Plank World Record Event
04 December, 2010: NEW Guinness World Record of 19 minutes and 58 seconds
A story of triumph over adversity
Throughout history there have been many stories of people achieving great success when the odds were stacked heavily against them. I have to say that mine is probably one of them. As a young boy, a teenager and even into adulthood I was badly bullied, both physically and mentally. It had a profound effect on my life. So dented was my confidence that fear and self-doubt often got in the way of me from pursuing my dreams. To compound the misery I have suffered excruciating back pain for most of my working years yet in a strange quirk of fate it, along with the bullying, both have conspired to prepare me for the greatest day of my life.
The birth of a dream
One fine day many years ago when I was a small boy, a good friend of mine shouted me over to show me an amazing book full of pictures of people performing extraordinary feats. One image stood out head and shoulders above the rest to me and that was a picture of a gargantuan super-heavyweight Russian weightlifter that had so many plates on the bar he was lifting that it looked like it may actually snap. I was completely in awe of this image and you have probably guessed by now that the book I was shown was the Guinness Book of Records.
From that day on my desire was to one day become a world champion: perhaps an Olympic gold medallist or maybe a professional sportsman, but certainly a world champion. Like most young boys in the 1960’s, I wanted to be the next George Best though it wasn’t long before I realised that I didn’t have the skills required to be a great footballer. Nevertheless, I used to practice for hours playing football and cricket, and run around for an eternity because I loved the buzz that exercise gave me.
At the age of 15, I decided to take up Golf as my Uncle Pat had given me an old club to practice with. I remember as a kid sitting with him staring at a black and white TV watching Jack Nicklaus beat Doug Sanders in an epic Open Championship battle. Remembering Nicklaus taking off his sweater to drive the 18th green still makes the goose bumps rise up on my skin. I loved the game so much that my desire to improve was immense and my work ethic second to none. Every available day I used to walk the 4 miles to and from my local Golf Club, clubs on my back along with a humungous pack of sandwiches to keep me energised. I would play 18 holes, hit hundreds of practice shots, play another 18 holes, and then practice my putting until it was so dark that I couldn’t see the hole. If sheer hard work and dedication had counted for anything I would surely have been a superstar but what I lacked was confidence, self-belief and a mentor to nurture my game. Though I was a good golfer, I wasn’t a great golfer.
A winner’s education
Little wonder that I ended up in the sports industry selling equipment for many years but that career afforded me the opportunity to mix with professional sports people who knew how to win. They were not just talented at their sport, they had also developed the ability to deal with pressure in potentially winning or losing situations. Through many conversations they unwittingly taught me how to become a winner too. Among the many gems I gleaned from them was that you must:
a) Have clear goals with a realistically achievable step by step route to that destination
b) Remain consistently positive throughout your pursuit of achievement
c) Stay in the moment and be focused on what you trying to execute
d) Overcome life’s obstacles by seeking a solution rather than dwelling on the issue
e) Work tirelessly and never give up, no matter how hard the journey to your goals becomes
Of course there are other reasons why people achieve success but without these basic fundamentals, winning will remain a distant dream. One thing you can be sure of is that if you wish to be a winner, don’t just hope that it will happen - you must ‘make it happen!’
Chasing a record
When I embarked on my ‘plank’ odyssey I mapped out a route to achieve my goal. I set a target time and a date by which to achieve that goal. I broke my journey down into realistically achievable steps so that I could focus on climbing each small step to success at every subsequent training session. I modified my diet to that of an Olympic Athlete and every night I visualised where my event would take place, what it would look, what it would sound like, and exactly how it might feel to realise my goal. Eventually I could only see myself achieving success. The hardest part of the journey was the effort of organising the event and recreating the exact image of my vision was a phenomenal challenge but the hard work involved only made the taste of victory all the sweeter.
My initial goal was to break the unofficial record of 25:08 by the 31st December 2010. My training started in January of that year and involved not only performing the plank, but also hour upon hour of weights and cardio training. If ever someone had the tools to achieve this feat of endurance it was me. Why? Because 30 years of pushing my body beyond its physical and mental limits, and learning how to cope with over 20 years of excruciating back pain had taught me how to experience life outside of my comfort zone. That is what you must do to develop as a human being because if you do not, you will eventually plateau and slide back to mediocrity.
Armed with this mantra, I made it my goal to try to add one minute to my personal best every single time I performed the plank. As each progressive plank specific session came, I created a new personal best time. The toll it took on my body and mind was so immense that I often had to wait well over a week to recover before tackling the next session. However, this strategy paid big dividends because by July of 2010, I had achieved a personal best of 25:10 to break the unofficial world record. This was the first time in my life that I had set out my goals visually with a step-by-step approach but boy did it work! I was so proud and elated of my achievement yet without the approval of Guinness it was merely a hollow victory.
