muscle up

muscle up (third-person singular simple present muscles up, present participle muscling up, simple past and past participle muscled up)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To train the muscles for increased size and strength.

   We spent the summer trying to muscle up for football next term.

2. (intransitive) To force one's way into or through.
   • 2007, Neil Schlecht, Spain for Dummies, page 470:

     There are only about ten tables, so you'll probably have to wait — or just muscle up to the bar like everyone else.

3. (transitive, intransitive, figuratively) To make stronger or more powerful.
   • 2007, Rick Atkinson, An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943, page 26:

     Churchill had again thwarted the American impulse to muscle up in the Pacific theater at the expense of the Atlantic […]

• speculum