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I, Rigoberta Menchú : an Indian woman in Guatemala

by Rigoberta Menchú; Elisabeth Burgos-Debray
Type:   Print book : Biography
Publisher: London : Verso, ©1984.
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The Trump administration just won't learn its lesson. Fresh off some of the most detested policymaking in American history, the White House is about to turn to another unpopular conservative obsession: Work requirements.

Republicans have long argued that too many able-bodied adults are getting a free ride from the government. During the Obama years, they took specific issue with the Affordable Care Act's expansion of Medicaid, the government program that provides health coverage to the poor, which they said benefited lots of adults who should have been working in exchange for help. Indeed, since Medicaid is jointly administered by the federal and state governments, states can apply for waivers to impose work requirements on the program. Nine states did, but the Obama administration always turned them down.

But the Trump White House is changing course. It is reportedly finalizing guidelines for what circumstances under which they'll approve the waivers — and will quite likely announce a batch of approvals soon as well.

Let's not mince words: This is a stupid and terrible policy decision. How stupid and terrible? Let's count the ways:

1. A sizable majority of able-bodied adults on Medicaid already work. Despite ObamaCare's expansion, almost two-thirds of Medicaid's 68 million beneficiaries are still either children, the elderly, or people on disability. Among the remaining adults, 60 percent are already working. The remainder — about 9.8 million people — have good reasons not to be in the workforce. Fifteen percent of them are going to school, and 30 percent are taking care of other family members. Another 36 percent report being too sick or disabled to work, though they haven't qualified for disability benefits (which, it's worth remembering, have a pretty strict threshold). Americans on Medicaid are also far more likely to be in low-wage jobs that involve lots of manual labor, as opposed to desk jobs where something like a back problem might not be prohibitive.

In short, only 7.5 percent of Medicaid's non-elderly, non-disabled adult beneficiaries aren't working, and can't cite school, family, or physical ailment as a reason.

2. There aren't enough jobs. If you're going to require people to work, it seems obvious you need to make sure enough jobs are available. Yet America chronically fails to do this. At the peak of the Great Recession, there were 6.7 job seekers for every available job. Eight years later, that ratio is finally closing in on 1-to-1, but it's still not quite there. More to the point, the ratio rarely gets that low. The last time was a brief period in the late 2000s, just before the stock bubble popped. Furthermore, since government statistics don't account for all unemployed people, the current seekers-to-opening ratio significantly understates the scale of the problem.

3. It will undercut wage growth. In a healthy economy firing on all cylinders, wages generally grow at 4 percent. Right now, they're growing at 2.5 percent, and that's after nearly a decade of recovery from the 2008 crisis. A key culprit is the aforementioned seekers-to-job-openings ratio. If there are more people looking for work than jobs available, employers have all the bargaining power: They can pay people pennies, cut benefits, and get away with demeaning work conditions because workers' only other option is unemployment and destitution.

One under-appreciated plus of any welfare state program is it gives workers a little leverage. For instance, if you know Medicaid will provide you health coverage no matter what, that's one less thing you have to worry about getting through your job or paycheck. It gives you a little more wiggle room to turn down bad job offers — which forces employers to make better offers to attract the labor they need. But slapping work requirements on these programs neutralizes that effect, and adds to the social pressures keeping wages low.

4. It will result in an underfunded and capricious bureaucracy. Any work requirement program also comes with additional red tape: Beneficiaries have to fill out paperwork and jump through hoops, which can be harder for low-income workers with erratic schedules and spotty internet access. Meanwhile, scant bureaucratic resources get stretched thinner working through who does and doesn't qualify for various exemptions. "Able-bodied," for instance, is inherently subjective, and previous work requirement efforts by states suggest a lot of people who shouldn't be denied benefits for not working nonetheless will be.

5. What about the idle rich? The principle that able-bodied people shouldn't get something for nothing has a certain intuitive force. And it explains why a lot of efforts to impose work requirements persist. So it's worth noting out how often American society doesn't abide by this principle and, in fact, seems totally fine with it.

About 40 percent of all income earned in the economy (that's about $7.4 trillion these days) is income that flows from earning wealth — capital gains, interest, rent, etc. Which is to say, it's income people got without lifting a finger. "Salaries and wages — that is, money paid for work — only make up about 15 percent of the income of Americans making $10 million per year or more," Elizabeth Bruenig wrote at The Washington Post. Yet these numbers never come up when policymakers wring their hands about idleness.

