Murph?

[asdf]

@augeleven I tried a setup like yours, alternating total-body lifting and running. But without a day separating lower-body lifting and running (and running and lower-body lifting), my workouts just became more and more unpleasant. Running a day after the lifts wasn't so bad, but trying to lift lower-body the day after a long or hard run was a disaster. I used an HLM setup on my lifts to try to deal with the issue -- i.e., lifting lighter on the days after runs -- but it still didn't work very well.

If you're not doing the olympic lifts, you could follow a template like mine and still squat twice a week. Something you might consider if your runs start to interfere with your lifts.

Good luck.

[augeleven]

How weird is it keeping the 8 day cycle? I like having a little fudge room to shift a workout around due to life/schedule stuff.

[asdf]

It's a bit weird. My wife and I typically train together, and she set up the routine. She works a regular Monday through Friday job, but doesn't care about the constantly shifting training days. My work is completely flexible, so it doesn't matter to me. We have our own garage gym, so that helps. If I had to go to a 7-day schedule, I'd try something like:

1. Lowerbody (squats, deadlifts, stair sprints)
2. Upperbody lifting (bench, plus metcon circuit with chins, dips, overhead, etc.)
3. Track intervals
4. Off
5. Snatch, Clean & Jerk
6. Long Run
7. Off

But that feels a lot more crammed than our current 8-day cycle. Plus, I've lost some stuff.

[asdf]

So I've been plugging away at Murph, doing it approximately once every week. I wanted to mention two variations.

Variation #1
Cut the squat reps in half and add in 100 weighted sit-ups. My wife came up with this and likes it a lot. She does 20 rounds, alternating between

A - 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 15 squats (normal Cindy)
B - 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 10 weighted sit-ups

Variation #2
Replace the middle of Murph with GI Jane (100 burpee jumping pull-ups). Run a mile, do GI Jane, then run a mile. This is my personal favorite, although I guess it's not really so much a variation of Murph as of GI Jane.

My pull-up bar is low and I don't have to jump, so I just do strict chin-ups. It's not nearly as taxing as Murph, but 100 burpees and 100 chin-ups is still good training. I typically do sets of five, somewhere on a 1:00 to 1:30 interval.

GI Jane feels more "athletic" to me than Cindy, and the burpees have a very therapeutic effect on my lower back.

[OrderInChaos]

It's a bit weird. My wife and I typically train together, and she set up the routine. She works a regular Monday through Friday job, but doesn't care about the constantly shifting training days. My work is completely flexible, so it doesn't matter to me. We have our own garage gym, so that helps. If I had to go to a 7-day schedule, I'd try something like:

1. Lowerbody (squats, deadlifts, stair sprints)
2. Upperbody lifting (bench, plus metcon circuit with chins, dips, overhead, etc.)
3. Track intervals
4. Off
5. Snatch, Clean & Jerk
6. Long Run
7. Off

But that feels a lot more crammed than our current 8-day cycle. Plus, I've lost some stuff.

Have you followed Alex Viada at all? He contends that ME lifting day after a long LISS/LSD event is supposed to me more tolerable than threshold/etc. runs because the LISS event should principally fatigue Type I fibers while the ME will principally fatigue Type II. I think as an ultra guy his LISS is legitimately 10-12+min/mi pace. I'd imagine your 'long runs' are a hair closer to THR pace than easy pace? Besides which with all your other work I'm pretty sure you're burning both fiber types at practically any give time.

So I've been plugging away at Murph, doing it approximately once every week. I wanted to mention two variations.

Variation #1
Cut the squat reps in half and add in 100 weighted sit-ups. My wife came up with this and likes it a lot. She does 20 rounds, alternating between

A - 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 15 squats (normal Cindy)
B - 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 10 weighted sit-ups

Variation #2
Replace the middle of Murph with GI Jane (100 burpee jumping pull-ups). Run a mile, do GI Jane, then run a mile. This is my personal favorite, although I guess it's not really so much a variation of Murph as of GI Jane.

