The WOD Murph Comes To Rich Man’s Gym

WOD Murph. What in the hell is that? From the world of Crossfit comes the WOD or Workout of the Day. They all get names. This one is called Murph in honor of Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy, 29, of Patchogue, N.Y., who was killed in Afghanistan June 28th, 2005. This was one of his favorite routines and I am always down for anything that honors the brave men and women who serve and defend this great nation. So let’s get after it.

WOD Murph

Here’s the actual routine:

Run a mile
100 Pull Ups
200 Push Ups
300 Squats
Run a mile

This is done for time and for the seasoned professional or masochist, feel free to add a 20 pound weight vest in the mix. Looking around the internet, Mark Divine and SEALFit has a standard of 1 hour and 10 minutes to get this work done… with the vest. If you’re anything like me, you may have just had an FML moment.

And so there’s a first time for everything. Today we played in the Murph sandbox. I did not meat the time standard by the way and I wasn’t even wearing a vest so I’ve got some work to do and thoroughly appreciate the challenge this presents.

Adapting WOD Murph For Rich Man’s Gym

So my wife laid out a course in our neighborhood that is about 1.25 miles. For Murph, I’m doing this course. This course also has three hills that nothing short of rude. So that’s happening. Basically, I’m taking a lap and then coming back to the garage to get after the calisthenics.

I’m going to cycle the work to make it palatable. I’m doing 20 three minute rounds of 5 pull ups, 10 push ups and 15 squats. That’s an hour. It takes me about 12 minutes to run the lap so I’m looking at coming in just shy of 90 minutes assuming I allow for a short breather between runs.

So the challenge will be can I get this work done and still hit the SEALFit standard? This will be on a gradient. First let’s handle with no vest, then we’ll see how we can do with the vest. So stay tuned because MURPH will return… I’ve got about 7 minutes to shave off right now.

Adapting WOD Murph For Your Fitness Level

One of the things that’s important to me at Rich Man’s Gym is to empower EVERYONE to be able to train at Rich Man’s Gym. Your limitations are yours but you can always get better. If you’re thinking that there’s no way in hell you could handle this kind of workout, it doesn’t mean you can’t still do it and be able to work up to it. Let’s break out some gradients to follow on the road to MURPH

RUNNING: Start at speed walking a half mile. The get yourself jogging that same half mile and once you’re jogging, add a tenth of a mile each time until you’re jogging the whole mile. From there slowly start working at increasing speed

PULL UPS: 100 is the number. There’s no escaping that. If you can’t do a pull up though, now what? There’s this really cool book called Convict Conditioning that can help you select the right type of rowing/pulling movement for you to build the strength and endurance to do 100 total pull ups. If this means your doing rows off a door jam, so be it. Just start somewhere and get better.

PUSH UPS: 200 push ups is the number. If that’s off a wall, congratulations. Again, just start. The slowly, progressively decline yourself to the floor. Practice.

SQUATS: How low can you go? What if all you’re able to do is sit down and stand back up? There’s a drill called a box squat (google it) that anyone can do. 300 hundred please.

IF: If you’re incredibly out of shape, cut this workload in half and work your way up. Otherwise I say suck it up. Give yourself up to 15 minutes on each side for the walking/running and work to compress the time it takes. Then work yourself up to the 60 minutes of calisthenic work.

Wrapping Up WOD Murph

See if you’re creative and track your progress, you can work up to the real thing. Imagine your current level of fitness and just practicing this routine 3-4 times a week for say 90 days. Where would you wind up? Now imagine you’re controlling your diet a little better at the same time. Now where are you in 90 days?