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Glite Dictionary
💪 To gather courage 🏋️ To pull over bar
to muscle up

to muscle up

8.1
Gather the courage to face a hard task
  • phrasal verb
  • Informal
translation icon : reunir fuerzas
  • Before her big presentation, she had to muscle up the courage to speak in front of the audience.

Examples

  • To face the tough exam, she really needed to muscle up her focus and resolve.

  • He decided to muscle up his determination and start training for the marathon.

  • So imagine if you, when you build your muscle up and your build your bone up, that it, it just stays at mass.

Synonyms

to buck up
vsto muscle up
  • Informal
14 6.3

To become or make someone more cheerful and confident

is about building inner strength for challenge, not chiefly cheering up
to muster up
vsto muscle up
10 5.1

To find enough courage or energy to do something

gathers strength specifically to prepare for a coming challenge
to saddle up
vsto muscle up
  • Informal
8 5.2

Get ready mentally and physically for a long trip or hard task

prepares by gathering inner strength for a single challenge
to rise to the challenge
vsto muscle up
6 4.2

Face a difficult task and succeed at it

concerns gathering courage beforehand rather than acting during the event
to take courage in both hands
vsto muscle up
7.9

To make yourself brave enough to do something difficult

focuses on preparing by collecting bravery for facing a challenge
to huckle up
vsto muscle up
  • Informal
9.9

Get ready to act with energy and strong focus

is about getting ready by building strength and courage first
to eagle up
vsto muscle up
  • Informal
9.9

To face a difficult task bravely and try your best

focuses more on preparing strength before the challenge rather than acting

Antonyms

to give up
∞ 1.2

To stop trying to do something or accept defeat

to shrink back
  • Informal
1 4.7

Move away because you are afraid or disgusted

How Determined

to muscle up
  • Informal
8.1
to pull oneself together
  • Informal
81 5.1
to compose
33 4.7

Surface Forms

muscle up infinitive
muscle uped past
muscle uped past participle
muscle upping present participle
muscle ups third person singular

Morphology

muscle + up

The parts 'muscle' (strength/physical effort) and 'up' (movement to a higher position) give a B1 learner a clear hint that the expression involves using strength to move upward, so a general sense (pulling oneself upward) is inferable. However, the specific gymnastic meaning—a pull-up immediately followed by a dip in one continuous movement—is a technical, specialized sense that is not fully predictable from the constituents, making the expression only partially transparent.

Etymology

Muscle up comes from the image of using your muscle to push yourself up before a hard moment. So it means 'to gather strength or courage' to face a challenge.