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Right after graduating from ������ƵAPP, Theo Lopez Marques (M.Eng. CM ’24) wanted another accomplishment under his belt—one he’d been working toward at least as long.  

Within weeks, he gained a national reputation for the “muscle-up” in what some see as the most demanding of strength sports. A muscle-up, in the parlance of the growing sport called streetlifting, is like a pull-up—but instead of stopping at the chin, those competing in the sport pull their entire waist above the bar. To make it even harder, they attach weights to their body while doing it.

“You have to have muscles, but you can’t be fat. This sport is amazing because it makes you shredded and strong at the same time,” says Marques. “This sport changed my body and my mind. It taught me discipline, resilience, consistency—you have to work hard every day. You just gotta build a better body and a stronger mind.”

The summer after his graduation, in the 2024 USA Streetlifting National Championship in Maryland, Marques broke two national records and came in first in his weight class: 66 kilograms, or 145 pounds. And when using the sport’s formula that divides the weight lifted by a contender’s total body weight, he came in second place for all weight classes.

It was the first time that he’d competed in the sport in the United States.

Dustin Clark, who trained under Marques and came in second in the USA championship competition in 2025, says Marques “is known for his impressive muscle-ups. That’s what made me want him as a trainer, even though he’s six years younger. I put my pride aside, and said, ‘Why not? With a muscle-up like that!’”  

Adds Clark, “When you’re there you’re witnessing raw strength, you can’t ask for more than that.”

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Marques says he was a “very, very skinny” kid while growing up in France.  

In his second year of high school, in Colmar, he bought a pull-up bar and started working out at home. He got stronger while receiving the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Strasbourg, before deciding to get a dual master’s degree in the field from ������ƵAPP and in France.

He had planned on training harder, but his first year at college—during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown—he cut a tendon in his hand while cleaning some dishes for his mother. His hand was in a cast for 12 weeks before he could start rehab.

“It made me lose a lot of weight. I went back to being even skinnier than when I started, down to 115 pounds,” says Marques, who is 5 foot, 11 inches tall. “Just bones and skin.”

“That’s when the discipline really started.”

Like he did then, Marques now wakes up every day to arrive at his local gym at 5 a.m. and work out for at least an hour and a half a day. He competed in a regional streetlifting competition in France and won first place.

Says Clark, “He’s really, really strict. He’s very disciplined in his schedule: work out really early in the morning to train, go to work, eat right, repeat.”

Like powerlifting, the sport of streetlifting centers on a single burst of energy. But instead of powerlifting’s bench, squats, and deadlifts, streetlifting measures weighted muscle-ups, weighted pull-ups, and weighted dips, in addition to squats.

And while the tangentially related sport of calisthenics (streetlifting is sometimes called weighted calisthenics) allows for a lot of reps, streetlifting competitions allow contenders three tries at a single, maxed rep in each category.

“All those workouts, all those hours where you sweat and grind at the gym for weeks, maybe months and years, everything happens in seconds,” Marques says.

In 2025, rather than compete in the USA national championship, for which he instead became a judge, Marques decided to compete internationally. He took part in the South American Streetlifting Championship, which includes competitors from North America.

Marques, the only contender from the United States, placed 10th out of the 18 people that qualified in his weight class. He intends to try again next year.

“My goal is to represent the USA in this sport at the World Championship,” he says.  

“I want to eventually start my own company, but I also want to keep doing my sport—build a business around streetlifting and help train others. It’s such an amazing sport that deserves to grow. And I just want people in the U.S. to be healthy and stay active, because training is the best tool we have to fight aging.

“I’ve met incredible people in this sport,” he adds, “and we share the same mindset and ambition. At the end of the day, we just support each other.” —Tad Vezner