workout 2014-02-01

[piranha]

dexter season 5. well, that was a "nice" twist at the end of season 4.

i really liked rita in the beginning; she was naive when it came to knowing anything about dexter, but she started to grow from a doormat into a person who didn't want to make the same mistakes again, so she put her foot down when it looked to her like dexter was headed down the same path as paul. i thought she was an excellent character.

but then came the giant boob job. sorry. that was the somewhat jarring, obvious change, but not really my biggest complaint. ;)

lately she had become very demanding, and everything had to be just so to please her, and i was getting pretty tired of her pushing dexter around and giving him the cold shoulder when he didn't jump immediately. also, hypocritical much about keeping secrets? yeah, dexter is a closed-off, unemotional guy, but he's always been like that, and not letting him have any space whatsoever wasn't gonna change him. i don't like the whole idea of marrying somebody with the implicit goal of changing them to better suit you. also, how about birth control? maybe just a little chat about what you're planning for the future, during which one might bring up having more kids? i expected better from her (well, better from the writers, really).

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40 days: day 22 (week 4)

workout D: 10 "tonic" reps of a very light weight to rest after a day of heavier singles. well, that's what it was supposed to be, but i was feeling strong, and didn't want to waste it.

Warmup
4:00 min ATG squat

and again no warmup except for the ATG squat. well, the weights are warmup weight today anyway.

Standing Barbell Shoulder Press (OHP)
4x10 @ 45 lb
volume: 1800

super-tonic. ;) felt pretty good today, but am supposed to do only "tonic" weights. so, up went the empty bar, as explosively as i could, with minimum rest between sets.

Barbell Deadlift
4x10 @ 105 lb
volume: 4200

this really greases the groove.

Two-Arm Kettlebell Swing
2x10 @ 23 lb
volume: 460

two short sets of shwingy goodness.

One-Arm Dumbbell Row
4x10 @ 25 lb
volume: 1000

shorter sets here too, in order to keep the workout "tonic".

Rotational Kettlebell Deadlift
2x10 @ 43 lb
volume: 860

as usual. didn't cut this down because it isn't much to begin with.

Dumbbell Side Lateral Raise
2x10 @ 6 lb
volume: 120

and short sets as well, but one set feels like nothing, so i did two.


total volume: 8440 lb -- wow, that volume really adds up quick, even though this felt like a super-light workout.

Comments

[intenselaura]

As someone watching Dexter for the first time through (currently on Season 4), I'm carefully avoiding most of your writing about it!

[piranha]

oh. i am always so behind, i am surprised that anyone else might not have seen a show, *grin*. i'll put further notes about it under a cut.

[bcholmes]

I know there are a number of people who think Dexter went way downhill after season 4, but I think season 5 is the strongest. It's the only season that really made me hate the villains as much as Dexter hated them.

[piranha]

i'm only up to episode 6, but i find it hard to imagine anything could top season 4 -- arthur mitchell was so scary, and probably the strongest reminder to the audience that however much we might cheer on dexter, real serial killers are not romantic at all. and the whole, slow build-up was just fantastically well done. dexter actually had a relationship with mitchell, and the plot was affected by that. and then the ending was pretty much perfect. from a story-telling point of view season 4 felt really satisfying to me.

season 5 is in some ways too much of a reboot for me. the kids got shuffled off unceremoniously (some really bad acting by the astor actress didn't help), laguerta is back to being just an unmitigated, incompetent schemer, debra has reverted to having lousy taste in men plus extra bitchiness on top...

i am guessing that jordan chase, cole, and their remaining buddies will be the primary antagonists for the rest of the season, and so far i am not feeling it yet. maybe because it's all too distant; i'm not sure. i'm not connecting much to lumen, though i am intellectually on her side. i am strongly hoping we won't get a romantic relationship between her and dexter; that would feel all kinds of wrong.

it's interesting to ponder how images and concepts affect me -- the dead women in the bathtubs got to me a lot more than the dead women in the barrels, and i think that was because of the super-creepy pseudo-familiar way arthur mitchell killed them. the season 5 crop of killers are cruel and brutal, but not creepy, if that makes sense. there's also no "excuse" (so far), no rationale. it's not like i thought it provides any excuse for mitchell what happened to him as a boy, but there was something there i could connect to, and could feel some empathy for him-as-child. i feel nothing but disgust for the barrel killers at this point. and i know i am always more strongly drawn to conflict between somewhat ambiguous aspects rather than conflict between good and evil (it's a stretch to call dexter "good", but compared to the barrel killers he's much preferable).