Introduction - Michael W

[mwheelerpga]

Hello Rangers,

My name is Michael. I am a 30 year golf professional from Baltimore, Maryland and currently living in Reading, Pennsylvania. First, I would like to thank you all for your service and for your dedication to this site. In 2009 I was in the Maryland State Police Academy to become a State Trooper, and even though no members here knew it I was reading the workout threads. The pushup improvement plan and other threads helped me immensely in my training. I did the pushup improvement plan every night after our regular PT sessions and I went from 42 pushups in 2 minutes to over 80 in 2 minutes during those 26 weeks of the academy. With your help I finished 4th in my class (out of 75) and spent two years as a Trooper before leaving for the golf business after hurting my knee.

I hurt my knee on the job in 2010, and I had no idea but I actually tore my ACL. I recently found out it was torn when it popped a couple years ago and had to have a complete reconstruction in September of 2015. I had some complications, but I was cleared to run, ruck, and swim (along with my full workouts) a couple of months ago.

I joined the forums to continue my fitness improvement, and my family and I are potentially considering a career move to the military. My age puts me in an interesting position, but once we make a decision on the route we would like to go I will fight for it. The 75th Ranger Regiment is something I have always been interested in, and I enjoyed my time in Army ROTC in college. So, that has us considering a military career. I do not plan on posting much at all, but I would be open to any criticism or advice any Rangers here may have. I am here to learn and continue getting my fitness back from my long recovery from surgery.

Again, thank you all for your service to our country. I may not have served yet in the military, but I do know what it's like to go to work with a gun on your hip not knowing if you will come home. It is a thankless job, but I know everyone that serves enjoys giving their time for our community/country.

PS - I am working on my running, and I plan to self administer an APFT to see where I stand and how much work I have to do. When I do I will post those APFT scores.

Sincerely,
Michael W

[Jim]

Welcome, Michael, If you want to earn a place in the 75th Ranger Regiment, you came to the right site. We take pride in the fine young men who pass through armyranger.com in their life journey. Please begin by reading the FAQs as well as selected threads and stickies. Most questions you might have are already addressed. The search feature, located on the top left of this page in the Quick Links is your friend. Within the next 72 hours, please self-administer an AFPT and post your results on this thread. Look forward to your posting the results of your PT test; this will provide you with a baseline to build on. Please include pull-ups in your score. Never, never quit!W

[Disinfertention]

Michael - A few other folks on this website with prior surgery have had issues gaining an OPT 4 or 40 due to medical waivers. If you're not familiar with the process at all, maybe start there and see what you can learn. This has nothing to do with you serving in the 75th only if you can gain a contract from the start that puts you in line to attend RASP.

If you get hung up on researching it, reply back here and I will try to help out.

Welcome to the site.

[mwheelerpga]

Ranger Jim, thank you for the welcome, and I will be self administering my APFT on Monday.

Ranger Disinfertention, thank you for the start. I will start doing some research on that. I will absolutely fight for an Option 40, and if I need a medical waiver then I will just have another hurdle to jump over. I will research it and then continue to fight until that is what I get. I will get back in touch if I have issues finding appropriate information.

[mwheelerpga]

Ranger Jim and Ranger Disinfertention,

As embarrassed as I am to post this, it motivates me even more to get to work. This surgery definitely hurt my run times, as expected. This was my first time running two miles since a few months prior to my surgery 19 months ago. So, it is what it is, but as you will see I have a lot of work to do. There was no pain in my knee at least, so this run hurt my ego more than anything else. I pushed myself, puked after so it was a good run, and will continue to do so.

Push-ups: 64
Sit-ups: 61
2 mile run: 18:34
Pull-ups: 11

I'll be following the workout protocol in the fitness threads and I will retake the APFT in one month to see where I am.

Mike

[Disinfertention]

Good deal Mike. Probably the most important thing is not hurting yourself again as you get back into running. Listen to your body, take days off when needed, and get in shape the right way :)

[mwheelerpga]

Thank you Ranger Disinfertention! I know I can get my run time down as I work my body and knee back into running. When I finished the Academy my 1.5 mile timed run was 10:06 if I remember correctly (and that was after I initially injured it - but before it completely tore). So, now that I have a knee that is fully functional from a structure standpoint I don't see why I can't get back there or beat the 10 minute mark if I dedicate myself.

I have been prepping my runs to do the run progression that I found on the SEALSWCC.com site. Right now I am doing 1 mile MWF for two weeks and then I'll up the distances as my knee and surrounding muscles continues to recover.

I figure I'm going to need an age waiver anyways, so I don't want to push so hard initially that I reinjure myself. That would end this goal very quickly I'm sure. Thanks again for the support, and I will continue to keep everyone posted.

[Jim]

Mike, Have you contacted an Army recruiter yet? Never, never quit!

[mwheelerpga]

Ranger Jim, I have not contacted an Army recruiter yet. I would like to be able to run these distances without knee pain and stiffness before I do. It's getting there, but I would like to be further along. When I go to the recruiter I want to be ready so I can focus all my time and effort on continuing to train and securing an Option 40 contract. I am still plugging away at my workouts. I have a question regarding that, but I am reviewing the workout threads to make sure it has not been answered before I ask.

