Michael
A Hero WOD honoring Navy Lieutenant Michael McGreevy, killed in Afghanistan in 2005. A straightforward triplet of running, back extensions, and sit-ups.
- Format
- For Time
- Level
- intermediate
For Time
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Open in FizMichael is a for time workout by Fiz, built from 3 movements. It is set at intermediate level.
About Michael
Michael is three rounds of an eight-hundred-metre run, fifty back extensions and fifty sit-ups. It is a hero workout honouring Navy Lieutenant Michael McGreevy, killed in Afghanistan in 2005. There is no barbell and no gymnastics skill involved, which makes it one of the most accessible hero workouts in the catalogue — and one of the most misjudged.
A running workout with a posterior-chain tax
Two and a half kilometres of running is the bulk of the time here, so Michael is fundamentally an aerobic test. What makes it more than a run is the back extensions: one hundred and fifty of them across the workout, loading the lower back and hamstrings that you then have to run on. Athletes who attack the extensions find the second and third runs strangely heavy, and the cause is rarely obvious in the moment.
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Run the first eight hundred like it's the third
The pacing rule is simple and almost universally ignored: your first run should be the same speed as your last. Most athletes run the opener thirty to forty seconds faster than the closer and lose more than that across the rest of the workout. Move through the back extensions steadily rather than snapping into extension at the top — this is the one movement where speed genuinely does not pay, and where an aggressive approach reliably leaves you with a tight lower back for the next run. The sit-ups are the recovery segment; use them to get your breathing back before you go out again.
What's a good Michael time
Under twenty-two minutes is a strong Michael and elite athletes go under nineteen. Twenty-two to twenty-seven is a good competitive time and most consistent athletes land between twenty-seven and thirty-five. If back extensions are not available, a good-morning pattern or a hip extension holds the stimulus better than substituting another abdominal movement — the point of the pairing is running on a fatigued posterior chain.