My pull-up bar is low and I don't have to jump, so I just do strict chin-ups. It's not nearly as taxing as Murph, but 100 burpees and 100 chin-ups is still good training. I typically do sets of five, somewhere on a 1:00 to 1:30 interval.

GI Jane feels more "athletic" to me than Cindy, and the burpees have a very therapeutic effect on my lower back.

Thanks for sharing these! It's been great compiling your various nuggets of wisdom into a single reference to crush my METCON/calisthenic capacity when the SSD workouts involve equipment I don't have or just aren't working out.

[asdf]

Have you followed Alex Viada at all? He contends that ME lifting day after a long LISS/LSD event is supposed to me more tolerable than threshold/etc. runs because the LISS event should principally fatigue Type I fibers while the ME will principally fatigue Type II. I think as an ultra guy his LISS is legitimately 10-12+min/mi pace. I'd imagine your 'long runs' are a hair closer to THR pace than easy pace? Besides which with all your other work I'm pretty sure you're burning both fiber types at practically any give time.

I've read a bit of Viada's stuff, but not carefully and not recently. Will try to take a closer look soon.

I've experimented with A LOT of different arrangements and have never had any luck lifting heavy after a long run, no matter how slow the run, and no matter whether in the lifting is in the PM after running in the AM, or the next day.

My LSD runs are pretty damn slow, but that's mostly because they're always on trails, not road, and because they involve a lot of elevation change. If I want to do a "tempo" run, I generally have to do that on a track. Everything else is uphill or downhill where I live.

The eccentric component of the downhills may be what's wrecking my heavy lifting afterwards.

Thanks for sharing these! It's been great compiling your various nuggets of wisdom into a single reference to crush my METCON/calisthenic capacity when the SSD workouts involve equipment I don't have or just aren't working out.

I realize this is a fringe topic on this board and not something most here are interested in. Glad you're finding it useful.

[broseph]

FWIW, I’ve been following along because I think this stuff is interesting.

[OrderInChaos]

@asdf, here's an article from his site: https://completehumanperformance.com/20 ... d-running/

I can't find anything outside of his book Hybrid Athlete that covers his stance of why to LISS run when... but the concurrent-train guy at Nuckols's site has basically the same idea. These two articles:
https://www.strongerbyscience.com/concu ... ng-part-2/
https://www.strongerbyscience.com/concurrent-training/

The articles are more targeted to powerlifters but still have that Viada Heavy+LISS principle at play. The comments address somewhat, "but how does this apply to mixed modality/crossfit?", but I've not dug into them all.

Anyway, you may dig these if you haven't seen 'em already.

I for one have realized I have some really glaring weaknesses that can still benefit from "Novice Gains" in all three sorts of modalities... running, lifting, and METCON/mixed work. No need for me to stress about Nuckols's conclusions on mixed modality training until I'm a semi-competent athlete in those domains... lol!

Later on, man!

[broseph]

I can't find anything outside of his book Hybrid Athlete that covers his stance of why to LISS run when... but the concurrent-train guy at Nuckols's site has basically the same idea. These two articles:
https://www.strongerbyscience.com/concu ... ng-part-2/
https://www.strongerbyscience.com/concurrent-training/

The articles are more targeted to powerlifters but still have that Viada Heavy+LISS principle at play. The comments address somewhat, "but how does this apply to mixed modality/crossfit?", but I've not dug into them all.

Anyway, you may dig these if you haven't seen 'em already.

I for one have realized I have some really glaring weaknesses that can still benefit from "Novice Gains" in all three sorts of modalities... running, lifting, and METCON/mixed work. No need for me to stress about Nuckols's conclusions on mixed modality training until I'm a semi-competent athlete in those domains... lol!

Later on, man!

Hope you guys don't mind me bringing this thread back to life. I've been training the bodyweight stuff and running separately (and slowly) with the goal of completing a nonweighted Murph in under an hour and be able to continue my strength work 48 hours later (aka not kill me). Obviously not a huge goal regarding the Murph, but coming from no conditioning at all it seemed appropriate.

