's what that person was lacking and what they needed. Right and so here's another thing a proper warm up is going to increase the amount of muscle fibers that you activate. Here's one telltale sign between a classic crappy warm up and a proper warm up. A classic crappy warm up might make the exercise you do next feel more comfortable. Okay might do that oh I can get in and I feel okay I don't have pain in my shoulder that's great. A proper warm up often times you'll feel stronger going into the lift. In fact when I've worked with clients and transition them from the old way to the superior way all of a sudden they were hitting PRs they were just their squat went up in weight and their bench went up in weight and their breast went up in weight because we turned on the central nervous system in a very effective way. Does this turn into faster results? Absolutely. You know I this is just my figure but I think if you do a proper warm up and priming you probably can squeeze out 5% more out of your results and your progress it doesn't sound like much over the course of 6 months in a year that makes it pretty damn that's like a pounds of muscle that you could be adding to your body or faster metabolism or burning more body fat or you know 10 more pounds on your on your lifts. I mean there's a couple approaches to this that you can apply for priming but one of my favorites is to address whatever whatever is pulling you out of stability so this is why I like to go through the whole process of really finding out where those imbalances lie so for example you know let's say your shoulders tend to come forward quite a bit and you're going to bench press and to be able to set your your body upright and to be able to have security and support and stability there in the shoulder joint and really be able to retract and depress those shoulders I'd have you know I'd prime with some kind of a you know a rubber band row or something to to get my muscles to respond to stabilize and support then going into like one of those compound lifts now this is this is why I'm most proud of our maps prime program of all the things that we've created and done I'm most proud of that program still to this day all the things that because I think this is really difficult to do I don't I mean it took me years as a trainer to kind of piece all this together and then once you kind of start to grasp it right so if you're listening right now you've maybe heard us talk about this you're like okay kind of making sense to me now still don't fully understand what they're talking about the difference between warming up and priming or maybe you're moving into like okay yeah I get it the next hurdle is how do you figure out that specifically to you because what is going to prime really well for somebody else could actually be counterproductive for another person based off of where they're weak or where they have postural issues like so knowing what to prime for either what exercises or for your body specifically was probably one of the challenging most challenging things that we had to overcome in creating a program and I think that is and it's one of those things that if you don't know you don't know and if you never used it or applied it you do it once though the right way in your soul yeah if you do it correctly one time it's one of those things that you immediately feel it in that workout you don't have to do it's not like strength building muscle or strength you don't have to do it for long periods of time of consistency before you start to see little it's like you should be able to do this and that's how you should know if you're actually doing it right if you're doing it right you should feel that in that very next workout or in that workout yeah I've used this example before but I love the story because I remember getting like confused by this demonstration in the mall and then later figuring out what they were doing and being like oh now I know so years ago there was these products you'd see them in kiosks in the mall and they were like these bracelets or these necklace magnets yeah and it was like oh MLB players wear these for better performance and it balances out your body and blah blah blah and the kids selling it would be like oh yeah it totally works and I'd be like this is what is it new composite material or whatever it's advanced blah blah blah he'd say okay let me show you how it works he'd say stand on one foot and put your right arm out so I'd stand on my left foot or whatever put my right arm out and he'd push down on my arm and then I'd kind of fall over and he'd say now try it with the bracelet so immediately after he'd put the bracelet on me he'd do it again and my balance was significantly better the second time around I remember almost buying it but I was like magic I was like wait a minute I'm not going to get this anyway later on I figured out oh all I did the first time was tell my CNS what to do second time around I was able to have better stability and control because I practiced it once that's literally what happened my CNS fired better the second time around this guy's using this what happens to all of us as a way to sell me some bullshit product so this is what proper warm-ups can do for you this is why so in the book The Resistance Training Revolution although I wrote that as a way to really convince people the average person especially to do resistance training is their primary form of exercise if you go in the workouts that I put in the book although I say warm-up and the reason why I say warm-up is because I would have to explain priming to people who