You could argue that people used income they earned from work to buy that wealth. But that doesn't actually hold all that much: Wealth begets wealth, and all that non-work income gives people more room to buy more capital that provides even more non-working income. On top of that, lots of people inherit wealth from parents and family members — a contradiction the GOP just heightened by massively cutting inheritance taxes in their recently-passed tax overhaul.

Maybe someone should ask the Trump administration: If money for nothing is bad when it goes to the poor, why is it okay when it goes to the rich?


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Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Bread Number 53: Radical Dark Rye with Caraway Seeds

Radical for me.

This recipe was adapted, pretty much on the fly, from the River Cottage Bread Handbook, which seems to always produce a dough with a massive flaw that I believe will result in a totally terrible bread. This time I became convinced that the author had  intentionally left out key instructions or ingredients. Evidently, something other than the dough on this one was dark. Anxiety, however, produces good results. (I do believe worrying wards off the worst. Hey, I read my Zen calendar each day, but this is a different perspective.)

100g rye flour
100g water
20g starter

Mix well. In a warm, summer kitchen (probably 75 to 80 degrees), I left this mixture  (covered with plastic) out on the counter for 12.5 hours.

510g water
225g bread flour (That's after the extra flour was added. Add this much from the start.)
340g rye flour
12g salt
7g caraway seeds, plus extra to put on top before baking

This works out to a dough that has a hydration percentage of 90 percent. I had intended to make an 80 or 90 percent rye dough, but it ended up as 65 percent after I added extra bread flour to save the mucky, wet mess. The recipe stated this dough would be "very sticky." That term does not do it justice.

Next to "wet" in the dictionary is a picture of this dough
Mix all ingredients well. The book's directions called for five minutes of kneading, but I have read rye should not be kneaded and kneading a wet mass that was dough-like in name only was problematic. I kneaded, if one could call it that, for two minutes and I spent the extra three minutes trying to get the dough off of my palms and fingers.

I let the dough rise for an hour and 40 minutes. I did one stretch and fold, also difficult due to the lack of cohesiveness of this dough. Again spent three minutes scraping the dough off of my hands and another two washing my hands so that it did not feel like my hands were covered with drying cement. I let the dough rise another for another couple of hours.

Shaping and baking preparation
There's no way to shape a blob. I placed the dough in a large loaf pan instead. First, spray the loaf pan with non-stick spray. I sprinkled more caraway seeds on the top of the dough and covered the pan with plastic. Left out on the counter for on hour.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. I also heated the top of my oblong la cloche to place over the dough while baking. Wait an hour for sufficient time for oven to heat up and for the dough to be ready.

After placing the dough in the oven, immediately reduce the temperature to 450 degrees. Reduce again at 35 minutes to 415 degrees. Total oven time 46 minutes. I kept the loaf pan covered the entire time with the top of the oblong la cloche.

Take the loaf out of the pan and let rest on a rack for two hours.

Startling results
Not only did this bread rise, it looked picture perfect, medium-brown color, and it emitted those fine crackling sounds upon being removed from the oven. A very hearty taste with a much stronger rye flavor than my minority-rye breads. Made me think of my long line of ancestors during their centuries of life in Eastern Europe. I had the first slice with a pickle. This would go with borsht if I liked that. Great with homemade jam (thank you to my friend for bringing over the jar of jam made with community-garden-grown strawberries). Excellent.

  1. Hi Sheryl, with a wet dough such as this have you considered proving the bread in a proving basket or Banneton? Prior to baking invert the proved loaf onto your tray or stone and you have an imprint from the basket on the finished loaf. Keep up the good work.

  2. I have used baskets before, but this bread was so wet, I was anxious that it would stick to even a well-floured basket. That's why I went with the loaf pan. I do like using baskets, though so far I am using a floured kitchen towel as a liner in a regular wicker basket. Are the Bannetons much better than a run-of-the-mill basket?


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Two Headed Calf at The Pocket Theater

February 18 + 25 | 7:00 PM
The Pocket Theater

"Two Headed Calf" is an original story of generosity and gentleness, told through live music, dance and shadow puppets. A feast for your ears, eyes and heart, created by a collaborative team interested in spreading good will.

