61-Year-Old Grandmother Breaks Her Own World Record with Staggering 5-Hour Plank
A 61-year-old grandmother has beaten her own world record for the longest plank, holding it for five hours. DonnaJean Wilde, a retired teacher, from Canada achieved the record at the Huntsman World Senior Games in Utah recently, surpassing her previous record of 4 hours, 30 minutes and 11 seconds, per the tournament’s Instagram.
In a video posted by the games, Wilde is seen smiling while planking on a platform in front of an audience as they count down the final ten seconds of her holding her position. She then gives a thumbs-up and gently lowers herself as the crowd cheers.
Planking is primarily a core exercise where you raise yourself above the ground, leaning onto your forearms and toes for support in a horizontal position. This exercise is designed to tone muscles in the abs, arms, back, shoulders, glutes and legs.
Wilde said of her achievements, “Well, I didn’t always have a Guinness World Record as a goal. I started planking because I had broken my arm about 15 years ago. I love to work out, I love fitness and I discovered I could plank with a cast on.”
“I couldn’t plank very long … maybe a minute or minute and a half. And even after my cast came off it had become a habit,” she explained. “…It made me feel so good. And honestly I couldn’t believe that a person could improve themselves in planking.”
Wilde said she planks every day for two hours, which initially gave her the idea to set herself a world record. “I could easily plank for hours after so many years of planking every day and it just turned into a goal of a Guinness World Record. My mindset of going into that the first time was, ‘Remember DonnaJean, you love to plank.’ And I do, I just love it.”