Reading the above articles, it seems like the WOD is a bunch of glycolytic work sandwiched between oxidative works, right? Especially with the bodyweight stuff partitioned, and assuming you can't sprint a mile. Based on the articles' analyses, this is not the best way to train IF your primary goal is strength and secondary goal is overall cardio conditioning.

I'm definitely not criticizing anyone's goal here. More thinking out loud about my own training...

My initial thought was to get to a point where I could do Murph once a month as part of regular training, but these articles might have convinced me otherwise. I will still do the full unweighted (and probably eventually weighted) workout, just to say I did it. But I think after that I will try to keep my strength (ATP/CP), glycolitic (fast Cindy's), and oxidative (running) sessions separate. Maybe a better conditioning goal for me would be a weekly 5k run.

Does this seem appropriate given the articles and my goals of 1) strength and 2) overall conditioning?

[OrderInChaos]

..the goal of completing a nonweighted Murph in under an hour and be able to continue my strength work 48 hours later (aka not kill me). Obviously not a huge goal regarding the Murph, but coming from no conditioning at all it seemed appropriate.
I will still do the full unweighted (and probably eventually weighted) workout, just to say I did it.

Hey man, you're considerably stronger than me and a few pounds lighter. Take my advice FWIW!
Regarding your underlined bit, once you've done both unweighted and weighted versions, how attached are you to:

1. Running for your Cardio/Condition mode?
2. Pushups?
3. Chinups?
4. BW Squats?
5. Mixed-modality conditioning?

I think your answers to those questions will guide you better as to whether Murph should be a fixture in your training than anything we'd say.

In another vein, Viada makes an interesting statement in this video that, "Just because someone is both fast and strong doesn't necessarily mean those skills will transfer to a sport that's fairly complex...." Specifically, if you're looking to be leaner, or to run a better 5k time, lower your resting HR, or increase your pushups and chinups rep-maxes, I think you could pick much more optimal additions to your program than once monthly Murphs. If you wanted to drift into CF, or just knock the Murph time into the sub 45s, or "improve work capacity" in that glycolytic domain (with strength, leanness, and LISS performance as distant seconds) while keeping up lifting, more regular Murphs make more sense.

Reading the above articles, it seems like the WOD is a bunch of glycolytic work sandwiched between oxidative works, right? Especially with the bodyweight stuff partitioned, and assuming you can't sprint a mile. Based on the articles' analyses, this is not the best way to train IF your primary goal is strength and secondary goal is overall cardio conditioning.

I think that's a lot less important if your priorities are sharply contrasted. Wanting to keep getting stronger at an already high level like you, and just attaining a nice, non-zero conditioning/cardio fitness level is pretty achievable, and the choice of conditioning doesn't matter that much until you also want to run a competitive 5k without losing your PRs, which is when the pathways discussions become a lot more relevant IMO. You'll improve whether you do Couch to 5k, a bunch of Cindy and Murph, or a lot of 20 minute C2 rows on non-lift days. After a short while, any interference via soreness should decrease quite a bit, too. The converse is mostly true as well; a runner starting a conservative, 2-3day/wk lifting program with reasonable load and very modest progression will get a little stronger, not interfere with run training/become a mass monster and lose minutes/mile, and generally probably be glad for the cross-training.

My initial thought was to get to a point where I could do Murph once a month as part of regular training, but these articles might have convinced me otherwise. But I think after that I will try to keep my strength (ATP/CP), glycolitic (fast Cindy's), and oxidative (running) sessions separate. Maybe a better conditioning goal for me would be a weekly 5k run.

@asdf made me aware of this; the MEBB/Max Effort Black Box method (LINK: https://www.catalystathletics.com/artic ... Black-Box/) more or less aims to do this. At one point in its history it had dedicated days to Strength, METCON, LISS work, but the integrated daily schedule offers a more balanced week and still dedicates attention to the different modalities. The "TEMPLATE" bit in the article covers what each day looks like; I'd most likely include a day or two per week (the Upper lift day[s]) of a LISS run or row if I were anticipating a Murph or similar WOD test in the near-to-mid future.

