AILSA CHANG, HOST:
And now, a world record attempt that's pretty hard to believe. DonnaJean Wilde, 61 years old, held a plank for exactly five hours at the Huntsman World Senior Games earlier this month in Utah.
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UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: Four, three, two, one.
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CHANG: Now, for those of you who are unfamiliar, a plank is an abdominal exercise where you hold your body in a rigid, straight line all the way from your head to your heels, supported only by your forearms and toes. Wilde already held the record for longest plank held by a woman, at four hours, 30 minutes and 11 seconds. And she says she almost didn't make it past that mark this time.
DONNAJEAN WILDE: When I got to four hours and 30 minutes, I really did hit a wall. But with 10 minutes left or 15 minutes left, the CEO of the games, Kyle Case - he was on the mic, and he had that whole crowd cheering me, and that's why I made it through.
CHANG: Wilde's five-hour plank is currently under review by the experts at Guinness World Records. She says her love of the plank began about 15 years ago, when she had just broken her arm.
WILDE: I couldn't plank for very long - like, a minute, a minute and a half - but it was something I could do with a cast on, a broken wrist.
CHANG: But when the cast came off, she kept planking, and she kept getting better at it.
WILDE: And then my family - my kids, my husband - they said, you know, Mom, people don't do this. They don't get on the floor and just plank. So maybe you should, like, think about going for a record or something.
CHANG: Now, I know what you guys are all thinking out there. Why would someone choose to plank for so long? Well, for starters, Wilde says this kind of prolonged exercise gives her the same kind of rush as a runner's high. But also, she says, it's a good opportunity for multitasking.
WILDE: I completed a whole master's degree while I was planking, wrote all my papers. And I actually wrote a book.
CHANG: She is not kidding. She has apparently mastered the skill of typing on her laptop while propped up on her elbows, planking.
WILDE: As a teacher, so much of my life has been just trying to encourage people to find something that they love and then repeat it, because that just changes your brain.
CHANG: DonnaJean Wilde is pretty good at pushups, too, by the way. She once did 1,575 pushups in an hour, which was also a world record for a while. She says she might try and break that record again if she can find herself to take a break from all that planking.
(SOUNDBITE OF HVNSENT SONG, "SAVED MY SOUL") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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