This is Memorial Day weekend, and the standard CrossFit workout this weekend is Murph. Murph consists of:
- 1 Mile Run
- 100 Pull Ups
- 200 Push Ups
- 300 Squats (air)
- 1 Mile Run
It was usually done with a weight vest (yes, pull-ups with a weight vest). I am trying to remember if I did Murph last year, but I like to do it if possible. This year, I decided to do a solo Murph at my local gym. I modified the workout for me. I did elliptical instead of running and did assisted pull-ups. I also broke up my push-ups and squats into sets of 20 and 30 air squats and did them zippered together.
I haven’t been training much recently, so doing this workout would be a pull. I was most concerned about the pull-ups, but using the weight assist made them much more manageable. At the moment, they felt okay with assisting. At first, I was doing sets of 5, but eventually broke them down to 4 and then two sets of 3 and made it through the 100. With the weight-assisted machine, they felt doable, unlike in years past when I just felt dead.
I was wrong, though; the air squats and pushups are when I died. With only a couple of sets left, my left knee started bothering me, but I found that if I slowed down the rep, it didn’t hurt as much. I was able to finish. My final time was about 1 hour 40 minutes, about where I’ve been in the past.
Murph is a hero workout named after Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2005.