Age is nothing but a number as an American man named George Hood aged 62 recently broke the record for holding a plank.
On February 15th 2020, Hood held a plank for 8 hours, 15 minutes and 15 seconds, which Guinness World Records confirmed as the new record.
Hood, a former US Marine and retired Drug Enforcement Administration supervisory special agent has broken the record for longest plank before, in 2011 when he held it for 1 hour and 20 minutes. But when he tried to set it again in 2016, he lost to Mao Weidong from China, who held a plank for 8 hours, 1 minute and 1 second.
Hood, of Naperville, Illinois, said he was determined to reclaim his title. He trained every day for an average of 7 hours for the 18 months leading up to the big day, reported CNN.
“It’s 4-5 hours a day in the plank pose,” Hood told CNN. “Then I do 700 pushups a day, 2,000 situps a day in sets of a hundred, 500 leg squats a day. For upper body and the arms, I do approximately 300 arm curls a day.”
In total, Hood did around 2,100 hours of planking to prepare for the event, according to Guinness World Records.
When Hood finally got up on the platform to break the world record, he said he thought of his three sons. His rock music including Van Halen and “Du Hast” by Rammstein also kept him going.
No matter how much he wanted to stop, Hood said he had to keep going because he was doing this for a bigger reason than just himself. He was doing it to help raise mental health awareness.
With his experience in the military and law enforcement, Hood said he knew mental illness is often stigmatized. So he completed the challenge at 515 Fitness, a gym that helps address mental illness through exercise and professional help.
He could have stopped planking at any time after the 8 hour and 1 minute mark, but Hood said he pushed toward 8 hours, 15 minutes and 15 seconds to get the “515” numbers in there and dedicate it to the gym.
To celebrate the reclaiming of his world record title, Hood finished off the event with a quick 75 pushups.
Hood said this will likely be his last time breaking the world record for planking, but his next goal is to set the Guinness World Record for most pushups completed in one hour, which currently stands at 2,806.
The female record is currently held by Dana Glowacka from Canada, who held a plank for 4 hours, 19 minutes and 55 seconds last year, according to Guinness World Records.