If you get real serious about METCONs and WODing, that might be worth incorporating. Until then, you might consider a modest implementation of that, like following up your typical lifting session with a fairly short, limited Cindy or GI Jane type METCON thrown in, then maybe once a month to once a quarter run Murph itself to track times. Long as you're not hurting yourself, suboptimal pushup form (or dropping to knees) won't be deleterious. Maybe alternate a calisthenics METCON with something like a 20min bike or row, 1:00 on/:30 off, if your next quarter's mile times seem to have slowed.

[broseph]

@OrderInChaos thanks for the well thought out response.

You bring up a good point in that I’m still getting my easy novice cardio gains, so there’s probably no need to worry about the complexities right now. Maybe finishing my “cardio LP” will be all the conditioning I really need or want. It all started as a drive to improve health, decrease interset rest times, and not get embarrassingly winded doing every day activities. Monthly Murph might be a decent litmus test just to make sure I’m up to snuff.

My programming thus far has basically been 3x per week total body lifting and 3 conditioning sessions consisting of something long and slow, something fast and hard, and repeated either of them for the 3rd. The conditioning is often done after lifting, same day.

[asdf]

Reading the above articles, it seems like the WOD [Murph] is a bunch of glycolytic work sandwiched between oxidative works, right? Especially with the bodyweight stuff partitioned, and assuming you can't sprint a mile.

First, I’ll admit that I haven’t carefully read the articles linked above. I’m pretty sure I’ve read them in the past, but not recently. Nonetheless, I’ll offer some thoughts for what they’re worth.

I think Murph is an aerobic event and constitutes aerobic training. I mean, it's *at least* 30 minutes long. It's also glycolytic because glucose is the dominant substrate for fuel. (CP is used up quickly and you're probably not in the slow, fat-burning zone, unless you're really taking your time.) Thus, I'd say it's mostly "aerobic" or "slow" glycolysis.

I suppose the interval work in Cindy could be largely powered by anaerobic glycolysis. On the surface, the overall rest intervals would appear to be too short (40 seconds on, 20 seconds off for someone who's fast, say), but the time between squats themselves is definitely longer -- maybe 20 seconds on, 40 seconds off.

It also depends, of course, on how you're performing the work. If you're blasting through all of the reps of each set (pull-ups, push-ups, squats) in 30 seconds and then taking a minute rest before hitting it again, yeah, that seems like fast glycolytic training. But if you're moving at an intentionally slow, steady pace -- taking a breath or two at the top of every squat, breaking the push-ups into 2 sets of 5, etc. -- then you're definitely engaged in an aerobic effort.

Based on the articles' analyses, this is not the best way to train IF your primary goal is strength and secondary goal is overall cardio conditioning.

I'm not sure Murph is the best way to train for anything. It's just fun.

Maybe a better conditioning goal for me would be a weekly 5k run.
Does this seem appropriate given the articles and my goals of 1) strength and 2) overall conditioning?

It all started as a drive to improve health, decrease interset rest times, and not get embarrassingly winded doing every day activities. Monthly Murph might be a decent litmus test just to make sure I’m up to snuff.

I think Murph is a pretty tough litmus test if the goal is just being healthy and having decent cardio. Maybe a half-Murph? Or even something as short as the classic CrossFit L.A. baseline fitness test:

500 meter row (just sub a 400 meter run)
40 air squats
30 sit-ups
20 push-ups
10 pull-ups

My programming thus far has basically been 3x per week total body lifting and 3 conditioning sessions consisting of something long and slow, something fast and hard, and repeated either of them for the 3rd. The conditioning is often done after lifting, same day.

That sounds good. What’s wrong with what you’ve been doing?