Mike

[Grim666]

Mike,

Make sure you are taking it easy as to not re-injure yourself. I am assuming that you finished all of your physical therapy. After that work on sprints. They will help you to reduce your time. Make sure you spend the money on good running shoes. Make sure that you are running correctly (balls of your feet). All of these should help you to keep from hurting yourself again. As far as rucking you need to be smart. Don't run for a bit till you get used to moving with weight. I would even say to try and walk at 15 min pace. It can be done, I am short and I can do it. Once you strengthen it then worry about running with a ruck. If you can maintain a 14:30 pace or so that will leave you ahead of the game. Got it you want to do your best but you can't hurt yourself. You are not a spring chicken anymore. No different than I was going through RASP at 34 years old trying to keep up with the 20ish year old kids. You have to use your brain to be successful.

[mwheelerpga]

Ranger Grim666,

Thank you for the response. I am definitely taking it easy (easier than I would like). I am running as often as I can, but I will start to add sprint sessions in per your advice. When I do ruck, your advice is close to what I've been doing. I am rucking with 30 pounds and running a little, but it is mostly a brisk walk. I will focus less on running in the future and more on focusing on that pace. I will pace myself next time to see where I am in comparison to your advice at 15 minutes. I am also taking this time to work on my upper body strength as much as I can as well. I figure if I can't run a lot yet I can at least do my push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, etc.



Rangers, one question if I may. I have searched the workout threads but I haven't seen any question that directly answers this. If I missed a thread about it I apologize. The question has to do with heart rate. Obviously, with having to not exercise for so long (and my age as Ranger Grim666 mentioned LOL) my cardiovascular endurance is not where it used to be or where it should be. I have been doing several different "workouts" if you want to call it that, and I was hoping to get your guidance on if I am the right track with monitoring my heart rate during the workouts.

Based on research I have done my max heart rate is 190 at age 30 (assuming that is correct). During my runs I will always push myself (sometimes to the point of vomiting or feeling like it), and my heart rate is in the 155-170 range during my runs. When I do higher intensity runs (but shorter) I am in the 160-175 range. When I do "Crossfit" or HIIT style workouts (I don't do many of the high risk stuff so I am focusing on strength and endurance, not full out Olympic style exercises), I am in the same 155-170 range for between 10-30 minutes. When I am doing a lower impact workout I am in the 120-135 range. Is this where I should be with the heart rate? Essentially I am between 80-90% of my max on high intensity workouts, and around 65-70% of my max on the longer lasting mid intensity workouts.

This is type of stuff with exercising that I am not as familiar with, and I am sure you would have a better idea as to where I should be and for how long. Since I can't train as hard right now for long periods of time I want to train smart.

Rangers, if I should move this question to the fitness threads please let me know and I can copy and paste it over there.

As always thank you for your guidance.

Mike

[Disinfertention]

Mike, I don't see a need for a full new post but if you want to throw something up there go ahead since I'm not going to give you a specific answer.

Heart rate monitoring is a newer thing on the individual level and I can tell I'm old because I call it "trendy hipster shit". There might be someone here smart on that stuff that can answer but the best way to monitor your body is by feel. All of your heart rate stuff sounds correct though and similar to my training range since we are about the same age. I wouldn't focus on that aspect of stuff so much as steady improvement through the workout instead of monitoring your status. Just my lame opinion as per usual.

[mwheelerpga]

Ranger Disinfertention,

Not lame at all! I never monitored that until recently, and I just started doing it to make sure the heart rate was where it needed to be. Without working out for so long I lost track of what a "tough" workout felt like because with the knee recovery they were all tough LOL. Bottom line is that every workout (with the exception of the strength only lifting workouts - but I usually throw in some high intensity stuff at the end to get my heart rate up and get a good sweat going) I feel pretty smoked and I'm giving 110% either way. I'm going to continue to do that.

Just as a SITREP I did stop running for a week because I was feeling some sharp pain in the knee. It's subsiding so I'm sure it was just overuse, so I'm going to go for a mile run tomorrow morning to see how it feels. If it feels OK then I plan on getting back on the running plan this week. My wife and kids have been sick with fevers and stomach bugs the last two days so I have been home taking care of them. So, my workout for the last couple of days have been just pull-ups, push-ups, flutter kicks, sit-ups, etc. Hoping to get back to the gym tomorrow, but my son still has a high fever. He was a preemie so we have to monitor that closely or we will end up in the ICU (that has happened 7-8 times since he was born a little over two years ago). I'm sure you all would agree that the family will always come first, and for me that is and will always be the case so I had to modify those workouts from home lately. Just wanted to give everyone an update on how the knee and workouts have been going.

Mike

[mwheelerpga]

Quick SITREP:

My son got worse and found out yesterday he has pneumonia. I ended up having to take off of work the last couple of days because he needs breathing treatments every four hours around the clock. You have to love waking up every 3-4 hours to give him a breathing treatment. Good practice I guess.....

Definitely going to the gym tonight when my wife gets home from work to get back to some of the HIIT and strength training.

Just wanted to give everyone an update.

Mike

[Disinfertention]

Thanks for the update Mike. Take care of that family. Wouldn't imagine pneumonia is very fun for a small child.