Mug Suck

About Mug Suck

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The goal of mugsuck.com is to document mug sucks as comprehensively as possible.

Mug suck has several modalities:

heavy mug suck - lifting as much weight as possible with a mug suck.
functional mug suck - accomplishing a practical task (e.g. vacuuming, carrying groceries) with a mug suck.
contemplative mug suck - using mug sucks as a way to center something as an object of attention.
homage mug suck - mug sucks as a vehicle for arts and culture dialogues
lifestyle mug suck - just enjoying the process of it without any performance goals.

Cleaning a Toilet with a Mug Suck

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

An extremely easy and high value functional mug suck. No technical challenges and little suction forced required. Beginner friendly.

Contemplative Mug Sucks

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Contemplative mug sucks bring our focus to a specific object or concept.

Factory Farming

I find myself disturbed by not knowing how many distinct chickens comprise this bulk package I got a great deal on Costco. There’s something about the way that individual subjectivities are collapsed into interchangeable commodoties based on some shared objective property that makes me kind of uneasy these days. I think of the way we objectify not only animals but also each other. All too often, we treat other people like the infant treats their mother’s breast: something with no interiority of its own from which value is extracted.

Contemporary Bluegrass Mug Suck

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The banjo is the quintessential instrument of bluegrass. Noam Pikelny’s playing in the Punch Brothers was a great artistic inspiration for me (even though I’m not really a musician). “Waveland” from his solo album is an incredible example of lyricism emerging from the substrate of technical mastery - a longing melody appears in the midst of blazing fast rolls and arpeggios. My hope is that a similar lyricism emerges with mug suck training - perhaps there is a hidden grace and beauty in this act that tends to be automatically perceived as repugnant.

Factory Farming Contemplative Mug Suck

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Five-Pound Mug Suck Repetitions

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Some endurance mug sucks. I usually did these for 5lbx5x5. There is a real question of what the value is of a set of 5 vs an extended duration mug suck, given that the primary driver seems to be the body and not the mouth (which is just isometrically maintaining suction). I maintain that 5 reps are still more valuable than a max duration suck, because a rep trains the body to move while the mouth maintains suction, which better sets you up for functional mug sucks later.

Functional Mug Sucks

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Functional mug sucks are the use of a mug suck to accomplish a practical task. These have a lighter, more playful feel than heavy mug sucks or contemplative mug sucks. Still, they present the most technical challenges of any modality given the complex movement patterns underlying them.

Opening the Fridge

The main technical challenge is establishing sufficient suction beforehand to maintain mug contact during the rapid increase in force when you start pulling the door open. It’s an inverted U shaped force curve – opening the door takes a spike in pulling force, but once it’s opened, little force is required to continue opening it. This ‘whiplash’ is hard to get used to if your primary experience is heavy mug sucks. For efficiency reasons, you should practice maintaining the minimal suction necessary to accomplish your objective. This means modulating suction throughout the course of the action - a skill totally distinct from max effort heavy mug sucks.

Hardy Boys Contemplative Mug Suck

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Hardy Boys books were originally written in the 1930s by a handful of writers. In the 1970s they were heavily revised. They were made 20% shorter and more action-oriented, and the plots were significantly altered. I grew up reading the 1970s versions, but as an adult have started reading the 1930s versions. There is an uneasy nostalgia in this – I am reliving a past that was not mine substantially, although I can still see my own childhood in it. I realize my own childhood was a distortion, a palimpsest.

Hauling Costco Items with a Mug Suck

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is relatively straightforward from a physical pulling standpoint. The real difficulty is in clipping into the bulk paper towels or toilet papers appropriately. A shallow clip will likely tear the plastic during the pull. Additionally, note that faster is easier, because if you go too slowly, the costco item will fall to the ground and pull your mouth down.

Heavy Mug Sucks

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Heavy mug sucks are mug sucks performed as a strength discipline. This was the first modality I experimented with after many years of lifestyle mug sucks.

Ultimately, I lost interest in these after I discovered that I wasn’t really getting stronger. I’m not sure how mug sucks work biomechanically, but I believe that significant physiological adaptation isn’t possible. Mug sucks don’t use muscles in the same way as conventional lifts like squats, deadlifts, or bench presses. Improvements come from technique rather than tissue adaptations.

Homage Mug Sucks

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Contemporary Bluegrass Music (Punch Brothers)

Lifestyle Mug Sucks

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Most people begin their mug suck journey with lifestyle mug sucks. A lot of people can remember doing something like a mug suck as a child, usually with a plastic cup. And sometimes the urge randomly strikes as an adult.

There’s a lot of reasons someone may enjoy lifestyle mug sucks:

Some people are simply seeking a novel sensory experience.
Shy people might use mug sucks to become ’the funny guy’ instead of ’the guy who doesn’t say anything’, because it’s unreasonable for people to expect you to talk if you’re performing mouth suction.
It may function as an absurdist gesture - the mouth, culturally and biologically, is the nexus of human-environment interactions: it is the primary consumption port (food) and production port (words) of humans. In a society obsessed with consumption and production, disabling the means of human consumption and production is a radical statement about non-goal-directed “just being”.

So why don’t more people progress beyond this? I hesitate to even use the word “progress”, because I don’t want to imply a teleology to mug sucks, but I also think people often settle at a destination due to lack of imagination rather than informed choice. It wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of lifestyle mug suckers would be interested in exploring other modalities if they knew they existed.

Opening a Refrigerator with a Mug Suck

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Plant-Based Diet Contemplative Mug Suck

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We take the sun into our bodies, transitively, and this lowers our cholesterol and decreases our risk of mortality. At the same time, plants high in FODMAPs refuse digestion and assimilation, and our stomachs rumble: a microcosm of a supernova in our digestive tracts.

Positioning a Light-Therapy Lamp with a Mug Suck

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

You might think this is a highly niche mug suck use, but up to 5% of US adults struggle with SAD each year. Admittedly the utility of the mug suck itself is rather limited here, because it can’t be used to administer the light therapy, but it’s a valuable proof of concept for future health care applications of mug sucks.

Snaking a Shower Drain with a Mug Suck

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The most difficult functional mug suck given the inconsistency in suction force required from moment to moment. It’s hard to do this without over-sucking and exerting a lot of effort. I have yet to succeed. Given the rarity at which I need to shake my shower drain, I don’t have many opportunities to practice this one.

Ten-Pound Mug Suck One-Rep Maximum

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A heavy one rep max of 10lbs. Getting the angle of the head relative to the weights is absolutely crucial here. You could probably lift even more if you had a mug with the handle on the bottom, eliminating the awkward angle, but that would no longer be a mug suck in my opinion.

The Rite of Spring Mug Suck

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A great album. The pared down piano trio version really brings out Stravinsky’s dissonance. I have a habit of listening to it on the Spring equinox every year. My hope is that mug suck training recontextualizes mouth suction (usually an activity performed unseriously by children) in the same way The Bad Plus recontextualized Stravinsky.

Turning Piano Sheet Music with a Mug Suck

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Another exercise in dynamic force modulation. Use the absolute minimum amount of force needed to maintain suction while playing, then increase suction for the page turn. Decrease suction again when returning to playing.

The main challenge is preparatory: you have to poke holes in each page of sheet music and attach zip ties in them so you have something to clip into. The secondary challenge is aesthetic: many find the pause in music frustrating instead of contemplative.

Vacuuming with a Mug Suck

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

One of the more graceful functional mug sucks, bordering on dance. Evokes a sense of freedom and whimsy in a discipline that can otherwise feel quite rigid and serious. Probably the most playful application of a mug suck I’ve found to date.