Mental Toughness: Preparing for MURPH

By Coach Amber  Hopeman

It’s been a year since we reopened our doors following quarantine.  Many of us are still working from home, homeschooling our children, and adjusting to reestablishing that human contact we so craved.  Even if we didn’t crave it, many of us realize just how much we miss it after it is taken away.  We have all had to make certain consolations, compromises, and sacrifices over the past year.   We were just trying to survive, not thrive during this time.  

Last year I wrote this blog post on how to go about mentally and physically preparing for Murph coming off of quarantine.  This year, we have a ton of new members and even though many of us have been back at this whole CrossFit thing for a bit now, it is still important to take note just how ready we are to execute probably the most popular and recognizable CrossFit HERO Workout there is:  MURPH.

The basis behind any HERO workout, in my opinion is to honor those that it is named for,  reaching deep within yourself to find that inner strength , remembering their sacrifice and pushing yourself most likely beyond where you think you can go both physically and mentally.  They are long workouts and meant to be grueling, but man, can they be fun!  MURPH is one of those I always look forward to.

For a lot of us,  we have spent the last year doing exactly this : searching for that inner strength, achieving things in manners we didn’t think possible, surviving each day. We have come out of quarantine finding ourselves still isolated from those we work with, having to find connections in new ways and finding new ways to stay motivated.  Despite the world returning to a new normal,  we are exhausted .  We HAVE sacrificed.  As a Navy veteran and former Army Wife, I will also tell you that just because your sacrifices were not made on the battlefield, does not make them any less valid or real.

So this Memorial Day, if you are in town and are able to complete MURPH, consider these sacrifices. Consider: your workload, how much you have been actually working out, have you been prepping for this workout, how much of that 20lb weight vest you normally wear are you carrying around daily now because of your diet,  ARE YOU REALLY READY ?  The thing about MURPH is it’s high volume.  What is your strict strength like right now?  When is the last time you attempted a high volume pullup workout?  When is the last time you ran a mile?  Attempting 100 pullups for the first time in over a month (even a week) can put some serious strain on your body.   The risk of injury is extremely high. 

Unless you are a competitive athlete (in which preparedness for this WOD should not be an issue), your goal at the gym is most likely to maintain a certain level of fitness and probably look good naked.  In order to maintain that level or even improve, your biggest goal should be to remain PAIN FREE!  So when thinking about how you are going to go about MURPH this year consider one last thing:  sometimes the greatest example of mental toughness is doing what is right, and in this instance that is SCALING !  It’s easy to go HAM all the time, but is it the right thing to do?  I recognize that making the decision to scale MURPH after the year that we have been through may not be what you want to hear, but it is what you NEED to hear.

So go to the gym, do ring rows or bent over DB rows for the pullups, drop to your knees for the push-ups or with hands on a box, squat to a box or ball if your range of motion is not what it used to be.  Bike instead of run.  Grab your SwoleMate and make it a PartnerWOD.  As coaches, we want you to always understand the intent of the movement and workout so you know what level of intensity you are trying to achieve.

For those of you who are ready to tackle Murph head on: If you have never done MURPH unpartitioned, consider doing so before throwing on a weight vest and splitting up the reps.  Or wear the weight vest for the run but take it off inside the gym.  Adding weight at this high of volume without preparation will only lead to unnecessary injury.

So don’t forget the intent of MURPH, the intent of MEMORIAL DAY: to  come together as a community and honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice .  The minute you have walked in that door to the gym you have done that.  Clicking the Rx button doesn’t change that.

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