Keith White and Calie Swedberg are best friends. Keith writes nice songs. Calie holds things gently. Being kind is one of their mutual interests. Their first collaboration, Receive a Kindness, was performed in July of 2015 as a part of the Yellow Fish Epic Durational Festival. That project will continue to live as the spine of an ever-growing body of work.

Chantael Duke
Andrew Van Kempen
Alexis Modula
Loren Othon
Jessica Jones
Lauren Brazell

This project is funded in part by Seattle Office of Arts & Culture and made possible by a creative residency at 10 degrees thanks to KT Niehoff.


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Sunday, January 13, 2008

12 or 20 questions: with Garry Thomas Morse

Garry Thomas Morse lives in Vancouver and has two LINEbooks of poetry published, Transversals for Orpheus (2006) and Streams (2007).

His as of yet homeless prose works include Death in Vancouver (a book of city short stories that come to a bad end), The Book of Art (a short novella about aesthetics) and The Chaos Suite (a tetralogy of four pretty fucked-up right here novellas).

In homeless poetry, manuscripts of note include Discovery Passages (Kwak'wala myth and potlatch history), Gadgetalia (tech talk), Go Medieval (riffs on Malory/Beroul), and After Jack (rewrite of Jack Spicer's After Lorca). These are in addition to twenty odd chapbooks of poetry.

1 - How did your first book change your life?

I'd like to say my first book dramatically changed my life, but not really. By 2006, I'd already written a number of diverse manuscripts and LINEbooks decided on two of my poetic oeuvres for this first book, so it became a sort of calling card to help attract attention to my other esotextica. In terms of what the book contributes to poetry (hence changing and saving lives!) I feel compelled to challenge your review, which associated my work with a 'transelation' theory. I far prefer a notion of the text as palimpsestuousness sediment in which the bookworms turn, in this case, Rainer Maria Rilke, C.F. MacIntyre, Karl Siegler, and myself from an earlier translation attempt. These souls all happened to fuse in the summer of '06 and at the same time, there is Cocteau's Orphic sense favoured by Jack Spicer, with each word slowly coming out of a radio (or customized personal gadgetalia of choice). The other half of the book 'the untitled 1-13' is the opposite, since it is more about that Blaserian invitation to the OPEN, where particulars appear before the poet and are allowed in. 'the untitled' is intended to my lifelong work, and it is a place to put all the leftovers from my other poems or serial works. The story of my father's hospitalization and rapid mental decline closes the thirteenth part in that book, and it is more the book that has documented these peculiar changes in my life.

2 - How long have you lived in Vancouver, and how does geography, if at all, impact on your writing? Does race or gender make any impact on your work?

I have lived in Vancouver all my life. With the disjunctive urbanity surrounded by our mild coastal beauty and mist and rain, it's hard not to enjoy Rilke and hear Wagner in early morning foghorns. And I think the geography contributes to a sense of luxury. With my heritage being part Kwak'wala and Cockney Jew, I find it amusing that I spend so much time ingesting European classics and regurgitating them onto the page. In terms of race, my thinking reels back to Margaret Atwood's writing on representation in Survival, where she talks about our Canadian love affair with victimization. George Bowering has said that American images portray people by a river and Canadian images portray people under the ice. In many novels, particularly portraying First Nations folk, I often feel that the characters are these totemic or idealized representations and not anything like real people. They are used more as devices to forward some didactic moral or plot. More generally, with Canadian cultural narratives, Christian Bök has used the word latkes, presumably to mean this formulaic all too precious slice of life stuff, unless he meant to say dreck. I don't mind this material as content, but I object to predictably canned and contrived narrative and verse styles that reduce individual characters to worn-out tropes and stereotypes. I would say that in some of my prose, I tend to parody the genre of identity politics, which receives plenty of attention in our city. If you are caught answering the call of nature, I guess the best excuse is to say you were trying to find yourself. I think in terms of my Kwak'wala background, rather than reach out to any community, I am trying to get back to the original tremulous energy of their art in terms of the Dionysian and the daimonic. This often rubs people the wrong way, but I think the poet is an oppositional figure whose temporary theatrical madness is at once genuine and necessary. If there is value or entertainment in what I do in exorcising this energy from the OUTSIDE, or what the Kwak'wala call nwaluk (a sort of spiritual intuition), then hopefully I will be forgiven or at least humoured and welcomed back among the others through a taming ritual. It helps to keep in mind that the trickster (or raven or coyote or Loki) is not just some narrative device in critical theory. In Der Ring des Nibelungen, Loge is useful to Wotan precisely because he might burn Valhalla down...or Vanhalla for that matter...

