• DonnaJean Wilde’s five-hour plank record
• The Huntsman World Senior Games setting in Utah
• How the new mark topped her previous one
• The strict form rules behind the record
• Her training habit and practical advice
• Guinness review and her family life
At 61, DonnaJean Wilde turned a simple floor exercise into a jaw-dropping endurance test, holding a plank for five full hours and setting a new female abdominal plank world record. The feat happened at the Huntsman World Senior Games in Utah, where steady focus mattered just as much as raw strength. For a grandmother of 12, it was the kind of performance that makes people stop and stare.
The record attempt took place on Oct. 4 and stretched from 3:03 p.m. to 8:03 p.m., with judges rotating through the long stretch of effort. Wilde didn’t just beat the old mark, she improved on her own previous record by nearly 30 minutes. That kind of margin is huge in an event where every second matters and form has to stay locked in.
Her earlier record dated back to March 21, 2004, when she held a plank for 4 hours, 30 minutes and 11 seconds at the Canadian high school where she once worked as vice principal. The new effort pushed that number well beyond the old limit and showed that age was not slowing her down. If anything, it looked like she had gotten better at suffering through the burn.
The rules for a valid plank sound simple, but they are brutal in practice. Guinness says the forearms and toes must stay on the ground the entire time, while the rest of the body remains lifted and straight. That means no sagging, no cheating, and no lucky breaks when fatigue starts creeping in.
Wilde has been open about how hard long planks can be on the body. After one previous record effort, she said, “My elbows hurt pretty bad,” and added, “I was so worried about losing my form, and I think that’s why my quads hurt because I was just really tense.”
Even so, she kept going back to the exercise and built it into her routine after breaking her wrist years ago. Because she could plank while wearing a cast, it became a practical way to stay active instead of backing off completely. That small adjustment eventually turned into a favorite workout habit.
She also explained that the move clicked for her once she realized it didn’t have to be done in a gym setting. “I realized that I could read and do things when I was planking and fell in love with it,” she said. That mix of utility and stubbornness helped turn an ordinary exercise into something she clearly mastered.
The hardest stretch came at the end, when the body starts bargaining and the mind has to take over. Wilde said the first two hours “went by quickly,” but the next two hours got much tougher, and “The last hour was the most challenging, just to stay focused and keep my form,” she said. During the final 30 minutes, she leaned on “breathing, staying calm and not shaking.”
That kind of advice sounds basic, but it fits the whole story. “Keep trying and keep practicing. When you have to read or work on your computer, just get on the floor and do it on the floor.” It is the sort of line that sounds almost casual until the clock keeps ticking and the floor starts feeling like the hardest place in the world.
Wilde’s record is still pending review and approval by Guinness, but the performance itself already landed with force. With 12 grandchildren and a reputation for grinding through pain, she has become a reminder that grit can show up in the most unglamorous places. At the Huntsman World Senior Games, that looked like a woman holding still while the minutes kept piling up.