[broseph]

@asdf Regarding the last question, there’s nothing wrong with what I’m doing now. I’m just kind of kicking tires because programming for conditioning is new to me beyond “run a little faster or farther next time.”

Going from couch to Murph has been a fun experiment for learning the ropes. As you mentioned, even the strategy for the bodyweight work takes a little teasing out to maximize my strengths and minimize my weaknesses. I’ve been doing the 5, 10, 15 as an unbroken interval and playing with the rest times.

And as far as being “conditioned enough,” Murph is probably unnecessary, but like you said- it’s fun.

[OrderInChaos]

@asdf Regarding the last question, there’s nothing wrong with what I’m doing now. I’m just kind of kicking tires because programming for conditioning is new to me beyond “run a little faster or farther next time.”

Going from couch to Murph has been a fun experiment for learning the ropes. As you mentioned, even the strategy for the bodyweight work takes a little teasing out to maximize my strengths and minimize my weaknesses. I’ve been doing the 5, 10, 15 as an unbroken interval and playing with the rest times.

And as far as being “conditioned enough,” Murph is probably unnecessary, but like you said- it’s fun.

I like the idea of multiple tests for proxies. So you do Murph pretty rarely, but something like that CF LA test maybe weekly since it's much less likely to debilitate you for any follow-on work. As long as you always perform the test in the same window relative to other training through your week, it should still be a good litmus test for you.

Especially for conditioning, I like to keep my distances, average speeds, times, and wattages (since my bike has that value) tracked and organized by workout type. It's kind of like a fatigue gauge if looked at in the big picture. As long as little gainz are striven for each work out (2sec faster interval pace; shave 15sec of rest from each bout; go .25mi longer), you should be overall performing better in a somewhat linear fashion. If you're plateauing or regressing on a conditioning scheme that previously worked, seems likely you need to chill, do a pivot or similar (if you're grinding yourself into a paste, obviously; if you're just plateaued but feel bulletproof, probably more volume or days or more ^Concurrent Science would be of value).

One way to make sure you're not plateauing is to have multiple domains you train regularly (and each session behaves like a mini-test). To your cardio scheme, instead of a repeat on day 3, I would do something domainially between the intervals and LISS work. Say

1. Day 1 - 8x200M, 2x400M
2. Day 2 - 5k for time, not breakneck pace
3. Day 3 - 3x1600M, 3-5min rest between repeats

You might've been shit on intervals this week, but you got better at "__". Similarly, maybe your intervals sucked due to a really grindy squat session; still, you have other progress to show in the week.

Besides which, that middle-ground work is really event-specific and helps out especially in the "novice conditioning" phases. It's basically the boot camp approach (lots of slow miles; do your tests regularly enough to practice event-specificity; do some 30/60s or 60/120s) but they take things to extremes and have to standardize and bureaucratize, which makes it far more stupid than your self-developed training ever need be.

[Idlehands]

Kong and LInda !

[OrderInChaos]

Was tempted to start one of these but I'm a bit below the threshold to really take part. Curious how work to prepare would be planned out, though, and to experiment once I'm in better condition for it.

"Race to a 405 Deadlift and a 4:05 Mile"
"Race to a 405 Deadlift and 45 dead-hang chins"

My top priority is to lose weight to at least 215 before even thinking about the intense running. 45 dead hangs is very unlikely at 245 but I can at least productively train the lats and bis with lower reps, I'm lucky to get to use bike for conditioning until I'm at a more runable weight.

Mainly, as discussed here and in the conditioning thread, I'm wondering what a near-optimal balance of strength-hypertrophy-power and running would be to get to that pace on the run without killing gainz. I'm pretty confident a Jack Daniels approach would ignore deadlift too much while obviously StSt or any PL type work ignores the run; it'd also be interesting if you could spare gainz by doing LISS on bike or row, and keep all the pavement work at interval-to-threshold paces.

It's a little more specific than Murph, but do those seem like cool challenges where both sides of the challenge are roughly at parity?

