Murph?
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Murph?
Anybody here do Murph today?
I snatched, deadlifted, and ran stair sprints yesterday, so I was happy to just get it done sub-50. Also didn't help that I did heavy presses immediately before setting out on the first mile. Oh well.
I snatched, deadlifted, and ran stair sprints yesterday, so I was happy to just get it done sub-50. Also didn't help that I did heavy presses immediately before setting out on the first mile. Oh well.
- mgil
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Re: Murph?
Sub-50 seems like a solid number even without the prior fatigue.
Splitting up push-ups and sit-ups is usually kinda easy (since folks just tap out and recover). Do you have a strategy for partitioning the air squats? I've heard tales of air squats being a path to rhabdo.
- Chebass88
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Re: Murph?
I did it once, back when I was doing CrossFit on a regular basis - it was a beast of a session. I did it in ~52 minutes. I was running a lot at the time, and the mile runs were the easiest parts!
- augeleven
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Re: Murph?
I would love to be able to do Murph for next year. 100 pullups in one workout would probably be the end of my elbow right now. I'm thinking of adding rounds of 5/10/15 as a workout finisher and maybe trying a .5 murph in a couple of months.
I don't know if you guys follow Jerred Moon at Eo3 fitness, but he did a project where he did Murph every saturday for a year and tracked his progress.
http://www.endofthreefitness.com/murph-numbers/
I don't know if you guys follow Jerred Moon at Eo3 fitness, but he did a project where he did Murph every saturday for a year and tracked his progress.
http://www.endofthreefitness.com/murph-numbers/
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Re: Murph?
Glad to get some responses!
I always partition the work "Cindy" style: 20 rounds of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, and 15 squats. If you start each round every 1:30, that's about 30 mins. Run two 10-min miles and you're sub 50 minutes total.
I do strict chin-ups, rather than kipping pull-ups, and I do NOT wear a weight vest.
Hard to imagine anyone who can squat a heavy 5x5 after several sets of warm-up getting rhabdo from 300 partitioned air squats, but I guess it's possible. I do a ton of steep downhill running, so the eccentric in 300 air squats is nothing. Regardless, starting with a half Murph and progressing would be prudent for sure.
I always partition the work "Cindy" style: 20 rounds of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, and 15 squats. If you start each round every 1:30, that's about 30 mins. Run two 10-min miles and you're sub 50 minutes total.
I do strict chin-ups, rather than kipping pull-ups, and I do NOT wear a weight vest.
Hard to imagine anyone who can squat a heavy 5x5 after several sets of warm-up getting rhabdo from 300 partitioned air squats, but I guess it's possible. I do a ton of steep downhill running, so the eccentric in 300 air squats is nothing. Regardless, starting with a half Murph and progressing would be prudent for sure.
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Re: Murph?
I do 100 chinups at least once a week. Sometimes I just AMRAP sets leaving 1 or 2 in the tank until I hit 100. Sometimes I alternate 3/2 every 30 seconds, so 5 per minute. Sometimes I do 5 at the top of every minute. Often they're part of a larger circuit. Like this one from Military Athlete:
2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2
Strict pullups / dips / weighted situps
1 time through gets you 50 reps. I usually do the whole up/down ladder twice to get to 100. You can sub 2x push-ups for the dips if you want, and 2x unweighted sit-ups for the weighted. On good days I can get through the whole thing with unbroken sets, but typically, the 8's and 10 are broken the second time through on the chinups. Especially if I'm doing dips and weighted sit-ups, rather than 2x push-ups and situps. Less time to recover.
Start with just one time through, or drop the set of 10 in the middle.
I also like to do GI Jane (100 burpee pull-ups). I alternate sets of five with my wife. We both get our work done in about 30 seconds, so it takes about 20 minutes total.
- thejosef
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Re: Murph?
Dang, I wish I would've saw this thread. My buddy bailed on me Monday so I ended up bailing too. I will try to do it this week (no weight vest though). My goal will be sub 50 minutes. I will also do the Cindy style on the exercises and hope to just run sub 9 minute miles (I haven't been running much lately so I'm a little slow).asdf wrote: ↑Tue May 29, 2018 10:04 am Glad to get some responses!
I always partition the work "Cindy" style: 20 rounds of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, and 15 squats. If you start each round every 1:30, that's about 30 mins. Run two 10-min miles and you're sub 50 minutes total.
I do strict chin-ups, rather than kipping pull-ups, and I do NOT wear a weight vest.
Hard to imagine anyone who can squat a heavy 5x5 after several sets of warm-up getting rhabdo from 300 partitioned air squats, but I guess it's possible. I do a ton of steep downhill running, so the eccentric in 300 air squats is nothing. Regardless, starting with a half Murph and progressing would be prudent for sure.
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- thejosef
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Re: Murph?
Not yet.


