Man breaks upside down hula hooping record after taking up hobby to lose weight

A man who took up hula hooping to lose weight has swivelled his hips enough to become a record breaker.

Yan Yanjia (China) hung by his feet like a bat to break the record for most hula hoops spun whilst suspended upside down with a total of 33.

His effort, in Guilin, Guangxi, China last November, smashed the previous record by 10.

In this clip, he’s seen approaching a climbing frame in a playground, and pulling himself up to dangle from it by his feet.

He gets in position upside down and two friends help him pull the 33 hula hoops up over his head and to his hips.

Yan, who works as a farmer, told us: “In 2018, I was diagnosed with fatty liver due to obesity, and my doctor advised me to lose weight. At that time, I bought a 2-kilogram hula hoop for exercise, and in a month, I went from 80 kg to 63 kg.

“Of course, the main factor in successful fat loss is gradual control of diet.”

Yan then saw Hong Kong actor and singer Nicholas Tse hula hooping in a viral video where he hooked his legs through a chair and hung parallel to the floor, casually scrolling his phone while hula hooping.

Yan decided to push himself to see what he could do.

He said: “I suddenly wondered if I could practise hanging and spinning hula hoops upside down, and it took me about three or four years to reach this level.”

After researching different records and the equipment he could get his hands on, Yan decided to go for the record.

Read about more fun records like this in our Hobbies and Skills section.

He’s also confident he could break more records in the future after working on some other moves, including hula hooping and doing pull ups at the same time.

“This exercise consumes many times more force than dozens of hula hoops upside down, requiring much greater core stability,” he explained.

But record breaking isn’t meant to be easy!

In other hula hoop news, an 11-year-old Indian girl named Praneet Kaur recently broke the record for most hula hoop rotations on a hair bun in 30 seconds with a total of 86.