What Happened When We Hosted Our First Memorial Day Murph Workout

A few months ago, if someone had described how our first Memorial Day Murph Workout would actually go — an 8-year-old finishing the whole thing with her mom, a room full of modified pull-ups and kung fu substitutions, people voluntarily running around a strip mall on a beautiful Monday morning — I’d have nodded politely and assumed some exaggeration was involved.

It wasn’t.

On Memorial Day, American Academies of Martial Arts hosted our first Memorial Day Murph Workout to honor the men and women who lost their lives serving this country, and to raise money for the 50 Mile March, a charity focused on veteran mental health. It went well. Better than we’d planned for.

For anyone who’s never heard of Murph, the traditional version is a 1-mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats, and another 1-mile run, all done in a 20-pound weighted vest. It’s a lot. That’s sort of the whole idea.

We were clear from the start that people should modify the workout however they needed to — for injuries, health conditions, time constraints, fitness level, whatever applied to them. That openness was intentional. We wanted something challenging without being intimidating, and we wanted families to actually feel welcome instead of just being told they were.

Robin and Carly came in and worked through a modified version together. Carly got introduced to banded pull-ups, which provide their own special kind of feedback. Laura, Lacey, and Alison worked around their own injuries and conditions with different scaling and pacing. Some people used elevated push-ups. Others swapped pull-ups for rows. Chair squats showed up. Nobody got pushed past what made sense for their body, and that was the point.

Since the whole thing was happening inside a kung fu school, we built in a few martial arts substitutions too. Two minutes of butterfly passes with the staff counted as 10 pull-ups. Garrett was a big fan of that one. Two minutes on the heavy bag counted as 20 push-ups. One minute of horse stance counted as 30 squats. The horse stance trade may have been generous on our part — 60 seconds in that stance brings a whole new level of burning to one’s glutes. 

The standout moment was 8-year-old AG finishing the entire Murph alongside her mom. It took them close to four hours, and they didn’t quit. That’s what martial arts training is actually about.  Continuing once it gets hard no matter what.  AG is quite the rockstar! But she wasn’t the only one. 

Plenty of other people showed up in their own ways. Johnathan only had a short window that day and used what he had, which counted. James was a first-timer and, predictably, handled it. Justin Ogburn finished his first Murph doing the full strict version, which is no joke — you don’t accidentally make it through Murph without serious training behind you.

The Memorial Day Murph Workout picked up meaning beyond the reps along the way too. At one point Justin got a text from someone asking him to do pull-ups in memory of their late father-in-law, who’d served in the Navy. That was exactly the kind of moment we were hoping the day would create.

That’s really why we did this. Memorial Day exists to honor the people who died serving this country, not to anchor a mattress sale. Mr. G. has been firm about not running Memorial Day discounts at the school, and not participating in any other sales either — there are 364 other days a year to run a promotion — and we wanted to point people back toward what the day is actually for. Reflection. A real challenge. Support for veterans. Time with other people who care.

So that’s what we set up. People could do the workout, modify the workout, cheer somebody else through it, donate, or just hang out and be part of the atmosphere. All of those counted equally.

There was food. There were prizes. Kids ran around the mats. Legs got tired. High-fives happened. So did some genuinely exhausted smiles by the end of it.

By the time we wrapped, Justin had already pulled in more than $200 in donations toward the 50 Mile March, which he’ll be walking for the fourth year. Mr. G. is signed up for his first march this year too. And one person who came to watch ended up signing up to try a kung fu class this week after spending time at the school during the event — which wasn’t the goal of the day, but wasn’t a bad bonus either.

This was our first Memorial Day Murph Workout. It won’t be our last.