The Murph Workout: How to Pace It and Track It

4 min read

Murph is a benchmark workout done every Memorial Day in honor of Lt. Michael Murphy: a one-mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 air squats, and another one-mile run, traditionally in a weighted vest. It is a test of pacing as much as fitness, and it is easy to blow up in the first ten minutes.

The standard structure

One mile run, then 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats, then one mile run. The middle work can be broken up however you want. Almost nobody does 100 pull-ups straight. The classic approach is Cindy rounds: 20 rounds of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, and 15 squats, which adds up to exactly 100 / 200 / 300.

Pace the first run

Run the opening mile at a pace you could hold a conversation at. The calisthenics middle is where the time is won or lost, and arriving there already redlined turns a 45-minute Murph into a 75-minute grind. If anything, negative-split it: easier out, harder back.

Break the reps before you have to

Do not go to failure on early sets. If you can do 15 push-ups, do sets of 8. Small, sub-failure sets with short rests keep your overall pace higher than big sets followed by long recoveries. The Cindy-round structure enforces this for you.

Scale it honestly

Half Murph, which is half of every number, is a legitimate scale. So is dropping the vest, using band-assisted pull-ups, or doing ring rows instead. Log what you actually did, including the scale, so next year's comparison means something.

Track it as one entry

Log Murph as a single workout with the date and your total time, not 300 separate lines. In Nickels & Dimes it is a built-in workout: mark it complete and it records the full 100 / 200 / 300 breakdown for you, so it still counts toward your pull-up, push-up, and squat records and your monthly total.