The official record
I now needed to know what the official world record was but found out that the only way to discover this was to actually apply to Guinness World Records ™ to break the record itself. Hence, that is what I did and after several weeks of waiting I was informed to my amazement that the official best time was under 5 minutes duration. That was the good news. The not so good news was that the technique required by Guinness was different: your hands cannot touch, your elbows and feet must be no wider than shoulder width apart and your body must remain static throughout. The first time I tried this new technique I lasted only 10 minutes – what a shock! It was brutal, it required a whole shift of emphasis in my training, and gave me a much greater appreciation of why the official record had wrongly appeared to be so innocuous.
Time for change
Following the shock of my initial session I changed my training strategy and started my new regime. However, unlike my previous experience of meteoric progression I hit the wall at 12 minutes. In fact, I was stuck there for a full 6 weeks! With the benefit of hindsight I now realise that this plateau had resulted from the frustration of meeting so many obstacles whilst organising my event and the fact that I wished to raise money for Cancer Research UK (my wife Mandy has an incurable Lymphoma) only doubled that frustration. My plan had been to host the event in late summer or early autumn but it wasn’t long before winter closed in. My vision of having a having a large crowd of spectators and donors was sinking at a rate of knots and metaphorically dragging me down with it. I had to re-think my strategy once again and decided to make 3 important strategic changes:
1. I added weight to my plank specific training
2. I changed my ratio of protein, carbohydrates and fats to quickly reduce body fat
3. I assembled an organisational committee to help reduce the stress I was under
As soon as these changes had been implemented I broke through my plateau. The shock of performing a weighted plank caused my muscles to increase in strength, reducing my body fat lessened the effects of gravity, and the event organisation gained momentum thus relieving my frustration.
I could not and would not fail
Though the committee were now on board, I realised that it was going to be winter before I could make my record attempt. One day I suddenly had one of those ‘light bulb’ moments. Through the fog of frustration I realised that fate had conspired to reveal an obvious date for my event: Saturday 4th December. Saturday was important to me because my friends, family and supporters were more likely to be able to attend – their support would be crucial to my success. The date itself was of massive emotional significance being my Wedding Anniversary and 51st Birthday. This was the final piece of the jigsaw that galvanised my spirit enabling me to push on. I now had the opportunity to achieve a lifetime’s ambition of becoming a Guinness world record holder and try to help to increase the life expectancy of Mandy and other cancer sufferers like her. No pressure? Not really because it merely enhanced my belief that I could not and would not fail. Failure was never an option!
Leading up to my event, I was invited to appear on Rutland Radio as part of my awareness campaign. Whilst I was there I had the good fortune of chatting with presenter Rob Persani. He was touched by my story and agreed to host the event in his own free time. He did a fantastic job of building the atmosphere among the crowd of well-wishers on the day itself and I have to say that a big part of the overall success of the event was as a result of his efforts, enthusiasm, and recognition of what I was trying to achieve. Not only was I grateful of the opportunity to plead my case for people to donate and attend my event, I was also grateful as the experience of appearing on Radio indirectly boosted my confidence allowing me to execute the programs organised for that day more effectively.
One final twist
The whole journey of my quest to break the Plank world record was a tangled mass of thorns, full of trials and tribulations. But there was to be one final twist as on the eve of the event as I fell ill with a very heavy cold virus. Many years of training experience have taught me that your short term performance will diminish rapidly when you are ill but if you accept that fact, and deal with illness positively by looking beyond the present, you can still achieve your objective. That said this was a somewhat unique situation as the following day I was expected to perform one of greatest ever feats of human endurance, right in the centre of Stamford High Street. My one comfort was in the knowledge that I could not have done more to prepare for this day; I only ever went down in my plank training when my body caved in, not my mind. I had supreme confidence in my own mental strength.
A ‘happy day’
The next day I felt happier and more content than I can ever remember. Though I was congested with the virus, I had slept well and I felt in my heart that it was going to be a ‘happy day’. I knew that I was going to break the world record but that it was only a question of by how much? The few days leading up to the event had seen heavy falls of snow and freezing temperatures. There was considerable doubt that the event would even go ahead but I accepted that this was out of my control. Though it was cold on the day of the event, the snow had abated and the temperature had risen to above freezing, just enough to allow the event to take place. My first task was to perform a Boot Camp fitness display instructing a group of 10 wonderful volunteers. This was more actually more daunting than the record attempt itself because my reputation as a trainer was on show and unlike my record breaking attempt there had been only one short rehearsal beforehand. Despite any reservations it was great fun and the display went down well with spectators. The fitness display was followed by a charity auction where people bid for some amazing lots kindly gifted to me by a number of sources. These two pre-event warmers not only helped to swell the crowd of onlookers but also created the opportunity to increase donations; in the end the charity goal became the overriding objective, even more so than achieving the record itself.