3 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a'book' from the very beginning?

I don't seem to write those lonely one night stands anymore. I'm not very fond of piecemeal collections. Somewhat like Aristotle, I believe that a work of art should have some cohesion, ideally that every cell should be a microcosm of the whole. The work often leads me instead of any overarching idea. I write serial poems most often now. I might guess at the number of them, especially if the work is intertextual to another serial work, but the process is more conversational in tone, at least internally. I am a strong believer in its linear organic development, not in cutting and pasting and collaging things together. Even in my prose narrative, there has been a sense of the serial radio play, a polyphony of voices and meta-suspenseful continuances...

4 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?

I think that public readings run counter to my creative process, or at the very least, are a lukewarm distraction. There's usually a narrow window in which I am excited to drag people out to listen to me, but it never seems to be in sync with an appointment, which has all the appeal to me of a tax filing date. Also, my whole obsession with writing tends to make me rather anti-social. I suppose I believe that poets who just read for other poets they know start to dilute the visionary aspect of the individual. In terms of 'the public', it is often hard to understand why people are at a reading, but it is usually for some other reason than to hear poetry. And the serious sympathizers will be the same faces and what can they possibly learn from one another that they didn't already take (or teach) in the same course?

5 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

I feel that the poetic or writerly demi-urge should be strong enough to erode some of the theoretical concerns. Books written by theorists for theorists make me logy. If writing is just a Q&A routine, then the imagination has little or no part to play. I like how George Bowering [see his 12 or 20 here] says not to start with what you know but with what you don't know. That's writing. I might wonder why she touched my arm on that particular evening or who the hell called and woke me out of that lovely sleep-in yesterday. That's usually the kind of question which the writing and the imagination chooses to answer, although often without my knowledge until hours or days or months later.

6 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

So far, I haven't run into any detrimental interference from editors.

7 - After having published more than a couple of titles over the years, do you find the process of book-making harder or easier?

Book-making sometimes feels hard and sometimes feels easy. But it is always there, while for me the world of publishing in any form is external to the act of writing, save for when editorial standards play their part in the creation of a work. The creation of a work seems to me easier and more enjoyable than trying to find a suitable home for it, which is an exhausting and arbitrary process. At present, I have a number of manuscripts that are floating around publishing houses, getting lost, propping doors open...

8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?

For the riveting answer, see my book Streams, poem #62.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

Goal-oriented existence drives way faster than contemplative ecstasy. Merge, fucker, merge!

10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

For years, I used to flood notebooks in a number of Vancouver pubs, but excessive drinking every day took its toll on me and due to my personal chemistry, I had to pack it in and restructure my glutamate cells and senses until I was able to create new subroutines for filtering in the entire passing universe. Of interest to me was that I could sit somewhere by myself and have a drink and be pretty bored, but once I took out my notebook, I would be there for hours, ordering drink after drink and writing incessantly and freaking everyone out. I have very obsessive tendencies, so I really enjoy routines. Oh yeah, I also haunt the Vancouver Public Library and I've observed that Wayde Compton [see his 12 or 20 here] favours the same quiet floor. Sometimes we end up sitting quite close without speaking. Maybe someone will write a cross-cultural romance about it! This is of course the best way for writers to co-exist without abrogating the psychical space. After all, what is there to say? Shhhh!!! I've switched to working on the computer first instead of on notepaper and I've adapted myself to write in the mornings, although in those periods when I am between nine-to-fivers, I often stay up until dawn or so, when my brain feels most active.

11 - Where is your favourite place to write?

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

My writing doesn't really get stalled. But I work best when I switch between different kinds of writing in progress, so that I don't get stuck on one long project that feels like an interminable thesis. If I don't feel like writing one thing, I usually feeling like writing another, and another, and then I switch back and everything is fun fun fun...

13 - How does your most recent book compare to your previous work? How does it feel different?

