Thursday April 28, 2016
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So good to be back in the garage this morning with my friends. While I do love traveling and visiting other gyms, there is no place like the RRL and no group of people that I feel as comfortable around or as supported by.
We hit it hard out of the gate this morning with a Hero Workout called Tommy Mac. As with all Hero workouts, there is a larger and more meaningful story to the workout.
Thomas Raymond MacPherson was born on July 20th, 1986 in Long Beach, CA and was killed in action in the Ghazni Province of Afghanistan on October 12th, 2012.
After graduating locally from Los Alamitos High School in 2004, Thomas Raymond Macpherson, 26, enlisted in the United States Army in 2007 and was assigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment, 2nd Battalion, Headquarters and Headquarters Company at Fort Lewis, Washington. He served three years as a Mortarman Team Leader in HHC, and was then assigned to D.Co. (short for Delta Company), where he was a Fire Team Leader with 3rd Platoon. He counted the men of the 2nd Ranger Battalion as true blood brothers. Sgt. Thomas MacPherson was on his fourth deployment to Afghanistan and was previously deployed
The following statement is from Tommy’s former Platoon Leader…
The whole thing with Tommy is that he embodies everything that’s right about Ranger Battalion. He held the position of Ranger Team Leader which is literally the tip of the spear. He was the consummate, quiet professional—he expected absolutely zero recognition for what he did. He loved his job because he was a born protector. He was perfectly content to carry out his life’s work under the cover of darkness, with his and his comrades’ actions to remain forever under the cloak of shadows. He died doing what he loved; protecting all of us. What stood out about Tommy the most was his maturity beyond his years. I believe it was the fact that he was the older brother of younger siblings, but like another Sgt. said “Tommy wasn’t one of those guys who joined the Army and grew into a man. He joined as a man and grew others.” He left behind his beautiful wife wife, Claudia MacPherson, and their son, Brayden.
“Tommy Mac”
2 rounds for time:
12 Burpees
12 Thrusters (115#/75#)
12 Burpees
12 Power Snatches
12 Burpees
12 Push Jerks
12 Burpees
12 Hang Squat Cleans
12 Burpees
12 Overhead Squats
I tried something new today and wore a heart rate monitor during the workout. I wore it throughout the Wim Hof breathing + pushups and then the warmup and workout. It was interesting to me. It started out around 50 as I was moving around and stayed around 60 through the breathing and up to 115 while doing the 93 pushups this morning. It dropped back into the 90's through the warmup and then went to 165 as soon as I started the thrusters. I got it up to 176 for a few minutes and then was able to drop from 176 to 116 in 2 minutes.
I decided to check resting heart rate this afternoon and layed down for a few minutes and let my heart rate drop as low as I could get it. It bottomed out at 43.
I'm not sure what any of this means, but I have used a heart rate monitor to train with before with really good results. Mark Sisson has some incredibly interesting stuff out right now about heart rate training combined with a ketogenic (or close to it) diet. Very interesting stuff and I urge you to check it out. I have been following his Primal plan for 3 weeks now. The results are good so far.
