Five hours of determination: Canadian grandmother tops her own plank record
DonnaJean Wilde has found plenty to celebrate at the Huntsman World Senior Games in Utah. The 61-year-old grandmother of 12 held an abdominal plank for five hours, surpassing the Guinness World Record she set in 2024.
Wilde, a retired teacher from Welling, Alta., completed the feat before judges and a cheering crowd. Her previous record was four hours, 30 minutes and 11 seconds. Speaking to CBC News Network on Friday, she said she was “feeling good” as she waited for Guinness to make her new result official.
“I just love it,” Wilde said of planking. “It just becomes easier to do the more repeated times you do it.”
In an abdominal plank, a person keeps their body straight and raised while resting on their forearms and toes. Wilde’s enthusiasm for the exercise began about 15 years ago, when a broken arm left her looking for a way to stay active.
“I love to work out. I love fitness, and I discovered I could plank with a cast on,” she said. “And when the cast came off, it became a habit that I actually embraced and fell in love with.”
At first, Wilde could hold the position for about a minute to a minute and a half. With practice and encouragement from her family, she worked her way up to hours. In 2024, she earned her first plank record—and another Guinness World Record for completing 1,575 pushups in one hour.
These days, Wilde says she planks for at least a few hours daily and makes good use of the time. “Just read, do texts, whatever, do schoolwork. I did a master’s degree while I was planking. Wrote a book,” she said. Her book, From Minutes To Hours: I Wrote This Book While Planking, came out last year.
For Wilde, what started as a way to stay fit with a cast became a lasting source of joy—and, with her latest five-hour effort, another remarkable milestone.