maybe have never even done resistance training it says warm-up but what you're doing there is priming what you do with every workout is two or three priming movements before you get the workout and I know people are going to be blown away when they do them because I've seen it a very simple thing that I've tried so hard to convey to athletes and anybody that really wants to squeeze out performance the more stable and secure your joints are the more force you can output and so what that means is you're able to apply more strength to all those movements it's very simple if you're listening to Justin right now it also means more muscle yes and you're like what do you mean by that right so in layman's terms your body will only allow you to exert as much force as it thinks you can safely exert here's an example of that go do a barbell squat as heavy as you can then put on a weight belt all of a sudden you're squatting more weight right all the weight belt did is increase your core stability you sense it you're more stable more force coming out of your legs right if your bench press is stuck at you know 135 pounds and your body says and it knows a little instability on the left shoulder it's not going to let you get that much stronger if you increase the stability of your shoulder even if you don't do a special bench routine or you know all you do is increase the stability of the area that your body is sensing is the weakness boom all of a sudden your bench press goes up increasing stability allows your body to exert more force and I know you know studies will show that you know most people can't even get up to 50% of their total capacity the body literally limits them from doing that now what do you guys have to say to the people in the and there's some very intelligent people in the strength community that believe that all you need to do is just to practice the movement and that is going to prime the CNS and get the body to get more force output like Justin is alluding to and build more stability and control what do you have to say to that because there is some really smart guys and girls in the strength community that think this whole mobility movement and priming and doing things like that is a waste of time all you need to do is get onto the barbell and squat more well here's the reality is get better at those movements the more you practice them and so where they're coming from you know in terms of that make sense practicing and applying those same movements continuously you're teaching your body to improve every time with the mechanics of it the technique of it but you know the more inevitably you're going to get to a point where you're going to get so strong just in that direction where it's going to create instability and now that instability is something that you're going to have to account for later which you could have simultaneously been working on with mobility to make sure that those joints still feel like they're locked in that place and have that security now I remember earlier in the episode I said injury comes from weakness so let's say your stability let's say I'm going to make up some numbers let's say your stability strength score needs to be at least of a ratio of 1 to 2 to your total strength so in other words your stability needs to be at 150 pounds well if I don't increase my stability strength and my squat strength goes up to 400 the ratios off my risk of injury goes up much higher so now getting stronger increases my risk of injury because my stability strength no longer can support it now I know where these strength athletes and coaches are coming from yes it's true practicing the movement does have a lot of value in fact I think after you prime you should still do a set or two of lighter weight or target exercise that being said the priming movements and mobility movements have a ton of value in fact a lot of these same guys and girls end up with injuries end up on their Instagram doing these mobility movements that their therapists then told them to do it's mind blowing all of a sudden I see so and so lifter who you know crapped on all of that stuff all of a sudden doing tube walks in 1990s because they've hurt their back well either that or the invent products to create stability certain like elastic you know shoulder things and you know knee sleeves and everything else you know in order to kind of provide what they're lacking well this is where there's also what is one of the problems I think in our in our space right and also what's wrong with studies right because you know most of these intelligent people that I'm talking about they don't just say that they point and they reference studies to support their argument and my my thing is this I think if all your goal was to squat more weight or bench more weight their argument has a lot of validity to it right you know if that's all you care but most people not only want that but they also want to be able to move left to right really well keep going rotate get all the way sit down to pick up their child want to be able to feel good when they're 70 years old and also get a really strong bench and a really good response to somebody who's challenging me with that statement is because yeah okay you're right if we looked at this in this very narrow box of like okay all I want to do is get good at squatting and that's right if I just practice squat practice squat forget all that other bullshit if you were to do two more sets of squats you'd be even better at the heavy heavy squat I still challenge that though you know I honestly I still think that them doing that but also