Physics Grad Sets World Records for Ring Muscle-Ups

David Lloyd George, Physics 2024, is now a four-time world record holder for bar and ring muscle-ups. 

Lloyd George was back in the gym just two weeks after completing 2,002 muscle-ups in 24 hours in July of 2025, which broke the world record. He immediately started training for an even more challenging feat—the world record for the most muscle-ups done on a gymnastic ring in 8, 12, and 24 hours.

On Sunday, April 12, 2026, he surpassed all three, completing 900 ring muscle-ups in 8 hours, 1,100 in 12 hours, and 1,320 in 24 hours. (The records are unofficial until they can be reviewed by Guinness World Records.)

“I’ve sort of got a recipe for these world records now,” says Lloyd George, who used the challenge to raise money for the Wounded Veterans Relief Fund, a charity that helps veterans receive dental care. 

Since the summer of 2025, he steadily increased his training volume, pushing past 17,000 total ring muscle-ups, and completing longer sessions, including a six-hour effort of 722 ring muscle-ups.

A Harder Variant of A Muscle-Up

Ring muscle-ups are a more demanding variant of the standard bar muscle-up. The sway of the rings introduces instability and makes muscles work harder when the ropes move. The grip is also different. 

“You wrap your wrists around the rings almost like you’re trying to arm wrestle them,” Lloyd George says. Put in physics terms—a field he knows well as a doctoral student at Duke University researching trapped ions for quantum computing—the rings introduce four more degrees of freedom. 

The Math Behind His Three Attempts

His decision to attempt three world records came down to simple math. The current 8-hour record is 843, while the 24-hour record is 1,308. No formal record exists for the 12-hour category. 

“I realized that if I do two ring muscle-ups every minute, at that pace I’d get to 960 in 8 hours. There isn’t a 12-hour record, and there are for other calisthenic records, so I thought I could set that one, too,” he says. 

When he broke the bar muscle-up record in 2025, he didn’t know how challenging the final hours would be. The last 50 reps were grueling, and with the support of his friends and family who cheered him on, he pushed past his limits. Knowing what the challenge will feel like changes his mental preparation this time around.

“I think you have to play with the mental game and really ask yourself, ‘Why am I doing this?’ especially on those difficult training days. For those, I think about the charity I’m trying to raise money for that I believe in, and that this is one more opportunity to challenge myself.”