A Day to Honor Those Who Have Paid the Ultimate Sacrifice

This coming Monday, we celebrate Memorial Day. Traditionally a day of picnics, BBQs and relaxing… the true reason to mark the day is to remember and honor those who died in active military service.

CrossFit has a long tradition of honoring service men and women through tough workouts known as Hero WODs. DT. The Seven. The Chief. Whitten. Each of the Hero WODs are done in honor of a member of the military, a police or firefighter, who gave his or her life in the line of duty. To protect us. To defend our liberty.

This Monday, we’ll join thousands of fellow CrossFitters around the world when we honor Navy Lt. Michael Murphy by tackling the hero workout known as “Murph.”  You may have heard of it… It’s done for time while wearing a weight vest and goes a little something like this:

1 mile Run
100 Pull-ups
200 Push-ups
300 Air Squats
1 mile Run

This workout was one of Mike’s favorites and he named it “Body Armor.” This workout is done to honor the focused warrior and great American who wanted nothing more in life than to serve this great country and the beautiful people who make it what it is. He died fighting for this Country while serving in Afghanistan on June 28, 2005.

For some of you, this might be the first time you’ve tried Murph. Don’t let it intimidate you! There are lots of ways to scale this workout so you can give it everything you’ve got, no matter what your current level of fitness.

If the amount of work intimidates you, and you’ve never done this workout before, try “half Murph.” Better yet, grab a buddy and do it partner style, splitting the reps. Or, if you’re feeling inspired to do the whole thing, but aren’t sure about the volume, try partitioning it into 20 rounds of Cindy (5 pull ups, 10 push ups, 15 air squats). Suddenly it doesn’t seem quite as intimidating, does it? Twenty rounds of Cindy, sandwiched in between your 1 mile runs might be just the thing for you.

For those of you who have done “Murph” multiple times, it might be time to set a new goal for yourself! If you usually do half, go for the whole thing. If you usually partition it, try it straight through as written. If you’ve never worn a vest, wear a vest! Or simply try to get a better time.

The whole point is to challenge yourself. Most of us have never served in the military, and are not typically called upon to give our lives defending and protecting others.

This man died so we could live in freedom so give “Murph” everything you’ve got.