addressing expressing that will provide more stability which then helps them to generate more force again these are the same people that said training your biceps if you're a power lifter is a waste of time why train your biceps you're not you don't need your biceps well now a lot of them have changed the tune because they find that strengthening your biceps reduces the risk of a bicep tear and because of the increased stability at the elbow might actually help you deadlift more weight if you're a strength athlete I don't think it should you know take over your training any kind of athlete by the way this is true for all athletes I don't care if it's a strength athlete or you play football or baseball or whatever most of your training should be done in your sport right so if you're a strength athlete yes definitely devote most of your time to training in your specific you know strength sport whatever that may be but priming properly is going to provide you with a lot of value at the very least reducing risk of injury at the most like what Justin's saying you'll probably see some some increased or faster strength gains from doing so and it doesn't take a lot of time we're talking about 10 minutes 15 minutes before your workout what you don't want to do is this because here's what happens when you feel pain you're too late and when you know when you don't feel pain it doesn't mean you're in the clear there's this gap between not enough stability no pain no pain and then pain so sometimes what people do is they like oh my SI joint hurts oh my knee hurts a little bit they do a little bit of priming mobility pain gone I'm good no no no you're just this close to pain you just move this far we can go a lot further the other thing I don't like with their argument too is that in my experience so if you're an athlete you're talking to specific athletes and you're talking to everybody who's already a pretty good squad or a pretty good deadlifter then I see this applying a little more towards them but when I think of the general population it was very rare in fact I could probably count on one hand maybe two hands in my entire career when I asked someone to do a squat in front of me and it was just beautiful I mean it was just fall never never right it was like rarely ever did you ever see that and most often you saw a really poor recruitment pattern you saw this excessive forward lean these rounded shoulders this protruding forward head they didn't even know how to activate certain areas right and so if you tell that person just a squat more and that's why I don't like when they come out it's because you just teach that they just ingrain that bad recruitment pattern they make it good at squatting good at bad squatting right and that right there is a dangerous place to go and it also it started to you know I feel like there's a lot of people that want to justify their awkward weird squat or deadlift stance and movement pattern and be like oh it's my morphology you know it's like no it's not there's many people that told me that they thought that they were told by somebody else that their morphology wouldn't allow them do this narrow this narrow stance squat because they can tell it just it doesn't feel comfortable and then I worked on their mobility primed them correctly and oh voila we can do it all of a sudden and to me that's that's very obvious that it isn't just right you know how are you going to get around that if you're not in good posture it's going to stop where there's curvature it's going to stop where there's a weakness in the kinetic chain you can't get around that no matter how hard you try and work around it yeah and the morphology argument it reminds me of the whole genetic argument for weight gain and weight loss for obesity oh you know I know I'm 60 pounds overweight but it's my genetics you know and no yes there's different genetics definitely exist there's definitely differences in people they do play a role but there aren't genetics that exist to make you obese that that didn't exist until not that long ago right there are yes there's definitely differences in morphology but a squat an overhead press that's a fundamental that's a fundamental movement it's like walking yes there's more phologies you know different leg lengths and different socket for walking but are there more phologies that exist where you can't walk extremely rare right it's extremely rare so and here's a deal regardless if there is a situation with your morphology that makes certain movements more challenging working on mobility and proper priming will make you make it more likely to reach your potential right you may have a lower like I don't have the muscle building potential of Ronnie Coleman but I have my own potential and I can get closer to my potential by doing everything right I might not reach his I might not ever get the mobility of a world-class gymnast but I'll reach my proper limit of mobility by doing things right right and proper priming is a part of that so and here's the thing I want to communicate I think it's very important and I know this is this is a selling point because I know as a young lifter if you told me you know proper priming and warming up will reduce your risk risk of injury one ear out the other that's why I didn't do it all I cared about was building more muscle I'm in my 20s I could care less I haven't I've never hurt myself I feel indestructible but here's the other part of it and this is true proper priming gets you better results you'll build more muscle you'll activate more muscle fibers you'll utilize exercises more effective