top of page

A Year of Murph

Hey Vic City,

The Murph workout weekend is fast approaching. In two short weeks, a small army of Vic City members, and anyone that wishes to join, are welcomed to come down on August 13th. I’ve never done Murph, myself, but Jerred Moon, a fitness enthusiast, has done it over 50 times. He actually did it every Saturday for a year straight, 52 times in the span of a year. Over that time he did a few different version of the Hero WOD. He did it without a weighted vest 15 times, and completed it with a vest on 26 other occasions. During the 11 other times, he did variations that included, double and triple Murph, strict Murph, and high elevation Murph.

I don’t know much about Jerred, but he seems to be a pretty fit dude. Before he started his 1 year of Murph, he could run a 5k in 20:30, and could do 50 consecutive pull-ups. His first five Murph times of the bunch were all completed without a vest with the initial clocking being 37:43, a pretty quick time, even without a vest. Already, by week 5, with a few adjustments to his strategy, he was able to finish in 30:40, a seven minute improvement. Obviously there were some fitness gains over the course of that five week span, but strategy also plays a huge factor into scoring your best time.

Looking back at the results from the CrossFit Games over the past two years, Murph was completed in two slightly different versions from 2015 to 2016. In 2015 the rounds were unpartitioned, meaning all 100 pull-ups were completed before the 200 push-ups, and when the push-ups were all done, the 300 squats were finished in succession. In 2016 they did the one mile run followed by 5 rounds of 20 pull-ups, 40 push-ups, and 60 squats, before finishing with the second one mile run. Breaking up the reps into smaller chucks resulted in the Games athletes completing the same amount of work in about 3 to 5 minutes faster. Jerred concluded, after his year of Murph that rounds of Cindy, 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, and 15 squats, is the best way to get the work done.

Although that might be the best way to partition the reps, it works best when you “DO NOT STOP”. Looking at the runs, Jerred noted that his fastest miles were not completed on his PR times on the workout as a whole. This makes me think of the workout Jackie which we’ve seen in the class WOD, you need to get the row or run done, but don’t go out too hot and gas yourself for the rest. Find that threshold pace that makes you work hard but doesn’t start slowing you down.

At the resolution of the year, he managed to get his unvested Murph down from 37:43 (week 1) to 24:30, and his vested Murph from 35:35 (week 6) to 27:47. Many people may wonder what happened to other aspects of his fitness. His strength numbers and body weight remained very consistent over the year. His 5k run was 44 seconds faster, and his pull-ups went from 50 reps to 64 along with a few other improvements.

If you want to read more about Jerred’s Murph journey go to http://www.endofthreefitness.com/murph/

To register for Sunday August 13th.

Enjoy!

Adam

PC: Oscar Bravo

 

Training Wednesday - Thursday

Warm-up: 1 round - 400m jog, 25 air squats, 25 double crunch

Skill: Squat Clean + Split Jerk - drills and work up to wod weight

- Coaches review tech and drills for success!

WOD: Uber

This workout has a similar structure to the DT intervals that we did last week, but with a few tweaks. The goal here is to go heavier than you did for the DT intervals as the rep range is lower. Utilize the push jerk or split jerk for the best results!

Rx: 3 rounds for time: 9 Deadlifts (125/185), 6 squat cleans, 3 StO

TG: scale movements and weight as needed

FG: Scale bar as needed

CP: Goal time: sub 4 minutes @ Rx weight

bottom of page