DonnaJean Wilde, a 61-year-old retired schoolteacher from Welling, Alberta, held an abdominal plank for five full hours at the Huntsman World Senior Games in St. George, Utah on October 6, beating her own 2024 women's record of 4 hours, 30 minutes and 11 seconds. She told today.com she wondered for a long time whether five hours was even possible, and that after passing her old mark she "hit a wall" in the final half hour. It was the chanting crowd, she said, that carried her through: "I think, 'Wow, wow, we did it. We did it together.'"

Most gym-goers struggle to hold a standard plank for even a minute, which is what makes Wilde's five-hour hold so remarkable. Under Guinness World Records rules, participants must keep their forearms and toes on the ground the entire time without letting the rest of the body drop, and there were no breaks for the bathroom. Wilde reportedly trained in the early hours before the attempt, sometimes planking from around 2 a.m. until 6 a.m. to simulate the conditions, and went in purposefully dehydrated because she knew she could have only sips of water, per Vogue.

Wilde only discovered planking after breaking her arm in 2013, when a cast left her unable to run or do her usual workouts and she turned to core exercises instead. She could manage only a minute or two at first, she told today.com, but fell in love with the exercise and kept at it daily. According to the New York Post, a family plank-off during the COVID-19 pandemic revealed her talent when she reached the two-hour mark without breaking a sweat. She began formal record training in 2023, mixing planks with running, weight training and push-ups.

Vogue reports that Wilde, who has never worked with a trainer or coach, survives marathon holds by distracting herself: she reads, watches films (her favorite is the animated movie Sing), texts her family, and even writes while planking — her book is titled 'From Minutes to Hours: I Wrote This Book While Planking.' In the final minutes in Utah, she said, she was simply thinking about her nightly bowl of yogurt with puffed wheat. She credits planking with better posture, more energy and keeping her going at 61.

The Games' organisers posted footage of Wilde planking on a platform, smiling, as the crowd cheered her through the record — and one clip has racked up more than 9 million views, per today.com. The viral reaction, with commenters calling her a "legend" and the feat "the most insane thing I've ever seen," shows how a senior-games moment became a global fitness story.

Guinness World Records has received an application for the new five-hour mark and will review the evidence before making it official, according to moneycontrol.com. Wilde, a mother of five and grandmother of 12 who already holds the women's Guinness record for most push-ups in one hour (1,575 in 2024), hinted to today.com that she might target that record again rather than extend the plank — and the New York Post reports she wants at least 1,600 push-ups in an hour. She was back planking within days of the event.