you'll get more out of your squat more out of your deadlift more out of your presses and your rotating movements more strength more longevity and then of course the longevity aspect but you have to sell that because and it's true because I know there's people who are like I don't hurt I'm fine why would I waste time doing so much well we're just wired that way until we can't I mean I was just having this conversation with my dad last night who's getting to a place where you know his back is always hurting and I'm explaining to him chronic pain and why we need to address this and work on mobility and prime your body I'm telling him he needs to prime his body before he drives his car you need to you need to learn what's going on and breaking down why your low back hurts because of what's going on in your hips and the surgery you had you've got to address that stuff if you neglect it eventually it's going to shut you down you may feel fine right now and all I care about is getting shredded you know or building muscle and so you're right Sal like you have to sell it different because if it's something about longevity or being healthy or joint integrity none of that stuff appealed to me at 25 none of that stuff would have got it's funny I just did this I just did this with my dad the other day so my dad he's got arthritis up and down his spine a lot of his joints he's been working hard labor since he was a child and long hours and all that stuff and he never really worked on mobility or stretching he definitely played sports that was about it and so he's very stiff right he's prone to pain or whatever and so I saw him the other day and he's like my back you know it's so tight Sal hurts and my upper mid back what do I do and he's expecting me to go in there and massage him and so I said no let's try this prone cobra exercise and he's like how would an extra why would me doing an exercise make that when does more work help yeah that's not going to make it feel better and I said no trust me so we did literally a few reps I had him stand up he moved around and he's like whoa salvatore much better what's going on I'm trying to explain to him how the body the central nervous system works and all that but that's literally what it does and it's more of a permanent fix if I massage him he'd feel a little better but it wouldn't feel better for very long well you got to know back to like what I was talking to my dad about very similar type of conversation so they asked those actual specific questions son can you show me some back exercises I could do for my back because my back hurts and then after asking a ton of questions and getting to the bottom of oh the hip surgery and the lack of good rehab it's not your back I said it's your lack of stability and strength in your hips that your low back is overcompensating for that and it's not like a thing that happens right away it's that because the body is unbelievable and resilient so you may not prime very well and you go get a squat and you may see strength gains and you may not hurt yet but what you don't realize is because your body is not working properly together that parts of it is overcompensating for the areas that should be working and eventually that shit catches up I dare anybody watching or listening to this I dare you go to mapsprimewebinar.com Double Dare try some of the priming movements on there before your workout okay and then I dare you to DM me and tell me that you didn't notice a significant difference in how you felt immediately in your workout and I dare you to tell me you didn't have a better workout it'll blow your mind now I want to add something to that though because one of the other things that was really challenging about doing this in video form was it's really hard to convey the intent which is why we did these webinars yes because in this one this is the one with Justin right Justin does the prime one I do the prime pro yeah so this one's mapsprimewebinar.com and he's taking Doug through and it's good because you watch him coach Doug he designed this test to address a lot of real common issues people face because of their job maybe they're working at a desk and they're leaning over all the time their head is forward a lot and you're driving pretty much everything in your daily activities involves you reaching something in front of you and what this does a lot of times it's it it promotes this forward shoulder this upper cross syndrome and this test will go ahead and highlight how far that's gotten away from you and so this is one of those things that don't worry pretty much 99.9% of everybody fails this test because it's almost designed for you to fail just to show you how important it is to then reestablish this connection that will help your joints maintain long-term health and be able to work properly and and do it without pain and you get the idea you know what the intent is and it's it's much easier to understand yeah you have to so if we if we're trying to get connected to an area that's dormant or that we're not connected very well to it's work this isn't like stretching no you're connecting not disconnecting yeah this doesn't feel like yoga this doesn't feel like you relax and you stretch before you go work out I mean if you do this right a lot of times you just have to sweat your heartbeat will get going because you're trying to intensify that you're trying to get connection and strength in this new range of motion and so how you do it is so important you can't just kind of like you're contracting the muscles you know this it's work it's real work and you do sweat and you