A HELENSBURGH personal trainer who tried to break the world record for the most pull-ups completed in 24 hours has vowed to try again next year.

But Joe McCready has also revealed that the injury which brought an early end to his effort was actually a blessing in disguise.

Joe, a manager at The Journey on West Clyde Street, made a bid to smash the record on November 28, only for a recurring shoulder injury to force him to give up nine hours into proceedings.

The 23-year-old was on track to break American John Orth’s figure of 7,600 as his technique of completing three pull-ups every minute had seen him complete 1,900 reps heading into the early hours of Sunday.

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But afterwards it was realised that if Joe had been able to continue and surpass his target, the attempt wouldn’t have been validated as a genuine world record – because cameras filming the event hadn’t been set up in the right places.

The man from Balloch told the Advertiser he made the right decision in stopping after tweaking his shoulder and is thanking his lucky stars that he never went on to complete the full 24 hours.

Joe explained: “I had hurt my shoulder a few weeks ago when I was training, but over the weekend of the attempt it just got really sore.

“It got to the point where I had to ask myself ‘do I keep going through with this and do permanent damage or stop now and fight again another day?’

“When I was setting up for the attempt I was getting the cameras all set up and wanted the cameras in specific places so it would count as a world record, but the cameras were in the wrong place as it turned out.

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“I checked the footage and if I had done it then the record wouldn’t have counted!

“The front facing camera proves that your body is straight before you pull-up, and the side-facing camera proves that your chin goes above the bar – but that wasn’t showing.

“It’s a blessing in disguise that I had to stop when I stopped.

“If you don’t believe in a God there is one now – he’s obviously seen that if I keep going it’s not going to count, so I’ll injure his shoulder and if he stops he can try again another time.

“I don’t have a date for it next time but it’ll be next year when I attempt it again.

“I just need to rehab my shoulder and let that recover and then get back to pull-uping again.

“At the moment my missus is pregnant and is due in March so I don’t want to do it before the baby arrives as it could happen at any point now.

“Ideally I don’t want to be mid world record and then she goes into labour!”

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Joe admits he has learned plenty heading into his next attempt and will do things differently next time.

The personal trainer is also delighted with the sum of more than £2,000 that was raised for local mental health hub Jean’s Bothy through his efforts.

He continued: “The positive I’m taking away is the money raised for the Bothy in such a short time.

“I’ve had mates say to me that they are looking at breaking world records as well so it’s quite nice to see people have taken a bit of inspiration from it as well.

“I had to do it at four o’clock in the afternoon because that’s when the gym shuts and I didn’t want to take away time slots from members to do it.

“I’m going to do it from the morning next time, because when you get to midnight you’ve then only got six or seven hours left rather than 16.

“It was a rubbish time to do it because I had already been awake for ten hours before I started – being up for 34 hours probably isn’t the best when you’re trying to break a world record.”

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