I really like the idea of doing Murph on a regular basis. Weekly is impressive (crazy)! I think I will try once a month just to see how my fitness improves over the year. It should be interesting. I'd love to get to the point where I can add the weight vest and not die.

Good luck with the weekly Murph @asdf! Do you plan on adding a weight vest at some point?
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Re: Murph?
I don't plan to add weight until I get my time below 40 -- which is a long way away. If I do get sucked into weekly Murphs, I'll post an update on how it's going.
My advice is to take it easy throughout. The worst thing is to go too fast in the beginning and fall into an anaerobic hole that you never really leave. You can always pick up the pace 1/2-way through or on the final mile. Good luck, @thejosef!
My advice is to take it easy throughout. The worst thing is to go too fast in the beginning and fall into an anaerobic hole that you never really leave. You can always pick up the pace 1/2-way through or on the final mile. Good luck, @thejosef!
- thejosef
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Re: Murph?
Hey @asdf, I FINALLY did "Murph" tonight. This was my first time ever trying it. I tried to pace myself throughout and finished with 50:57. (9:24 mile, 31:39 bw stuff, 9:43 mile). No weight vest and I did the 5,10,15 thing on the bodyweight stuff. For only getting back training cardio THIS WEEK (lol), I'm pretty dang pleased with this result. It was an awesome workout with a lot of mental toughness stuff to deal with. I will try to break 50 minutes next month. I may have ordered a 20 lb. weight vest too.. for training.

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Re: Murph?
@thejosef Impressive performance, especially for someone who hasn't been training endurance. Well done!
- thejosef
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Re: Murph?
Thanks @asdf! I'm a lightweight, 151 lbs currently, so the bodyweight stuff wasn't as bad as I was anticipating.

Let me know if you have a log anywhere.. I'd love to see how your possible weekly Murph goes...
- iamsmu
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Re: Murph?
His times are excellent! He says that he did the pull ups kipping. That's going to knock several minutes off. . . But the guy can run close to a 5 minute mile! He's shaving off lots of time on the run. The vest slowed him down though.augeleven wrote: ↑Tue May 29, 2018 8:33 am I would love to be able to do Murph for next year. 100 pullups in one workout would probably be the end of my elbow right now. I'm thinking of adding rounds of 5/10/15 as a workout finisher and maybe trying a .5 murph in a couple of months.
I don't know if you guys follow Jerred Moon at Eo3 fitness, but he did a project where he did Murph every saturday for a year and tracked his progress.
http://www.endofthreefitness.com/murph-numbers/
Doing this with a vest sounds awful, partly because it would be hot. It would also make the pull ups hard to do strict.
Interesting stuff. I'm tempted to try it. Get my lazy ass up and moving . . . I'm trying to figure out what the effect of doing 300 air squats might be. And there's no route from me where I can do a mile without running up a hill. I'd have to try and run to a flat block and circle it a couple times and then come home I guess.
- augeleven
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Re: Murph?
Yeah, I haven’t started on this precisely for the squat recovery reason. I’m still trying to see what I can recovery from squatting and running 3x a week. Me adding air squats probably would be a bad ROI right now
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Re: Murph?
Ya. That sounds like a lot. I might do a 100 later just to see. Might be able to creep up on the 300 by adding 50 or so here and there.
- iamsmu
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Re: Murph?
"King Kong" looks pretty hard! That guy worked on it for a year or two.
http://www.endofthreefitness.com/crossfit-king-kong/
http://www.endofthreefitness.com/crossfit-king-kong/
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Re: Murph?
How are you programming your lifting and running?
I've tried a lot of different schemes over the years, attempting to blend relatively long-distance trail runs with "heavy" barbell lifts. My wife and I are currently on an 8-day training week that looks like this:
1. Cleans, Squats, Shuttle sprints
2. Bench, followed by a metcon that includes at least 100 chin-ups
3. Long, hilly trail run (5 to 10 miles)
4. Off
5. Snatch, Deadlifts, Stair sprints
6. Overhead press, Murph
7. Track work (generally 400 or 800-meter intervals)
8. Off
We're old (in our 50's), but it's been working really well.
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Re: Murph?
@thejosef You and I are about the same size, though I'm quite a bit older. I have a log, but it's a private blog. I'll consider opening it up or moving the more recent content to a public forum. Thanks for your interest!
- augeleven
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Re: Murph?
I’m trying to build back my running base after coming back from some foot issues. So
M- squat, heavy single then volume @70%; chins and dips
T- 30 min run/walk
W- front squats, deadlift heavy single, volume @75-80%; chins and dips
R- 30 min run/walk
F- squat, heavy single then volume @80%; chins and dips
Sa- 30 min run/walk
OHP M-F on a Nuckols program.
I’m progressing the run/walk ratio weekly and using RPE on the top single to gauge my squat weights.
I like your setup, but I’m afraid to cut down on squat frequency to once a week, as I really struggle with them.