Saving Mandy’s life
Finally, the moment came for me to perform my record breaking attempt had come. Rob Persani interviewed me one final time where I declared my undying love for Mandy and told her that I was not going down until my body gave in. It was reminiscent of a scene from Rocky and I don’t mind admitting that I felt like I was living that scene in reality. I stepped onto the stage and settled myself in, before rising up into position to commence battle. Emotions were running high in the crowd yet I was strangely calm myself. The last few seconds before the klaxon sounded were quite surreal. I suddenly realised that this was the moment I had been waiting a lifetime for. This was the moment that I could show the world what I was made of. From the second the klaxon sounded, I focused on one thought only: ‘I have 20 minutes to save Mandy’s life’. The klaxon went and up I rose.
The rollercoaster ride from hell
I was now braced in this fully contracted position and the crowd started to cheer. As each minute passed the crowd cheered louder but at 3 minutes my whole body began to shake - much earlier than usual. I knew that the virus would affect me and though I had achieved a personal best of 20 minutes in training only the week before, I knew that day it was going to be like trying to push water uphill. At 5 minutes the crowd went ballistic and I knew the record was mine, but I was not going down until I had achieved my own personal goal. Several times each minute my body screamed at me to give in, but each time I visualised my love for Mandy to shut out the agony. It was the rollercoaster ride from hell. At 10 minutes my body was shaking violently and at 15 minutes every muscle fibre was wracked with pain. Never had time gone by more slowly. Practice taught me that if I could hang on until the final 2 minutes that I could make it the whole way. The countdown of the final few seconds before the 20 minute mark began. My head felt like it was exploding and my body like it was on fire. As soon as I heard 20 minutes I crashed down on the stage in total exhaustion. How I managed those last two minutes I will never know.
This achievement will not sink in for some time
I remembered trying to move from the stage but no part of my body would oblige. I just lay there lifeless in a heap. Several minutes later I dragged myself to the edge of the stage to be greeted by an emotional Mandy, then my two sons Dan and Joe, and finally my brothers Steve and Andrew who had driven down from Grimsby to share my experience. To see them all beaming with pride was worth every second of the pain I had endured. There wasn’t a dry eye in the crowd. Then Rob Persani came over to interview me. This was a special moment for me because Rob was such an integral part of the whole event. I cannot recall what we said in its entirety but I do remember me uttering that well used cliché ‘this will not sink in for some time’. As I sit here writing this story, I can honestly say that the scale of my achievement has barely scratched the surface of my brain. Only after the event did I learn that the clock was not in sync with the judges’ stopwatches and thus the crowd had innocently cheered 2 seconds too soon, genuinely believing that 20 minutes had passed. Hence my record stands at 19:58 – oh for those last 2 seconds once again but such is life!
Your dreams are your very soul
There is a moral to this story. If you have visited this site looking for inspiration to start a new fitness regime or radically change your life, I truly hope that you have drawn strength from reading my story. I want you to know that whilst I have always been a keen sportsman and enjoyed keeping fit, I wasn’t a world class athlete. However, I have always aspired to be the best that I can be at whatever I do so no matter what obstacles life has thrown my way, my dream of becoming a world champion has always been my inspiration to help me keep on improving. Your dreams are your very soul and without a dream a person has nothing. I have proved that age is not a barrier to making your dream become a reality. Often the biggest barrier is to becoming successful is yourself as it is you who sets your own limits? Dare to dream, dare to try and fail, because it is only by failing that you can learn to win. Over these many years I have made myself into a better athlete through sheer dogged persistence and a burning desire to achieve my ultimate goal. For the majority of you reading this story there is absolutely no reason why you cannot do this too. When I was in my late teens I made a pact with myself – I would become fitter as each decade passed. This is my mantra. I have yet to fail!
The legacy of a dream
In my quest to become a world champion, I achieved many things. I used to be dreadfully shy but now I relish the opportunity inspire as many people as I can by telling my story. The bigger the audience the more it inspires me. Never in my wildest dreams could I have ever imagined saying that! Just a few years ago I was clinically obese but having lost 4 stones in weight I am now fitter and healthier than I have ever been in my life. Only two years ago I broke down after a long career in sales but resurrected my life to become a Personal Trainer, Boot Camp Fitness Instructor and now a motivational speaker. That is what can be achieved if you try hard enough for long enough. Never forget that it is YOU who is the architect of your dreams.
Finally, I want you to know that for me, the greatest achievement and legacy of my event came from raising money for Cancer Research, the cause that is dearest to my heart. I have lost so many family members to this disease and now my wife faces the battle of her life. Because of this I am now committed to keep raising money to find cures for cancer until the day I draw my last breath. Though I am proud and elated to become a world record breaker, my desire to help others is worth far more to me than a certificate or gold medal, and thus I have made it my life’s mission to share my experience with as many people as possible to help inspire them to fulfil their dreams to become healthy, to become successful and above all else, to become happy.