I think each book is in part a homage to a Canadian poetic work. There's Karl Siegler's Sonnets to Orpheus influencing my first book and then there's David McFadden's Gypsy Guitar influencing my second book. I am happier with my second book Streams, since it is a complete serial poem (or series of prose poems) with a sense of expanding consciousness moving through the work. This time, my book documents the passing away of my grandmother last year, who was always more dear to me than the estranged parents who had no hand in raising me. However, even she fuses with a number of images in my literary consciousness... Beatrice's smile in La Divina Commedia, Marcel's grandmother in A La Recherche du Temps Perdu, George Bowering's grandfather in his well known grandfather poem. Perhaps the point of this book is to re-assert the aesthetic imagination as a living entity, since it seems to create reality for those sensitive to its whiles, and is not limited to the more narrow margins of reality.
14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
I really love the unit of the phrase, and in terms of form, they often have phrases in books. I would say that classical opera and music has a strong influence on my writing, but formwise, this is hard to trace.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

In terms of poetry and prose, I especially favour late nineteenth to early twentieth century stuff, from French symbolist stuff to modernist/surrealist experimentation. Joyce, Proust, and Woolf are favourite re-reads, but lately I've been inspired by the rather elusive Robert Desnos. I love those prose style pioneers too, like Balzac, Stendhal, Nerval, and Huysmans. Lately, I'm liking Lawrence Durrell.

Either of Kierkegaard's Either/Or has had a huge influence on my aesthetic approach.

A list of contemporaryish poets would be hella long, and although this is a plug for LINEbooks, I have felt very honoured to have my work appear alongside the poetry of Natalie Simpson and Kim Minkus. I find there is an unapologetic love affair with language and an exquisite craftiness to be disclosed within each of their works. Their books are bright refreshing gems in a damp city full of overpriced gewgaws, where there is often a self-imposed hyperconsciousness about having to write for a particular audience, group, or community. I feel that these innovative books celebrate the relationship between language and the individual, and this is also a credit to the good taste of the editors at LINEbooks for including these two poets.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

Imagine doing it.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

I have a small software business, and do the same kind of work for jobs. I actually find my obsession with poetry and writing a distracting irritation, in terms of lost opportunity costs. In spite of all I do, I never seem to have two beavers to rub together. Also, the writerly part of me is troubling and often gets in the way of what I would deem normal human relations and interactions. I think there's something parasitic about the act of writing. If I were not a writer, I would like to imagine that I would be happier or more relaxed, but perhaps I would just lack the outlet of this particular form of sublimation.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

I think I lack talent in other areas, or lack the time/concentration/inclination to work harder in those areas, but writing feels very natural for me, more so than even speaking. A friend of mine once told me that I love words, which really meant a lot to me. I mean that I don't write things to mean things, or to say something I feel is important to me. Another friend would say if you have something to say, why not write a treatise, why write a poem... I guess I only write because I love words.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

20 - What are you currently working on?

Recently, I've been toying with new unstructured sonnets based on Spenser's amoretti, swished about with some nifty Latinate backwash, and working titled the ossessioni.
I've been working on my novella tetralogy The Chaos Suite for about a year and a half. I've finished three parts, Minor Episodes, Major Ruckus, and Rogue Cells, which are more or less satyrical surrealist speculative fiction. I am currently in the middle of writing Minor Expectations about a bed-cam star who uses the much coveted tachyonometer to travel through several historical epochs in order to win her lofty inheritance. This tetralogy is already garnering some excellent rejection letters from Canadian publishers along the lines of the following:

This is interesting, arresting, courageous work. I am sorry to say, however, that it is not really the kind of thing we publish.

Latkes, it ain't.

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Tips And Tricks To Help You Build Muscle

Increasing your lean muscle mass doesn’t happen overnight. You need to be dedicated to this goal completely. This article can point you in the right direction. Apply these tips to your own exercise regimen to give you the best possible results.

You should not emphasize speed over a good technique. It doesn’t matter which exercise you perform, slowing down your reps to ensure that your technique is perfect will help you to get better results in a shorter amount of time. Slow down and double check that you’re doing the exercise properly.

Focus on important exercises such as the deadlift, squat, and bench press. Those three make up the foundation of any good exercise routine. They have been proven over time to build up strength, increase your bulk and improve conditioning overall. You should use each exercise in some manner every time you workout.

