50th Birthday Challenge: 500 Pull-Ups
Sometime during the final months of 2024, I came across a story of Doug “Censor” Martin, and it stuck with me. Doug had been a professional Call of Duty champion about a decade ago, but simultaneously had always been a fitness enthusiast who strived to become muscular, in repudiation of the nerdy gamer stereotype. At one point, he was even sponsored by Gymshark.
When his gaming career tapered off, he dove headfirst into fitness, zeroing in on one particularly brutal challenge: breaking the 24-hour pull-up world record. He trained obsessively for 15.5 months under the guidance of the previous world record holder—a young guy from Australia. Livestreaming the effort for the world to see, he hit 9,250 pull-ups in a single day. His hands were shredded despite all the protection, and afterward he released a video about the mental and physical toll the journey had taken on him—what he described as the depths of despair. It was inspiring and intense.
I had no desire to compete with world records—especially one that seems to be broken annually now—but Doug’s effort made me wonder: how many pull-ups could I do in a day? The last time I tested my limits was in 2011 when I joined my friend Stacey Li Collver’s challenge. Stacey was celebrating the seventh anniversary of her double-lung transplant by doing 2,011 pull-ups over the course of the year, and she got me to join her. I was doing around 20–25 pull-ups several times a week, and on December 11 of that year, I did 151 pull-ups in one day to close out the challenge with her. That number—151—stood as my personal record.
As I approached my 50th birthday, I started thinking: what if I aimed for 500 pull-ups? That’s 10 for every year I’ve been alive. It seemed ambitious—maybe even a little reckless considering I was almost 14 years older than during my P.R.—but it felt like the kind of physical and mental challenge that could mark the milestone in a meaningful way.
I’d seen the cautionary tales, however, like when Browney, one of my favorite fitness YouTubers from the Netherlands, created a video in which his buddy Arjen—nicknamed Captain America—tore his bicep trying to beat David Goggins’ then-record of 4,030 pull-ups. I knew I had to be smart about it.
So, on the afternoon of my birthday, I headed to the calisthenics park near our home in Pontevedra. It’s a great spot, just 50 meters from the Lérez River, where the Multisport World Championships were happening that very week. Athletes from around the world were swimming right nearby as I settled into my own test of endurance.
I started at 2:42 p.m., armed with my Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2) to keep track of sets. The game plan was to do five pull-ups every three minutes until I reached 450. After that, I’d cut the rest time down to every two minutes. When I hit 475, I tried to knock out a bigger set—got to eight with good form, then added two more. From there, I finished with three clean sets of five.
That’s 100 sets in total. In between, I sat in the shade, answered emails, replied to messages, and read Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, which I’d started two days earlier. After 250 pull-ups—halfway through my goal—I ate this “you are cooler than ChatGPT” cookie, one of the several things Andrea gave me for my birthday.
There was something meditative about the whole challenge—punctuated effort followed by calm rest. In the last hour, another guy was working out at the park—doing pull-ups, push-ups, burpees—but we didn’t exchange words. I stayed locked in.
Despite staying mostly in the shade and wearing lots of sunscreen, I ended up with slight redness on my shoulders and back. I had mistakingly thought the UV index was under 3 by the time I was finishing (after 7:00 p.m.), and clearly, I should have worn a t-shirt instead of a running singlet, or at least remained in the shade instead of out in the sun during the last 50 pull-ups. Lesson learned.
Still, the challenge was easier than I expected. No ripped hands. No injuries. I chalk it up partly to being lighter than some of the big guys who go after these records. And the nearly 2.5 minutes of rest between sets was key. If I had tried to hit five reps every 45 to 60 seconds like the world-record chasers do, it would’ve been brutal.
One friend sent me a link to pull-up strength standards during the attempt, and it was illuminating. According to the data for various ages, an “advanced” 65-year-old male can do 8 pull-ups in one go. At 75? Only one. At 50, the “elite” mark is around 33—that’s a level I’m nearly at. Doing 500 in one day? There’s no data on that, but it’s clearly beyond any normal standard.
I would hope that in 15 years I could still do over 20 in a row. That’s a worthy goal now—to maintain this level, or close to it, well into my 60s and even 70s. I certainly want to be able to do way more than a mere pull-up at age 75!
After finishing the 500th pull-up, I felt… content. Not drained, not ecstatic, just quietly satisfied. I felt that if I had to, I could have continued on for several more hours until 1000.
To close out the day, Andrea and I went out for dinner at El Viajero del Norte—a Spanish-Asian fusion place we only go to about once a year. Every single time we go, we say the same thing: “This is the most delicious Chinese food I’ve ever eaten.” This time was no different. Everything was perfect. All in all, not a bad way to ring in a new decade.
New Age 50 Goal
Two days after my 500 pull-up birthday challenge, I returned to the same calisthenics park and happened to witness a guy pull off a clean muscle-up. What caught my attention wasn’t just the move itself—it was the way he celebrated afterward. He clapped and let out a burst of joy, clearly pumped about the moment, despite being alone. He had no idea I was about ten meters behind him, quietly witnessing the moment.
He gave it another go, and that time I recorded it—it was genuinely impressive.
I’ve known about muscle-ups for years now—my friend Adam first told me about them seven years ago—but I’ve never been able to do one myself. So after watching this mystery athlete’s display of strength and enthusiasm, I walked over and struck up a conversation.
His name was Sebastián, a personal trainer who shared that he’d been working on muscle-ups for five years before finally getting them consistently. No wonder he was so pumped—it had been a long road for him.
When I told him I hadn’t figured out how to do a muscle-up yet, he even gave me a tip. On the right side of the pull-up “cage” where he did his reps, there are a few lower rungs for your feet. He suggested using those to push off and jump just enough so your chest clears the bar. Once you’re up there, you finish the movement by pressing through with your triceps. That gave me a sense of what the final phase of the muscle-up actually feels like. His progression tip was to gradually use lower and lower rungs to rely less on the jump and more on strength and control. I’d never seen that method before.
And just like that, a new age-50 goal was born: to learn how to do a muscle-up. If (or when) I manage to make it happen, I’ll be sure to post a video here.
Update July 7, 2025: Success!
After more than a week of trying nearly everyday—and after seven years of failed, sporadic attempts—I finally was able to do a muscle-up! Once I had figured out how to do that first one, I was able to do four more (in four attempts) afterwards.
As you can see in the video above, my form wasn’t strict, as I was (instinctively, not intentionally) “chicken-winging” it with right arm first. But now that I can consistently get over the bar, I will work on cleaning that up so I am pushing with both arms symmetrically and simultaneously.
For me, the key was to start a full step back behind the bar, jump to it with my palm and fingers (including thumb) doing an “over grip”, and then milliseconds after the first swingback, pull up while driving my knees up.
From there, my chest somehow (I say that since I wasn’t conscious of it) leaned over the bar, which rotated my hands enough that I could push up with the arms.
Per the many YouTube videos I watched, it looked like as long as you can lean your chest over the bar, you’ve basically done the hard part. All you then have to do is press up.
Easier said than done, of course. For a whole week, I could consistently get my chest to the bar, but not over it:
It was because I spent too much time trying to swing, whereas I should have just pulled after the very first swingback. This is because the greatest amount of swing occurs right after you jump from the ground.
When I can do completely clean muscle-ups, I will probably write a post on everything I learned. Hopefully, it will help others to do a muscle-up, as even after watching more than a half-dozen YouTube videos, I could not do one until today.