[iamsmu]

Was tempted to start one of these but I'm a bit below the threshold to really take part. Curious how work to prepare would be planned out, though, and to experiment once I'm in better condition for it.

"Race to a 405 Deadlift and a 4:05 Mile"
"Race to a 405 Deadlift and 45 dead-hang chins"


It's a little more specific than Murph, but do those seem like cool challenges where both sides of the challenge are roughly at parity?

Did you really mean 4:05 mile??? How about 5:40 or something humanly possible? How many people in the world can run a 4:05?

45 dead hang chins? Do they have to be unbroken or is there a time cap? This is a lot of reps unbroken! I don't think there's parity here. 405 and 25 maybe.

Linda sounds fun to work on. But finding room to do it at home is tricky.

“LINDA” AKA: "3 BARS OF DEATH" / CROSSFIT BENCHMARK WOD
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 Reps, For Time
Deadlift (1.5 bodyweight)
Bench Press (bodyweight)
Clean (3/4 bodyweight)

I've had my eye on Kong as a distant goal. The Eo3 guy who did a Murph every week worked on it for a while.

Kong

3 Rounds For Time
1 Deadlift (455/320 lb)
2 Muscle-Ups
3 Squat Cleans (250/175 lb)
4 Handstand Push Ups

[OrderInChaos]

You're probably right, you think 405 dead to sub-6:00 is a more balanced aim? Something arbitrary like 530-5:30 seems to be very tough for both but is far more attainable than my silly number above.

I guess I'm around the wrong population but 25 seems like a really generic, oft attained number to me, where 45 is what the top 5% or so achieve in my cohort. But yeah that run was stupid.

[iamsmu]

You're probably right, you think 405 dead to sub-6:00 is a more balanced aim? Something arbitrary like 530-5:30 seems to be very tough for both but is far more attainable than my silly number above.

I guess I'm around the wrong population but 25 seems like a really generic, oft attained number to me, where 45 is what the top 5% or so achieve in my cohort. But yeah that run was stupid.

I'm not entirely sure what we are aiming for here. On the run, I thought you were looking for two things that would be doable but maybe challenging to be able to do both.

I thought 25 chins was more in line with a 405 deadlift. Both are doable with some work, depending on your weight. 45 reps would be like a 600 pound deadlift. Few people here have a 600+ deadlift. A lot have a 405+.

Hmmm. I'm not sure there are any people here, maybe 2, that can do 25 chin ups in a set right now. I don't think I can do that many dead hang right now. I'm not sure, but I doubt it. I don't do much endurance work. . . .

The Eo3 guy had a standards chart that has a good mix of strength and conditioning. People here will find the strength numbers too low. There are 3 levels for all the goals. His top level on pull ups is 20+.



http://www.endofthreefitness.com/the-ne ... t-is-here/

[thejosef]

You're probably right, you think 405 dead to sub-6:00 is a more balanced aim? Something arbitrary like 530-5:30 seems to be very tough for both but is far more attainable than my silly number above.

I guess I'm around the wrong population but 25 seems like a really generic, oft attained number to me, where 45 is what the top 5% or so achieve in my cohort. But yeah that run was stupid.

"adamklink" on Instagram is going for 500 lb back squat with sub 5:00 mile and 50 unbroken pull-ups. He has the squat already, and he says the run is almost there. That's some crazy "all-around" numbers.

I think for the average/fit human under 40 y/o.. a sub 6:00 minute mile is PLENTY fast. I've been a once-a-week runner for years and can generally break sub 7 minutes without too much trouble (some decent run training), but sub 6:00 takes some real dedication. I've only been sub 6 for a short period of time in college, but that was a LONG time ago.

I'm looking forward to trying "LINDA" soon, but I actually don't have enough weight in my gym to attempt it, which sucks. Another pair of 45s or 55s and I should be able to attempt it. I'm a lightweight guy (150 bw), so "KONG" ain't happening for me anytime soon. Those DL and Clean numbers are too much for me right now. I do have muscle ups though.