This Veteran Broke Pull-Up World Record – The Way He Did It Will Shock You
Guy Valentino planned to beat the previous Guinness Record of 5,801 by doing 6,000 pull ups in twenty-four hours. While he didn’t make his goal, he has nothing to be ashamed of since he broke the old record with 5,862 repetitions. Guinness was on hand to watch Valentino make his attempt.
37-year-old Valentino spent 10 years as a Marine in Iraq. When he returned home, he was incredibly depressed. He suffered from PTSD after losing 16 men to explosive devices. It was difficult for him to return home as a civilian after all that time. One day, he realized that while he’d always been fit, he’d gained some weight. He slipped into dress pants one day and realized he’d grown some love handles.
This motivated him. He told himself that he was done being weak, and he started working out at the gym. As he grew stronger, his depression started to lessen and confidence returned. With his new mindset, he saw his life improving, and decided to make training his full-time job. He opened his own CrossFit gym too. Valentino wants to focus on helping veterans that suffer from PTSD, depression and addiction.
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With this in mind, he set his sights on showing other veterans what was possible and partnered with Spike TV’s Veterans Operation Wellness initiative to film his Guiness attempt. Hundreds of veterans showed up to cheer for Valentino.
Valentino says he trained for the event as if he were running an ultra marathon. He took his ultimate goal and broke it up over the month. During the event, he had prepared mentally too. He had a map of Iraq and a Marine Corps flag near him to help motivate him during his attempt. The biggest motivation was Army vet, Brandan Ferreira, who is an ambassador for the Yellow Ribbon Fund’s Taking Up Fitness campaign. He was beside Valentino doing his own pull ups one-handed since he is an amputee.
The previous record was held by John Bocek who completed 5,801 pull ups in 24 hours. He performed this feat for the cameras at the Ballston CrossFit and submitted the attempt to Guinness. Bocek trained for two years to succeed in his attempt to beat the previous record, which was completed by Michael Tufo of New Jersey in May 2015.
For the two years that Bocek trained, he didn’t do anything else aside from pull ups. He admits it probably goes against everything a personal trainer would advise. He didn’t do any cardio, weights or leg exercise. Occasionally, he would go the gym in the middle of the night to get his body acclimated to working without sleep to complete the 24 hour challenge.
Anyone who wants to compete against the latest record set by Valentino, which includes Bocek since he did mention that he plans on completing 7,000 pull ups next time, would need to train over a long period of time by increasing their pull ups each day. You’ll have to apply for the chance to attempt to break a record. The applications are available from Guinness World Records online and are open to anyone who wants to attempt to break a record. It can take weeks to get an application approved, but that’s time that you can use to train for the most pull ups to beat Valentino or Bocek if he fulfills his promise.
