Gym fit man is internet sensation

A professional photographer has become an internet sensation as he puts all his strength and stamina into an exhausting gym challenge in Tavistock.

Chris Tyrrell will bid to complete 5,000 pull-ups or more within 24 hours on Friday, September 25, at the NL Fitness gym at the Westbridge Industrial Estate. His popular attempt helps to show that failure is not the end, just the beginning.

The target would beat legendary athlete David Goggins original 2013 world record by exactly 1,000 reps. This isn't the current world record - but it is the one that made the sport of endurance pull-ups famous and has only been completed a by a handful of people globally.

He will be starting at 12 noon on the 25th September, his thirtieth birthday, and continue to do pull-ups with no sleep until the job is done (12 noon on Friday, September 26.

Chris, a wedding photographer and videographer, began re-training nine months ago after a failed attempt two years ago, posting his daily pull-ups to his TikTok with 300 followers.

At the beginning of August this year he reached 100,000 pull-ups, and gained Tik Tok 25,000 followers through the process - all in training for this 24hr challenge.

During the final stream in which he officially crossed 100,000 pull-ups, 300,000 people came to the livestream Tik Tok over the 4.5hrs it took him, worldwide.

And 13,500 people concurrently watched the final ten reps live. He gained 14,000 of those 25,000 followers in those 4.5hrs.

Chris said: “Throughout the last nine months there have been injuries, loss of a beloved pet, and the usual day-to-day battle of building and running my own small business - which has prompted many interesting discussions amongst those who've made watching my streams part of their routine.

“I've had people discuss loss of loved ones, repeat viewers begin to form their own friendships and small online community, and contrary to the common experience of social media - have found it to be exceedingly positive.

“My hope is to demonstrate that despite all of life’s challenges, if we chip away day by day we can do anything we can dream of.

“Additionally, due to the failure two years ago I'm hoping it'll also serve as a message that failure is a matter of perspective and time-scale as I redeem myself this time after further work.”

The link is to one of Chris’ promotional videos for the 24hr challenge: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZN86kGF9h/

The second link is to the previous live event where he reached 100,000 reps in front of 13,500 people:

This thrd Link is to his TikTok profile documenting the whole journey (starting in his garage): https://www.tiktok.com/@christrieschallenges