Scott Panchik’s Guide to Conquering the Murph Workout
Murph is a benchmark workout in the CrossFit community. It’s typically completed on Memorial Day in honor of our fallen soldiers. The standard workout includes a 20 pound weighted vest for men and a 14 pound weighted vest for women, while completing the following:
- 1 mile run
- 100 pullups
- 200 pushups
- 300 air squats
- 1 mile run
Tips for Excelling at Murph
Murph is a brutal, long workout that requires pacing. CrossFit Games athlete Scott Panchik shares some tips to help break up the workout into more manageable components.
Run tips: On the first mile, come out at a comfortable pace and keep your heart rate under control.
Pullup tips: Small sets on the pull ups, anywhere between 3-5 reps at a time, depending on if pull ups are a strength or weakness for you.
Pushup tips: Many people come into the pushups and hit a set of 15-20 pushups, forgetting that they have to do 200. Think about breaking these up from the get-go as well into smaller sets.
Air squat tips: Scott suggests doing 10-25 squats at a time, shake out your legs, take a step forward, and hit the next set. Having some resting points in there is key.
Final run tips: At this point, your legs are going to feel very, very heavy. Use a quicker stride and let your arms carry your legs through the last mile.
Here’s an example Murph breakdown Scott recommends for beginners (no weighted vest):
- 1 mile run
- 20 rounds of 5 pullups
- 20 rounds of 10 pushups
- 20 rounds of 15 air squats
- 1 mile run
How to use Marc Pro to Recover from Murph
Scott Panchik uses Marc Pro to recover from long workouts like Murph, in addition to his everyday training. For Murph workout recovery, Scott focuses on his quad recovery by putting one electrode on the top part of his VMO and then up a little higher on the quad. Make sure you get a good muscle contraction going. If you aren’t, move the pads around slightly so they’re on the densest part of the muscles or on either end of the muscle. For arm recovery after Murph, Scott recommends placing one electrode on the palm of the hand and the other near the armpit, right where the tricep meets the bicep.
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