It’s The Murph Wonderful Time of Year

Every Memorial Day, crazy guys all over the country want to do the “Murph” workout.

This is a CrossFit Hero workout that celebrates Navy SEAL Michael Murphy.

Here’s the workout:

• 1 mile run

• 100 pull-ups

• 200 push-ups

• 300 body-squats

• 1 mile run

Oh and you do it with a 20 pound weight vest.

This is a challenge that requires endurance, strength, and grit.

Anyone who finishes it just accomplished something tough.

Here’s a sense of how long the Murph takes:

• For beginners: < 60 minutes is awesome

• For intermediate fellas: < 45 minutes is awesome

• For the elite: < 35 minutes is awesome

Alec Blenis, the guy who holds the world record time for Murph, completed it in 32 minutes and 41 seconds.

The Murph requires a lot of preparation.

So I thought I’d share how I’m preparing for this.

A 5-Week Murph Training Plan

Here are the 5 basic principles I’m following.

1. The body works best with 10-30 seconds of work, followed by recovery

2. I will get tired doing pull-ups before anything else

3. I want to find a pace I can settle into for a long time

4. I want to scale up my volume week-by-week

5. I want to save 100% of my energy for the Murph itself

With these in mind, I’m training by using ladders.

Here’s one ladder.

• Rung 1: 1 pull-up, 2 push-ups, 3 body-squats

• Rung 2: 2 pull-ups, 4 push-ups, 6 body-squats

• Rung 3: 3 pull-ups, 6 push-ups, 9 body-squats

• Rung 4: 4 pull-ups, 8 push-ups, 12 body-squats

A Murph is 10 of these ladders.

The benefits of doing it this way:

• The average amount of work I’ll be doing for a muscle group is < 30 seconds

• I’ll never do more than 4 pull-ups at a time

• I can hold a pace with these ladders for a while

• I can add more ladders to my workouts each week

• I can use this same structure on Murph day

For the running, I’m doing a run before and after each workout, and scaling it up slowly, keeping a steady pace.

So here’s how I’m programming it.

There are 3 workouts every week. Each workout has a run before and after it.

• Week 1: 2 ladders, 3 ladders, 4 ladders (2/3/4 min runs)

• Week 2: 3 ladders, 4 ladders, 5 ladders (3/4/5 min runs)

• Week 3: 4 ladders, 5 ladders, 6 ladders (4/5/6 min runs)

• Week 4: 5 ladders, 6 ladders, 7 ladders (5/6/7 min runs)

• Week 5: 6 ladders, 7 ladders, 8 ladders (6/7/8 min runs)

• Week 6: MURPH

In prepping for the Murph, I think it’s a mistake do a full Murph before the Memorial Day Murph.

(That’s a lot of Murphs…)

Instead, I think it’s better to save energy and keep your total volume at 60-80% the 2-weeks before the Murph.

Then on Murph day… go for it.

All out. Gun ho. No holding back.

The Glory of Strength

Murph is tough. It’s hard. Definitely a challenge.

There is something about a physical challenge that speaks to a guy.

Especially one that calls a guy to a higher strength standard.

“The glory of a young man is his strength,

But the splendor of old men is their gray hair”

The word here for strength has the idea of firmness and vigor. It’s forceful and tough, with the ability to bear a heavy load.

Strength is the quality picked as the descriptive glory of a youthful man.

This glory is not vain or boastful.

Instead, this glory is the man’s God-given gift. It adorns him like a breastplate or shield, an obvious marker of a useful attribute.

And this strength isn’t just spiritual.

It’s certainly not less than that, but it’s also more than that.

This strength is the man’s God given gift to endure long days, work harder, work longer, have more energy, and take care of those in his charge.

Strength is the energy to fulfill the God given duty.

And we need more of that.

What does this have to do with Murph?

The Murph calls a guy to a higher strength standard. It raises the bar.

And when the bar is raised, he has to develop strength to meet it.

And once strength is built, he can use that for other things God has called him to.

➡️ The Takeaway

The Murph is a brutal and awesome physical challenge.

Here’s a 5-week prep program for the Murph.

There are 3 workouts every week. Each workout has a run before and after it.

• Week 1: 2 ladders, 3 ladders, 4 ladders (2/3/4 min runs)

• Week 2: 3 ladders, 4 ladders, 5 ladders (3/4/5 min runs)

• Week 3: 4 ladders, 5 ladders, 6 ladders (4/5/6 min runs)

• Week 4: 5 ladders, 6 ladders, 7 ladders (5/6/7 min runs)

• Week 5: 6 ladders, 7 ladders, 8 ladders (6/7/8 min runs)

• Week 6: MURPH

It raises the bar.

Once the bar is raised, strength needs to be developed to meet it.

And once strength is built, strength can be used for other things God has called us to.

P.S. Want to join?

If you’re interested in doing the Murph (or if you’re already training for it), send me a note at don@laymansfitness.com.

I’ll cheer you on.

If you liked this, check out the Layman’s Fitness Newsletter, where I release similar content like this every week.