CrossFit Reclaims Murph as Memorial Day Tradition and Global Tribute

CrossFit moved Murph back to the front of its Memorial Day message, positioning the workout as the brand’s biggest shared annual participation event and a ritual that now stretches far beyond competition walls. Thousands of athletes have taken on the benchmark every Memorial Day since 2005, and CrossFit framed that repetition as a global act of remembrance built around service, effort and community.

The workout carries the name of U.S. Navy Lt. Michael P. Murphy, a Medal of Honor recipient from Patchogue, New York, who was killed on June 28, 2005, during Operation Red Wing in Afghanistan. CrossFit introduced Murph as an official Hero workout on Aug. 18, 2005, and the Memorial Day tradition grew organically inside the affiliate community rather than being pushed from the top down. That history still matters inside the sport because Murph is one of the few benchmarks that lives as much in garages, military groups and neighborhood boxes as it does on competition leaderboards.

The test remains brutally simple on paper and punishing in practice: a 1-mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 air squats and another 1-mile run, often with a weighted vest. CrossFit said athletes can partition the pull-ups, push-ups and squats as needed, and it has built scaling paths for beginners and intermediate athletes, including reduced-volume options and regression movements such as ring rows and elevated push-ups. The commonly used vest standards are 14 pounds for women and 20 pounds for men or body armor, and CrossFit has also rolled out a six-week training plan for athletes preparing for the benchmark at the end of May.

The numbers around Murph show why CrossFit keeps leaning on it. Search interest around the workout generates about 1.2 million impressions, roughly 50% above typical levels, while website clicks jump nearly 70% when Murph season hits. CrossFit said thousands of gyms program the workout each Memorial Day, and athletes can log results in the CrossFit app and compare times through the Official Murph Challenge worldwide leaderboard. That turns Murph into more than a one-day tribute: it becomes a public measurement point for who shows up, how they scale, and where they stand against the broader community.

The memorial side of the event has also become more formalized. The LT Michael P. Murphy Memorial Scholarship Foundation was started in 2007 by Dan Murphy, Maureen Murphy and John Murphy, and The Murph Challenge remains the foundation’s only official annual fundraiser. As Memorial Day approaches, CrossFit’s message is clear: Murph is still the sport’s most recognizable shared ritual, and its power comes from the mix of suffering, scale and remembrance that keeps pulling athletes back year after year.