Since we first started monitoring it in 2011, the world record for the longest time in an abdominal plank position (female) has been held by a variety of women, including a teenager, a middle-aged mother, and even a pensioner.
71-year-old Betty Lou Sweeney (USA) was the first woman to hold this record, registering a time of 36 min 58 sec.
Betty’s advanced age was not the only reason her achievement was so impressive – two years prior to her record attempt, she was severely overweight and almost died due to a septic infection which shut down her kidneys.
After losing 120 lb, Betty took on the plank challenge and exceeded all expectations. Not only did she set the women’s record, but she also beat the men’s record, which at the time was 33 min 40 sec, set by Australian Paul Drinan.
Later in the year, Betty’s record was broken by mother-of-five Eva Bulzomi (USA), who celebrated her 39th birthday just one day before setting the record.
Eva’s record of 40 min 1 sec stood for two and a half years, until 2014 when she extended it with a new time of 1 hr 5 min.
Eva’s new record only stood for a few months though, as 16-year-old Gabi Ury (USA) then beat it by 15 minutes.
Gabi accomplished the remarkable feat despite having VATER syndrome, a condition that affects her spine, muscles and limbs and resulted in her having many major surgeries.
As a thank you to Children's Hospital Colorado, where she underwent most of her surgeries, Gabi used her record attempt to raise donations for them.
Just as Gabi had broken Eva’s record soon after it was set, Eva returned the favour later in the year, taking back the title by becoming the first woman to break the two-hour barrier, registering a time of 2 hr 12 min.
After breaking the record for a third time, Eva held it for over a year while numerous other challengers – including Gabi – failed in their attempts to beat her time.
However, in 2015, after a year of training, 26-year-old Maria Kalimera (Cyprus) smashed the record by planking for 3 hr 31 min. After becoming the first woman to surpass the three-hour mark, Maria said: “I consider this a major achievement and an extremely important milestone of my life. It's a very big challenge for me, I have been working for a long time on this.”
As the time to beat got longer and longer, the record was being broken less frequently than it was in the early 2010s.
Many women applied to break Maria’s record, but none of them succeeded, and the record stood for almost four years until it was finally broken in 2019.
The successful challenger – and the woman who still holds the record today – was yoga teacher Dana Glowacka (Canada), who achieved an incredible time of 4 hr 19 min 55 sec.
Dana, aged 48 at the time, attempted the record after her son came across it in a Guinness World Records book. She had participated in several international planking competitions before, so decided to attempt the world record to show her son that anything is possible if you commit to a goal.
Dana’s unprecedented plank is yet to be beaten, despite multiple other women having tried over the past four and a half years. Will anyone be able to break the five-hour barrier?
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