know it has to be active and that's sort of the point to this is we don't want to just get into these ranges of motion passively we need to to have that kind of tension all the way through so we're training the body that okay we we have access to this type of force and support through all these different angles of the range of motion yeah now for most people a good 10 minutes maybe 15 at the most but probably around 10 priming your body before your full work out and that'll be enough to give you all the benefits that we just talked about for most people I want to add something to that also though okay so yes that's true but what's beautiful about priming because it's not like strength training you're not tearing breaking down you're not going to really really sore from doing this and frequency so when you find a movement so say you go through the webinar that Justin did for free and you try a couple and you notice like maybe you notice one or two I'm like whoa I did that and when I went to do my bench press I really felt a difference my shoulders felt good I was stronger do that all the time I mean you definitely should and need to do it before you work out to maximize the benefits from your work out do it on your off days yes and the more often that you are practicing that the more often you're teaching that pattern and that connection to get solidified and strong so that when you go into that work out you don't have to spend as much time priming and this and I tell you first hand when I started working on all this after Brink I spent so much time in this area that I had to kind of let go of the like muscle guy and strength it was all going to be mobility and really getting reconnected so what's cool is the more you practice it and you work at this the less of it you actually have to do right because then you will start to do it just not even connect much faster yes you think you don't even have to think about anymore and it's it becomes easier when you put a lot of effort into frequently doing it yeah in fact they'll show what studies that connections in the brain if they're practiced often start to become very solidified almost like tracks in the snow some footprints but if you walk back and forth you create this nice line this nice connection and so you're you're 100% right Adam just like anything right you practice it very often like it might have taken you years to learn how to play the piano but then you could once you learn it you could stop for a few years and then go pick it up yeah it makes its way into your subconscious at some point and I think it just it takes I don't know how many specific number of reps but it's a whole lot of cool and there's all these people that speculate on you know how long it takes to actually acquire certain skills but it definitely takes a lot of reps right so again it's mapsprimewebinar.com totally free take the course and notice the difference also if you like this content if you like our podcast you'll love mindpumpfree.com we have a lot of free guides and written content there and you can get all of it for free cost nothing it's a way that we like you can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin me at Mind Pump Sal Adam at Mind Pump Adam and Doug at Mind Pump Doug literally this is no joke I know there's a lot of books written on the obesity epidemic and how to solve it and they're like all these complicated literally this is it right here if people just reduce their heavily processed food and take down to about 10% of their diet so 10% of your diet or less heavily processed food that's it eat like you want to enjoy your food


Everyone's dating history is different, but there are some romantic patterns we are prone to repeat more than others. Depending on our childhoods, we'll have certain needs that have to be met for a fulfilling relationship. Whether you're still recovering from a terrible breakup or single and unsure about what you're looking for, know that dating is a lot of trial and error. Consider each failure a lesson, learn to become a better lover, and never settle for less. Here are eight types of relationships. One, your first love. Utara Hikaru saying about this one, and as much as we romanticize about it, there's a reason why they're your first love, not the one you can grow old with. This is your first real relationship, which provides you with excitement, nervousness, and all the butterflies. You first learn about passion, how to compromise, communication, and go from a me to an us mentality. When you're young and inexperienced, love will feel sweet and intense, but as you grow older, you'll start to realize you want something more. Two, opposites attract. This is 90% of every romantic comedy and Korean drama out there. You gotta admit though, they make some pretty addictive plots, until it happens to you. At first, you can't imagine your life without them. They seem to teach you everything you've missed. When you're both opposite ends of a magnet, things are bound to get a little interesting, right? But too many differences can also tear the relationship apart, which is usually what happens. Having different interests is normal, but your beliefs and values have to be similar. Three, friends with benefits. Have you ever only wanted sex, but nothing more complicated than that? This is a casual relationship you enter when you and your partner agree that you're strictly bed buddies and nothing more. Sometimes, it's liberating when you know you're not looking for anything serious, whether it's because you'll be moving to a new city soon or want to work on yourself first