4,210 Pull-Ups In 24 Hours: Caine Eckstein Breaks Guinness 12 & 24-Hour Records

Pull-ups are one of those exercises that leave you exhausted in less than a minute. Caine Eckstein’s goal on Monday was to do them for 24 hours in an attempt to break the Guinness World Record. Australian athlete Caine Eckstein came to American shores, set his sights on a physically daunting world record, had it live-streamed to the world and broadcast on America's most iconic morning show and somehow decided that still wasn't good enough. He wanted to double his shot at history.

And that's exactly what he did, as Eckstein has officially broken the records for most pull-ups in 12 hours and most pull-ups in 24 hours, live on NBC's Today. His 4,210 pull-ups completed in just the 12 hours he chose to compete were enough not only to beat the previous half-day record of 4,020, but the full 24-hour record of 4,182.
His attempt began live on Monday and continued into the night, before he made his triumphant return to air on Tuesday to accept his GWR certificates from official Guinness World Records adjudicator Alex Angert.

The previous 24-hour record was held by American Kyle Gurkovich, set in June. The 24-hour mark had belonged to king of the pull-ups Stephen Hyland (UK), who has set 25 different career records in speed and endurance pull-ups and chin-ups.

Caine proved a model of consistency throughout his attempt, performing one set of six repetitions every minute for the first 10 hours, before downshifting to five reps per minute for the final 2 hours of the attempt.

When asked before the attempt why he wanted to try the record, Caine responded about as nonchalantly as someone on the precipice of physical depletion could. "I don't know," he said. "I'm up for a challenge really. And I've always been sort of good and pull-ups, so why not try for a world record?"

Credit: Guinness World Records / Twitter