Author Update

Hey beautiful people! 

I wanted to give everyone an update on how things are coming with Underworld book 3 and what you can expect in the coming weeks.

Physical Down Time

Note: As the author of Codename: Freedom, an old athlete and someone who use to study personal training, I'll give you little updates like this once in a while. Feel free to skip if you aren't interested.

So first, I had a little down time this week. Even with my standing desk, I've had this constant problem for the last couple years with a muscle in my upper back, likely the trap or rhomb... Its been hard to pinpoint. Basically, I've been trying to strengthen it since I went full time as a writer to fix it and instead, all of my efforts have just overdone it and left me stiff and in pain. 

Now, I'm trying a new therapy. Two weeks ago, I started boxing training and more of a plyometric approach. Its been mainly just shadowboxing because we don't have room to put up my heavy bag. I'm mixing in push ups and hanging rows from a parallel bar. It seems I've finally found the right approach to this issue.

Some of you may know that I have other issues, like osteoarthritis in my knee from a sports injury and lower back pain. Dealing with the arthritis is simple enough. I just need to stay active, continue to strengthen my quads and hamstrings and don't stay in one position for too long, like sitting. The standing desk has saved me a lot of stiffness. As for lower back pain, not sitting all day has been huge, but when it was my only option, the thing that consistently saved me was doing deadlifts. Normally, that means 10x75 lbs dumbbells since planet fitness doesn't have any barbells. I prefer high weight and low reps, but working the posterior chain, hamstrings, gluts and lower back is the important things. 

It has been a good reminder that certain muscle groups respond better to different types of exercise. Normally, the 8-12 rep range is consider the best for hypertrophy, breaking down the muscle to increase its size and strength, but muscles like calves I've always found get a better pump and I see better results around 20 reps.

I've also been listening to George St. Pierre's trainer recently on his training philosophy and I'm going to start trying more volume over intensity training. As a full time author, my only excuse for not keeping my body in decent shape is laziness. 

Underworld Chapters 

Things are coming along well, but chapter three I have gone back and forth on quiet a bit. We are getting into the beginning of dungeon building and I'm trying to figure out the most interesting way to communicate the info dumping that's a part of this section. You can expect it in a few days. I'm rewriting and revising as we speak.

If things go as I imagine them, this will likely be the longest book yet in the series. I just want to make sure we get a good foundation for the following books as well. :D

Cheers!