before committing to someone romantically. Four, the rebound. This is when your headspace is not in the right place. You most likely got out of a relationship that completely wrecked you. Instead of recovering in a healthy fashion, you just want someone to fill the void, so you quickly jump into another relationship without really assessing whether you two are truly compatible. You might have a hard time being alone and looking for a distraction. On the inside though, you're still hurting and this never ends well for you or the other person. Five, the recommended relationship. Have your parents and friends ever pressured you to find Mr. or Mrs. perfect? You probably know this one well. They were most likely a good egg and can wow people with what they've accomplished on paper. The two of you can get along, but something doesn't feel right. You start to realize you want someone with a little more substance without all the polished Kodak moments. Six, the toxic one.  The thing about being in a toxic relationship is that the person you're with might not be physically or sexually abusive. Often, it's the emotional manipulation they use on you that makes you question if you're the one at fault. We hope that if you can relate to this, you'll be able to leave them. You deserve someone good for your health. Seven, the friend. Have you ever gotten in a relationship with one of your friends? Sometimes friendships can bloom into a deep and fulfilling love, but other times we might scratch our heads down the road and wonder when the romantic feelings will start to kick in. It's okay to recognize that you just don't feel those sparks with them. This gives you the chance to learn about what works for you and what doesn't. Eight, the one. This is the relationship we all aim to find. It might be someone you've never expected, but the chemistry you have is natural and undeniable. You can see a future with this person. You have great emotional compatibility and can resolve communication problems well. Even on your worst nights, the two of you can get through the storms together. And you know no matter what, you can always count on each other. Which relationship do you resonate with most? If you're single, we're curious to hear about which appeals to you the most, or what you've learned from past relationships that didn't work out. Leave a comment below and be sure to subscribe for more helpful content. Thanks for watching.


Welcome to Project IDEA. For this class, you will do computer work at home in your online classroom before you come to class. Your online classroom is in Canvas. You will use what you learn online to participate in class activities with your teacher and your classmates. It's important to do your work before you come to class. Let's take a quick tour of Canvas to help you get familiar with your online classroom. This is the Canvas dashboard. It is the first page you see when you log in to Canvas. From here you can find your classes by hovering your mouse over the course's drop-down menu and clicking on the name link for the course you want to enter. This is the home page. Usually you'll see a picture on this page with the start here button you can click to get started. Your teacher might decide to change the home page so don't worry if it looks a little different than what you see here. Clicking the start here button will take you to the modules page. Now let's look at announcements. This is where your teacher might post short notes about important things related to class. Not all teachers use this tool but get used to checking it in case your teacher does. Now let's look at the syllabus. The syllabus page has important information about your class like your teacher's contact information. Don't worry if you don't understand it all. Your teacher will explain it to you. In the grades tool you can find your scores for assignments and quizzes. Your teacher might leave you feedback here too. Looking at your grades will help you understand how well you are doing in class. Let's look at modules now. This is where you will find your reading and other online work. Each module has many things in it like discussions, quizzes, and learn activities but we'll learn more about those later. Be sure to do your assigned work so that you are ready to participate when you come to class. Some activities will ask you to work in a group. The Canvas Collaborations tool will let you do that. Here you'll be able to type and share information with other students online. In chat you can type short messages to other students who may be online at the same time as you. If you get stuck you can look here to see if a classmate is available to help you. This feature only works if other people are online at the same time you are. You may also want to get familiar with your inbox. This is a messaging tool that is built right into Canvas and it works kind of like email. Here you can send messages to and get messages from your teacher and your classmates. Your profile is located here. To open your profile click on your name. Some colleges do not have the profile feature enabled. If your college does not use this feature you can access your personal settings by clicking on the settings link. By clicking on the help link you can send your teacher a quick message by clicking on the ask your teacher a question link, typing your message and then clicking on send. This message will go to your teacher's inbox and your teacher will reply in your inbox. To return to the home page click on the home button. To return to the dashboard click on the college logo in the upper left hand corner.