DonnaJean Wilde, a 61-year-old grandmother from Alberta, spent five hours face-down on a mat at the Huntsman World Senior Games this month, holding an abdominal plank long enough to break a world record she already owned.
According to Daily Hive, Wilde's attempt in St. George began at 3:03 p.m. local time, with judges rotating out hourly to verify her form until she finally lifted off the mat at 8:03 p.m. — a total hold of five hours and seven seconds. That beat her own previous mark of 4 hours, 30 minutes and 11 seconds, set in March 2024, by nearly half an hour.
ABC News reports that Wilde, a grandmother of 12, has spent years building up her planking endurance specifically to chase this record, treating it as a long-term training goal rather than a one-off stunt. The Huntsman World Senior Games, where she set the new mark, is an annual multi-sport competition in St. George for athletes 50 and older, drawing thousands of competitors across dozens of events each fall.
Guinness World Records has not yet certified the new time. The organization has said it received Wilde's application and will review the hour-by-hour judging evidence — footage, witness statements and timing logs — before formally ratifying it, a process that typically takes weeks. Her earlier 4-hour, 30-minute record was ratified the same way.
Not everyone was impressed by the feat on its own terms: some commenters on social media, cited by the Western Standard, questioned whether resting on bent elbows for hours counts as a true plank versus a modified rest position. Record organizers and Wilde's supporters have pushed back, noting the position still requires sustained core engagement and that her previous records cleared the same scrutiny.
Wilde has said she isn't done — friends and family who've followed her previous attempts expect her to keep extending the mark for as long as her body allows, with Guinness's final sign-off on this attempt expected in the coming weeks.