In high school, John Bocek said he could barely do one pull-up. He later attended Virginia Military Institute, where pull-ups became his “thing.”
Now, Bocek, 34, can do 5,800 more pull-ups than he could in high school.
Bocek, who works at Merrill Lynch by day, completed 5,801 pull-ups over a 24-hour period this past weekend, potentially setting the Guinness World Record for the under-explored feat.
In May 2015, Michael Tufo of New Jersey set the world record for pull-ups with 5,101 of them. Bocek has submitted the evidence of his results to Guinness and hopes to be named the official record-holder in the next week or two. ARLnow first reported on the record-breaking attempt.
Bocek has been training for the marathon pull-up session for the last two years.
“All I did for two years was pull-ups,” he said, noting that he actually didn’t do any other exercise other than pull-ups — no legs, no cardio, no weights — during that time. “It’s probably against every personal trainer’s advice.”
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For much of the time, Bocek trained at Ballston CrossFit, which his friend owns. Sometimes, he’d go in and train for six hours in the middle of the night to acclimate his body to working at a time when it wants to be sleeping.
He completed the 5,801 pull-ups at Ballston CrossFit in front of a couple of dozen people who flowed in and out of the gym over the 24 hours. The onlookers consumed pizza and beer while they watched. Bocek chowed on cold mashed sweet potatoes, beef jerky, two full jars of crunchy peanut butter, flax seeds and a slice of pizza.
“When you’re doing this, everything looks so good,” he said.
Bocek completed what he called “strict pull-ups” — pull-ups where his chin goes over the bar on the way up and, on the way down, his arms fully extend. He only stopped on occasion for about 15 minutes at a time. If he stopped for any longer, he said, his finger and elbow joints would swell and it would be too painful for him to get back on the bar. His attempt at breaking the record was livestreamed on YouTube.
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His body is in so much pain now that he’s barely slept since he completed the pull-ups on Sunday.
But Bocek’s not quitting yet. He assumes that his record will be broken soon — because, well, there are seemingly other people who want to break this record — and may try to one-up himself in the next few months.
“I’m going to take a two-month break, my record will probably be broken sometime soon,” he said. “I am playing with the idea of trying to break 7,000 before the end of the year.”
And Bocek’s right — doing 7,000 pull-ups is not something any fitness professional would advise clients to do.
“It’s an incredible amount of pull-ups,” said Tucker Jones, the owner and head coach at Ballston CrossFit. “It’s not something I would recommend for your average person or average athlete.”
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