What's the hardest part of Murph? The toughest part of the "CrossFit® Murph Challenge" is the mental and physical endurance it demands. This workout is designed to push you to your absolute limits. The mix of running, pull-ups, push-ups, and squats is no joke—especially when you throw on a weighted vest.
How do you split the Murph workout? You can partition the reps of Murph any way that stops you spending huge chunks of the workout resting! If you wanted, you could do 1 pull-up, 2 push ups and 3 squats but I think that, mentally, 100 sets of anything would be brutal.
What types of pull ups are in Murph? Any pull-up variation is acceptable; providing you begin (or pass through) under the bar with straight arms and finish the rep with your chin above the bar. This can be achieved with strict pull-ups, kipping pull-ups or butterfly pull-ups.
Plus the work is bodyweight exercise which isn't going to be as much as moving barbells full of plates. Due to the duration of Murph it's likely that you aren't going as hard as on shorter WOD's either. Assuming a 200 pound athlete, I'd estimate you're in the 600-700 calorie range if you did Murph in 45 minutes.
The workout is typically done for time, and there is a 60-minute time cap. The Murph is a grueling workout that requires a lot of strength, endurance, and mental toughness.
Josh Bridges holds the record at 28 minutes and 45 seconds, set back in 2014.
But yes, it was a thing. Perhaps regional, as I'm also from California. If I remember correctly, the difference between a wedgie and a murph, is that a wedgie is intentional, usually provided by some bully, whereas a murph just happened naturally, perhaps from, say, wearing tight pants or roughhousing.
Doing the workout “unpartitioned” requires you to complete all 100 pull-ups before moving on to the push-ups, then all 200 push-ups before moving on to the squats. Prior to my 32:41 on June 18th, 2021, Hunter McIntyre held the record for the fastest known weighted & unpartitioned Murph with a time of 34:13.
If you're a beginner, less than 60 minutes is considered a good finish time. For exercisers who are advanced, you'll want to complete it in less than 45 minutes, and for elite athletes, less than 35 minutes. Following an unpartitioned format will take the longest.
Beginner Strategy
If you're a beginner and you've never done a Murph workout before, break up the pull-ups, push-ups, and air squats into 20 rounds of 5 pull ups, 10 push ups, 15 air squats.
Kipping Skill Practice
If you have been on the verge of getting kipping pull-ups or you can do some but your a little inefficient, Murph can actually be a good workout for you to deploy them. Most people break Murph up “Cindy-style” with sets of 5 Pull-Ups, 10 Push-Ups, and 15 Squats.
The Murph workout is challenging because it stresses most major muscle groups: the back and shoulder muscles with the pull ups, the chest with the push ups, and the legs and torso with the squats.
The Murph requires endurance, so if you can only do 20 pushups, don't start with 100+ pushups in your training workouts. You'll burn out and won't recover well enough for your next session. Here are some tips for anyone taking on the Murph: Allow 4-8 weeks to build the strength and endurance to complete the challenge.
In Murph, while the run portions must be done as a sandwich around the reps, athletes may break up the pull-ups, push-ups, and squats however they'd like.
A now-adult Murph finds her watch and is able to solve the equation that allows the human race to escape extinction.
The MURPH WOD is a demanding workout consisting of a mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats, and finished with another mile run. Sounds difficult right? That is only part of the story. An official MURPH time requires doing the workout while wearing a weight vest of 20lbs (men) or 14lbs (women).
Every single day for 362 days straight (as of publication), Jim Lubonski has put on a 20-pound weighted vest. Then he runs one mile, does 100 pullups, 200 pushups, 300 squats, and follows that with another one mile run. If he's still feeling good, he finishes up by doing his own workout as well.
As prescribed, Murph is performed for time. It starts with a 1-mile run, followed by a grueling sequence of 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, and 300 air squats. The workout concludes with another 1-mile run.