Don’t cut out carbs when building muscle. Carbs provide you with energy that you will need for your workout. By not consuming enough carbohydrates, your body is going to use protein for energy. Eat enough carbohydrates so that your body can function, and you will be able to make it through your workouts.

Don’t forget about carbohydrates when trying to build muscle. Carbs are absolutely critical to provide you the energy you require for working out, and if you are short on them, you will waste your protein on energy instead of building muscle. Eat enough carbs to allow your body to function properly throughout your workouts.

Setting short-term goals and rewarding yourself for attaining these goals can be an excellent source of motivation. Building muscle needs a true commitment that lasts a while, so it is critical to constantly motivate yourself. Try making some of the rewards things that will help you to build more muscle. For instance, get a massage; they increase the body’s blood flow and assist you in recovering on your off days.

Set small short-term goals that are easy to achieve to help you reach the long-term results. Motivation plays a key role in any long-term commitment. You might also choose rewards that will further your muscle-building efforts. As an example, get a massage; your blood flow can be improved.

If you do extreme cardio workouts or want to train for a marathon, don’t try to build bigger muscles. Cardio is essential for good fitness, but too much cardio may cancel out your attempts at bulking up through strength training. When you are trying to build up your muscle mass, concentrate more on your strength exercises and a little less on conditioning.

Don’t keep your routine the same all the time. If a workout routine becomes mundane and boring, you are less likely to stick to it. Make sure that you do different exercises and workout different muscles each time you exercise. This will keep you motivated by staving off boredom.

The body’s protein intake plays a big role in the muscle-building process. A simple way to make sure you consume the proper amount of protein is to drink protein shakes and consume other protein supplements. These products are especially effective as part of a bedtime or post-workout routine. If you are looking to both lose weight and gain muscle, limit yourself to one of these supplements each day. If you wish to gain mass along with muscle, on the other hand, you can consume up to three each day.

The body’s protein intake plays a big role in the muscle-building process. Protein shakes or supplements are a great addition to your diet, but should not be the only source of protein you get. Such beverages are especially useful following exercise and just prior to bedtime. In order to drop pounds while also building muscle, try to drink one of these on a daily basis. On the contrary, if gaining mass is also your goal, you should consume as many as three a day.

You should eat a healthy meal before you workout. You want to add calories about sixty minutes before you plan to lift to give them time to be absorbed and available for your body to use. That is not to say that you should overindulge on exercise days, only that you ought to eat a bit more than usual, if you intend to go to the gym for a workout.

Carbohydrates are essential to weight training success. Carbohydrates give your body the fuel it needs to perform any exercises you want to do. If you are following a particularly grueling training program, adjust your protein intake to match. That means about 2-3 grams of protein per pound of weight.

Compound exercises will help you develop your muscle mass. These exercises work multiple muscle groups simultaneously. One popular example of a compound exercise is bench pressing. This exercise works three muscle groups at once: the triceps, shoulders, and chest.

Becoming huge and buff isn’t necessarily the goal of everyone who weight trains. There are a variety of bodybuilding routines designed to get different results. You need to determine what your goals are before settling on one. You may want to take a supplement if you are wanting to increase your muscle size.

Keeping your body hydrated is an important component of a good muscle-building program. Unless your body is hydrated at all times, you run a higher risk of injury or muscle damage. Proper hydration also plays a key role in both maintaining and increasing muscle mass, making it an important factor for many reasons.

Know your limitations, and don’t stop short of exhausting them. Push yourself during each set until you are literally physically unable to complete another rep. Using this strategy might mean you need to do fewer reps as you become fatigued.

Don’t rely on your “limits” to know when to stop a set, instead allow your body to physically be exhausted. You want to try and push yourself to your limit during every set. Don’t stop until you’re unable to do even a single more. If needed, reduce the time you spend on your sets when you get tired.

Remember to do your stretches before you begin exercising. Stretching is necessary to warm your muscles and prevent injury, and stretching after your workout will relax your muscles and help them recover. You could also get massages to relax your muscles and help them expand as they recover.

When you want to build up your muscle mass, eat foods that are high in protein before and after exercising. Aim for 15 grams of protein both before and after you exercise. You could do this by drinking one or two servings of milk.

Set goals that you can realistically achieve. Motivation is a good thing, but you will injure yourself if you overdo it. Once you know what your baseline is, try to beat it moderately each time you exercise. You may surpass those short-term goals. With this, you can feel encouraged and more than ready for that next workout session.

