A soft-spoken, thoughtful 37-year-old from Brookline who graduated from Harvard Law School and has a Ph.D. from Oxford, Sandel was that guy at his neighborhood Boston Sports Club. “I knew I was good at pull-ups, and they were my favorite exercise,” he said, “but it wasn’t until the trainers at the gym pulled me aside one day and said, ‘No, you’re really good at them.’”
OK. Cool. Good to know. Didn’t really mean anything until 2015, when Sandel happened to read an article in the Globe about Ron Cooper.
Cooper, 47, is a financial planner from Marblehead who also knew he was probably the strongest guy at his gym, but didn’t know how strong until he happened to catch a Guinness World Records television show in the early 2010s. In it, a man was attempting to break the world record for most push-ups in a minute. Cooper was shocked to learn he could beat that record, quite handily. Which he did, and then went on a tear breaking numerous world records for bodyweight exercises such as chin-ups and pull-ups.
Adam Sandel, a lecturer at Harvard Law School, has shattered numerous pull-up records.John Tlumacki/Globe Staff
If you’re picturing what went through Sandel’s mind when he read that article, you’re probably only half right. Yes, he set out to beat Cooper. But, in a move that would have a profound impact on both of their lives, he also reached out and asked if he could join him.
Over the past decade, Sandel and Cooper have become training partners and, more importantly to each of them, close friends. It’s a pairing that has created a near-constant stream of new world records.
Over coffee on a recent Saturday, before they headed to the gym for their weekly “pull-up workout to end all pull-up workouts,” they were struggling to remember how many they’ve broken and re-broken, often trading them back and forth.
To sit across from them, you would not suspect you are in the presence of two of the world’s strongest men. Cooper is 5’10”, 167 pounds, and looks like a guy who ran track in college, which he did. Sandel is 5’8”, 150 pounds, and looks the part of a lecturer at Harvard Law School who has written two books about philosophy. (His latest, “Happiness in Action: A Philosopher’s Guide to the Good Life,” was inspired by the lessons he’s learned on his record-setting quest. Cooper read the drafts and offered suggestions.)
When they tell the story of their friendship, Cooper sounds like the proud mentor, especially when he gets to the inevitable: the protégé has surpassed the master. At least for pull-ups. When the two met, Sandel could do about 44 dead-hang pull-ups. Recently, he smashed a world record by doing 77.
In one minute.
The idea of doing more than one pull-up a second for a full minute seems impossible, and for years, the two battled to get there. In the process, Cooper set the world record twice, maxing out at 58, unofficially; Sandel broke the record five times, eventually blowing past that one-a-second barrier (his new goal is to get to 80). The two also continually traded the record for most pull-ups in a minute while wearing a 40-pound pack (Cooper broke it twice; Sandel three times, and currently holds the record at 46).
“He got so good at pull-ups that he forced me to focus on chin-ups and push-ups,” Cooper said. Though that is not as modest as it may sound, for he’s kept his foot on the gas and continues to set Guinness World Records, putting up dizzying numbers. In May, he set marks by doing 126 push-ups in a minute while wearing a 20-pound pack, and 36 chin-ups in a minute while wearing a 40-pound pack. Just the previous week, he did 41 chin-ups in a minute with a 20-pound pack, breaking the record of 38.
In total, Cooper has broken 31 different strength and fitness world records, and currently holds seven. Sandel holds four current records and has broken 14.
As they moved a few blocks from the coffee shop to Underground Fitness’s personal training studio, Cooper surprised Sandel with a gift from a recent trip to the famed Gold’s Gym in Venice, Calif. It was a baby onesie, and Sandel let out a big smile. He and his wife are expecting their first child in about a month.
Adam Sandel (left) and Ron Cooper warmed up at Underground Fitness.John Tlumacki/Globe Staff
With warmups and onesies out of the way, they got into their weekly partner workout, where they focus on intervals, philosophically. “One of the overarching things is to appreciate the activity itself, and not just the result,” Sandel explained.
They started with phase one, five sets of five chest-to-bar (Sandel doing pull-ups; Cooper doing chin-ups, where the palm is facing you), with only a minute rest in between. This is nothing too out of the ordinary, except they did it while wearing a 3-pound chain hanging off their waist that was strapped to a 44-pound kettlebell.
Watching them was Joe Howard, the trainer who first told Sandel he was a pull-up savant. Howard, who later founded Underground Fitness, said he has about 30 clients he trains, and only two or three can do a pull-up.
“I knew he was significantly better than anyone I’d ever seen,” Howard said, “but I didn’t know he was going to do this, break all these records.”
For phase two, they moved to bodyweight and did five sets of 12, as fast as possible, every two minutes. Then, for the final phase, they gave themselves a whopping 2 minutes and 30 seconds of rest in between sets, but did four sets of 25.
With the workout over, Sandel took out his phone and started shooting video for what has become a side hobby on his journey: teaching pull-ups and muscle-ups — a more challenging maneuver where you get your waist to the bar — for those chasing records, or simply hoping to get their first.
His Instagram account, professor.pullups, has 382,000 followers. And, as is often the case, Cooper was more than happy to serve as cameraman for his competitor. His friend. And, most of all, his philosophical partner in this deep quest they share to do simple, difficult things with a human body that have never been achieved before.
Billy Baker can be reached at billy.baker@globe.com. Follow him on Instagram @billy_baker.