Starkville Residents Honor Veterans With Hero Workout

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – In the U.S., many have a set image of how Memorial Day can be celebrated: ceremonies honoring fallen soldiers and good ol’ fashioned barbeques.

In recent years, however, another way of spending part of Memorial Day made its way to North Mississippi, hero workouts.

It’s not enjoyable, but that’s why gym goers across the country do it.

These are workouts designed to put people through extreme physical exertion, not just to honor but to give people an actual idea of what it takes physically to serve our country.

Gathering around a whiteboard, gym-goers at TaylorMade Fitness in Starkville look at the words written with both dread and excitement.

For Memorial Day, this gym has a hero workout.

“So, a hero workout in CrossFit is a special workout that we like to name for our men and women soliders, who have fallen in the line of battle,” said TaylorMade Head Coach, Ryan Young.

Young says these workouts are intense and exhausting, but that’s the whole point.

“Something this intense, it gives you a lot of time to think just kind of about the service that these men and women are going through,” he said.

“Basically to remember the fallen soldiers that, you know, sacrificed all for this country. It’s kind of a workout to honor them,” said TaylorMade regular, Jonathan Lewis.

The choice at TaylorMade is popularly known as the “Murph,” named for Lieutenant Michael Murphy, a Navy Seal who was killed in Afghanistan in 2005.

“He died protecting the rest of his team,” Young said.

The workout itself is intimidating, to say the least.

“It’s really cardiovascular and intense,” said Lewis. You do a mile, followed by, I believe, 100 pullups.”

“200 pushups, 300 body weight squats, and then another mile run,” Young added.

Some hero workouts are designed after a soldier, but Young tells us the Murph is special.

“This is actually a workout he enjoyed doing himself,” Young elaborated. “It was his favorite workout, originally named body armor.”

That is why you can see people with a weighted vest to intensify the workout.

Vest or no vest, for everyone including myself the Murph is physically tolling.

Nevertheless, these men and women know what their getting into beforehand and say it’s the least they can do to honor those who have paid the ultimate price.

“I know me personally, that second mile at the end, when you’re hurting, everything hurts, and you can’t feel your legs, that’s when you really start thinking deep about what these men and women have gone through,” said Young.

It may be painful, but it’s a way to tell Veterans thank you for taking pushing the limits of the human body and protecting our freedom.