If you do CrossFit, you have probably done “Murph.”
The Memorial Day workout is a rite of passage for athletes in our sport, with thousands participating in the running, pushing, and pulling every year to honor Lt. Michael Murphy, who was killed in action while serving in Afghanistan in 2005.
It’s a brutal workout that tests the mind and body, and for many people, doing it once a year is plenty.
Then there’s Royce Laguerta. He didn’t just stop at one Murph — he did 1,000 of them.
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The Beginning
Laguerta had been training CrossFit for a few years in the Las Vegas area. During the COVID lockdowns, his affiliate was doing “75 Hard,” a challenge that pushed participants to commit to a specific regimen of exercise, nutrition, and reading for 75 days.
- “We finished all the phases of 75 Hard and decided to do ‘Live Hard,’ which is even more difficult,” Laguerta tells the Morning Chalk Up in an interview. “We started, and almost immediately, I smashed my back. I was getting strong, doing two-a-days, eating well, and not drinking alcohol, and I started to get cocky.”
On that day, Laguerta was working toward a deficit deadlift for max load.
- “I heard a pop in my back, and I knew what had happened because I had done it before,” he says. “I knew I would be out for two or three weeks easily. We were so close to finishing Live Hard, and I knew I had to do something else — I had to do a workout outside for at least 45 minutes every day.”
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The Healing Power of Murph
One of Laguerta’s coaches suggested Murph — he knew he could comfortably do the bodyweight movements sans vest and walk the mile, allowing him to keep up his fitness while healing his back. Laguerta continued this for a few days, slowly completing one Murph per day.
He began jogging the miles as his back improved, all while continuing his massage protocol and rehab.
Here’s a quick refresher on what Murph is:
For time:
- 1-mile run
- 100 pull-ups
- 200 push-ups
- 300 air squats
- 1-mile run
Wear a vest if you have one: 14 pounds for women, 20 pounds for men.
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After a week, he decided he could don the vest.
- “I finished the week, and some of my coaches started to egg me on, telling me I couldn’t do it for 30 days,” Laguerta remembers.
Always down for a challenge, he called their bluff and completed 30 days of Murph. At that point, the training felt good, so he attempted it for another round of 75 Hard.
- “I was somewhere in the 60s [days out of 75] when someone sent me the profile of a guy named Jim Broski, who was doing something similar,” Laguerta says.
Broski was doing Murph every day for a year so Laguerta decided to do the same thing. Laguerta made a video diary of sorts, saying what day he was on, showing B-roll footage of his workout, and posting for others to see. Initially, he hoped to potentially monetize the videos, chasing external validation.
- Then, something else started to happen, and Laguerta turned inward.
The 45-60 minutes it took him to complete the workout every day became time not just to work on his body but time to improve his mind.
- Laguerta explains how the shift happened: “When I’m doing Murph, I listen to books or podcasts. So there was a stretch where I was reading at least a book a week, and one that really affected me was Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter.”
Easter’s book explores the concept that a modern, comfortable life makes people soft, and by embracing discomfort, people can improve their lives and happiness. There was a specific story in the book that resonated with Laguerta.
- “These Nepalese monks were chosen to have a spiritual journey. For 1,000 days, it was required to do a marathon through the mountains,” he says. “It wasn’t for physical growth but for spiritual [growth].”
Laguerta wondered if he would begin to experience spiritual growth like this and decided to continue doing Murph for 1000 days to see if he could.
The Journey to 1,000
Anything you do that many times can become tedious, so Laguerta allowed himself to mix it up.
Sometimes, he would change the weight, use a sled, or do a handstand walk for the last 400 meters of the run.
- On Memorial Day, he went 12 hours straight. During days like that, he started to realize he didn’t even feel the physical pain, which broadened his mind to entertain growth he previously couldn’t fathom.
As the miles and reps ticked by, Laguerta’s perspective on why he was doing this workout over and over again in the first place.
Something that started as a workout while recovering from a back injury became an hour a day where he was doing something that could benefit others.
- He decided to turn all of his footage into a documentary of the journey, seeing it as a way to teach people how to keep going to achieve goals.
“It doesn’t matter if you have a reason to keep going; just keep going,” Laguerta says. “You don’t need permission to do something grand; maybe the why will just show up.”
The Biggest Takeaway
Laguerta recently finished Murph number 1000 and has been reflecting on the journey.
He found so much value in these 1,000 days — especially mentally and spiritually — and it gave him a purpose for so long. But you don’t need a purpose to go out there and do something with it.
Laguerta admits he is a different person now than when he started.
- “It started with an injury, and it started with a question, and you just follow that, and that is the gift itself,” he says. “You don’t even know what that gift will bring you. I don’t care about the thousand. I just want to go out there and do something with it now.”
Interested in learning more? Watch the documentary I Did Murph for 1,000 Days: This is What Happened on YouTube.
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Featured image: @roycelaguerta / Instagram