Your routine should consist of three or four workouts in a week. This allows your body to repair and regenerate itself between workouts. Too much exercise may cause injury and that can be counterproductive.

Stay on top of your overall diet and your water consumption when trying to add muscle to your frame. Muscles are made up of about 70 percent water, so consuming enough water is crucial. Do not drink too much alcohol. It breaks down muscles in large quantities.

Adjust what your eat to your training program. For example, building muscles requires plenty of protein and carbs and only certain fats. This is not a pass to eat more food. Instead, it means you must balance your diet. Additionally, try using both protein supplements and vitamins to accelerate the growth of your muscles.

Try using a creatine supplement. Creatine will help you build mass and get more energy for your workouts. Always, however, use caution when taking any supplement. Follow the instructions, and don’t take more that the recommended dosage.

With some weight lifting exercises, keeping the amount that you are lifting to a minimum will benefit you. If you are working on your neck, doing regular dips, or trying split squats, then you will want to reduce your load so as not to cause injury to your joints. Heavy loads are more appropriate for big exercise such as presses, squats, rows and deads.

Resist the temptation to complete your reps and sets at top speeds. You will see more impressive results by doing your repetitions at a slower pace, regardless of whether you need to use less weight. A smart target is to try for between 5 and 10 seconds to complete each portion of the movement, totaling 20 seconds in all.

Working out muscles has several benefits that can help your life, despite not desiring bulkiness. You’ll like how you look, feel and are able to lift things you couldn’t before, and your stamina will be through the roof!

For stronger muscles and faster results in building muscle mass, increase your protein consumption. It’s easier to get the protein you need if you get it over the course of the day, rather than trying to get it all at once. For instance, if you will need 180 grams in protein each day, eating six meals that have 30 grams of protein in each meal will give you the requirement that you need.

Take your body into consideration before you begin building muscle. Be realistic in what you can or cannot expect from it initially. Doing this will provide you an excellent place to begin, and it will assist you in establishing your goals during your muscle-building program. When doing this evaluation, focus on your composition and body weight.

Developing good technique is the most important factor in weight lifting, ahead of speed, frequency of exercise or even how much weight is used. The entire routine should be practiced and mastered before increasing weight. Perfecting one’s form early on with light weights is best, and when more weight is added later, the benefits are maximized.

Be mindful of your diet and consumption when attempting to build muscle. Muscles are about 70 percent water, and although it is always important to stay well hydrated, it is even more important for muscle building. Do not drink excessively when building muscles; alcohol causes muscle tissue to break down, which defeats the purpose of building your muscles.

Avoiding alcohol is an important step when your exercise regime is centered on weight training. It’s not a huge deal having a bit of wine every once in a while, but no more than that. Alcohol, is not only unhealthy for you, it also affects your muscle building ability.

If you want to make sure that you are getting sufficient protein during the course of your day, you ideally will take in 20 to 30 grams in each meal. Dividing your protein requirements between your meals helps you achieve your intake goals. For example, its easier to have six small meals containing 30 grams of protein each than to try to eat 180 protein grams in one meal.

If you are a bodybuilder and are over 18, investigate whether a creatine supplement might improve your results. Creatine will give you more energy and help you build more mass. The benefits of creatine in building muscle mass has been known for years. If you are a high school student and your body has not finished growing, avoid supplements.

Remember to engage in cardiovascular exercise. Cardiovascular exercises, as the name implies, are important to keeping your heart and lungs in good health. Three twenty minute workouts a week of moderate intensity should be enough to help your heart without impacting the growth of the muscles you are trying to build up.

You are now armed with the correct information that you can use immediately to help build your muscles. With a bit of luck, you now know all the correct methods to use in order to strengthen and build your muscles in the proper manner. Stay motivated, and stick to your plan. Soon, you’ll be reaching your goals at every turn!

Stay away from steroids no matter what some experienced weight lifters tell you. These drugs hurt your body in a myriad of ways, including the inhibition of your body’s natural hormone production. Steroids cause damage to your liver, as well as lowering “good” cholesterol, and often causes men to develop some breast tissue. Steroids have a detrimental effect on mood, commonly known as “roid rage,” and can cause acne. In other words, the disadvantages of steroid use far outweigh the benefits.

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