Gym owner secures place in the Guinness World Records for most chin-ups

A former professional mixed martial artist has broken the Guinness World Record for most chin-ups in an hour whilst wearing a 20lb weight.

Damien Rooney from Burren, outside Newry, clocked up 499 reps to beat the previous record of 495.

He now intends to build upon the record and push towards a fresh challenge for the 24-hour record which could require as many as 10,000 reps.

Damien, who runs his own gym, hopes to take on his next record attempt in April 2027.

In a nutshell Damien says a chin-up is performed with your palms facing towards you and the brunt of effort being felt in the bicep. This compares with a pull-up, where your palms are facing outwards and your lats take the bulk of the strain.

During his fighting career Damien fought under the moniker "The Rage". He says it was this period of his life which fuelled a desire to compete for a Guinness World Record.

"I've always been in and around the fitness game and during my fight career I took a full liking to the strength and conditioning element of it," he said.

He says his training was more suited to chin-ups, rather than pull-ups.

"In 2018 I first attempted the most chin-ups in 24 hours and had a few unsuccessful attempts at that through injury."

These unsuccessful attempts included torn muscles and heat exhaustion. But Damien says these are inconsequential when compared with the realities of the fight game.

"It is pretty extreme. The constant overload on the body. But as painful as this is, its very localised and very much in your control – but a really rough fight? It doesn't compare. It's night and day."

After his last unsuccessful attempt he recalibrated his training, focusing on the shorter, weighted, one hour target. Despite being much shorter, he says it is far from a sprint race.

"I think people think you'd just go out and start pumping them out but if you do that the body will fatigue and it will fatigue quickly making recovery hard. So the better way to do it is to go on a cycle where you are maximising your work but maximising your recovery in between."

To this end he broke the hour down into two minute blocks with 30 seconds of rest in between.

Ahead of a fresh assault on the 24-hour record, Damien will next take on the one- hour, unweighted challenge.

"Without the weighted jacket the record is something like 1,010 so it is night and day without it."

Those future challenges are for a different day.

After beginning this journey in 2018, having his record confirmed by Guinness is an achievement worth waiting for.

"I did this on June 1 and they told me in September. It can be up to 20 weeks because they have to go through the tapes and watch it from different angles. They are very stringent to make sure it is authentic."

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