A personal trainer from Georgia, USA, has smashed the record for the most burpees in 24 hours (male), performing over 1,000 more than the previous record holder.
45-year-old Brian Reyelt did 11,988 burpees – an average of 499.5 per hour – far surpassing the previous record of 10,856 set by Joe Reverdes (USA) in 2022.
Brian raised over $22,000 for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute by attempting this gruelling challenge.
He was inspired by his wife, a breast cancer survivor whom he says has “been through hell and back”.
Brian has completed similar burpee challenges throughout the past three years, performing over 5,000 each time, but he admits that this record attempt was “by far” the most difficult event he’s ever done.
Brian started his record attempt at a fast pace, doing around 750 burpees per hour for the first four hours before settling into a slower speed.
He did this to create adequate time for rest periods, allowing himself a 10-minute break per hour after the first four hours.
He even took a shower at the halfway point to “refresh” his body, although he admits that he’s unsure whether it helped or hindered his pacing.
Brian’s volume of reps and sets remained consistent up to the 16-hour mark, at which point he says his body began breaking down. He then reduced the number of reps per set to a more manageable level and permitted himself to take “micro breaks” when needed.
In addition to raising money for breast cancer research, Brian wanted to break this record to “prove that the body can do more than the mind will say”.
He said: “I strongly believe in the 20x process, meaning when your mind tells you to stop or quit, your body has at least 20 times more to give.
“In my attempt for this record I found out the body can do even more than 20 times!”
Pushing his body to its limits came at a cost though, as two days after the record attempt, Brian was hospitalized for five days with a septic Staph infection originating from a cut on his knuckle.
"I had trained doing burpees on my knuckles due to wrist damage," he revealed.
"It seemed I had used up all the energy my body could give, leaving me with an extremely weak immune system.
"My hand blew up like a balloon. All is better now.”
Brian is open to the idea of attempting this challenge again in the future, as although he obliterated the men’s record, he fell slightly short of beating the overall record set in 2015 by an Australian woman named Eva Clarke, who performed 12,003 burpees in 24 hours.
This was an honour to challenge myself, open more awareness for a major cause, and also prove records are meant to be broken.
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