Your core starts screaming after about sixty seconds. For most of us, anyway. You’re shaking, your elbows feel like they’re digging into concrete, and you start checking the timer every three seconds only to realize only one second has actually passed. It’s a special kind of misery. But for a select group of athletes, that first minute is just the warm-up for a journey that lasts longer than a full work day. The world record for planking isn’t just about having six-pack abs; it’s a terrifying display of what happens when the human mind decides to simply ignore the body’s frantic demands to quit.
The Man Who Stayed Still for Nearly Ten Hours
Honestly, it sounds like a typo. When you first hear that Josef Šálek, a therapist and coach from the Czech Republic, held a plank for 9 hours, 38 minutes, and 47 seconds in 2023, you assume there’s a catch. Maybe he cheated? Maybe he moved? But Guinness World Records is notoriously strict. You can't sag. You can't hike your hips. Your forearms and toes have to be the only things touching the floor.
Šálek took the title in Pilsen, and the footage is actually kind of hard to watch toward the end. He looks like he's vibrating. He wasn't always this elite athlete, though. He used to be overweight and leaned into a lifestyle that was far from "world record" material. He basically transformed his life through a philosophy of mental toughness, which he calls "The Desire." It’s a reminder that these records aren't just about physical conditioning—they are about a weird, almost meditative state of suffering.
The Rivalry That Pushed the Limits
Before Šálek, the record belonged to George Hood. If you follow the world of "extreme sitting still," Hood is a legend. In 2020, at the age of 62—let that sink in, he was 62—the former DEA special agent clocked in at 8 hours, 15 minutes, and 15 seconds.
Hood is a machine.
He didn't just show up and plank. He trained for seven hours a day for months. He did 700,000 sit-ups. He did 2,100 hours of planking in the lead-up to the event. To stay sane during the actual record attempt, he listened to rock music—Van Halen and Deep Purple—and tried to visualize himself as a rock or a statue. It’s a psychological game. When you’re at hour five and your shoulders feel like they’re being pierced by hot needles, you need something more than just "wanting to win." You need a degree of dissociation.
Then there was Mao Weidong, a police officer from China. Back in 2016, he and Hood went head-to-head. Weidong ended up winning that round with a time of 8 hours and 1 minute. It’s a very small circle of people who can even contemplate this. Most people who go to the gym and think they’re fit would struggle to hit ten minutes. Moving from minutes to hours requires a physiological adaptation where the slow-twitch muscle fibers in the core become hyper-efficient at managing lactic acid.
✨ Don't miss: Why Your 1 Arm Pull Up Progression Isn't Working (And How to Fix It)
What Actually Happens to Your Body?
It's not just "muscle burn."
When you hold a plank for the world record for planking, you’re dealing with something called isometric contraction. Unlike a bicep curl where the muscle shortens and lengthens, in a plank, the muscle stays the same length under constant tension. This restricts blood flow. It’s why you start shaking. Your nervous system is basically firing off emergency signals saying, "Hey, we are literally running out of oxygenated blood in the transverse abdominis, please move!"
The winners learn to breathe through the diaphragm without moving the spine. If your back arches too much, you’re disqualified. If your butt goes too high, you’re out. It’s a brutal technicality.
The Women’s Record is Just as Wild
We can't talk about this without mentioning Dana Glowacka. In 2019, she set the female world record at 4 hours, 19 minutes, and 55 seconds. She’s a yoga instructor, and you can see that influence in her form. It was perfectly still. While the men have pushed into the nine-hour territory, the female record is expected to jump significantly in the next few years as more endurance athletes pivot to this specific niche.
The Science of the "Wall"
Marathon runners talk about the wall at mile 20. In planking, there are multiple walls.
- The 2-Hour Wall: This is where the initial adrenaline wears off and the reality of the task sets in.
- The 5-Hour Wall: This is usually where the digestive system starts acting up. You're horizontal. Gravity is pushing on your organs in a way they aren't used to for long periods.
- The Final Hour: This is pure delirium.
Most record holders describe a "flow state" that they enter around hour three. If they don't hit that state, they fail. You cannot consciously think about the pain for nine hours. You have to find a way to put your brain somewhere else.
🔗 Read more: El Salvador partido de hoy: Why La Selecta is at a Critical Turning Point
Why Do People Do This?
It’s a fair question. It’s not like there’s a multi-million dollar Nike contract waiting for the world’s best planker. Honestly, for guys like Šálek and Hood, it seems to be about personal redemption or testing the limits of the human spirit. It’s a "pure" sport. There’s no equipment. No expensive shoes or aerodynamic bikes. It’s just you versus the floor.
And the floor always wins eventually.
There’s also a charitable component. Most of these big, publicized attempts are fundraisers. George Hood used his platform to raise awareness for mental health. Šálek uses his story to promote the idea that it's never too late to change your life's trajectory. That's the part that resonates with people who aren't fitness junkies. It’s the "regular guy" element.
Common Misconceptions About the Record
People think you need to be "ripped" to do this. You don't. While a low body fat percentage helps (less weight for your core to hold up), massive muscles actually work against you. Big muscles require more oxygen. The best plankers are usually lean but not overly bulky. They have what we call "functional density."
Another myth is that it's all in the abs.
Nope.
💡 You might also like: Meaning of Grand Slam: Why We Use It for Tennis, Baseball, and Breakfast
It’s the glutes, the quads, and especially the serratus anterior (the muscles around your ribs). If any part of that chain breaks, the plank collapses. It’s a full-body structural integrity test.
How to Actually Improve Your Own Plank
If you’re looking at the world record for planking and thinking you want to at least hit five minutes, you have to stop just planking. You need to build the supporting cast.
- Stop timing yourself every day. If you’re constantly looking at the clock, you’re training your brain to hate the exercise. Try to plank for the duration of a specific song or a podcast segment.
- Focus on "The Hollow Body." Most people plank with a "lazy" core. Instead, try to pull your belly button toward your spine and tuck your pelvis. It makes the plank ten times harder, but it builds the specific strength needed for records.
- Vary the surface. Practice on grass, on mats, or even on slightly uneven ground. This forces the stabilizer muscles to work harder.
- Weight it. If you can do a three-minute plank easily, start putting a 10lb or 20lb plate on your back. When you take that weight off, a bodyweight plank feels like you're floating.
The Future of the Record
Is 10 hours possible? Probably. With the way sports science and nutrition are evolving, we will likely see someone break the ten-hour barrier by 2027. It will require a specific type of athlete—likely a cross between a long-distance swimmer and a monk.
The psychological barrier is the biggest hurdle. Now that Šálek has shown nine hours is doable, the "mental map" for other athletes has expanded. It's like the four-minute mile. Once Roger Bannister did it, everyone started doing it.
Actionable Steps for Your Core Journey
If you want to take your core stability seriously after reading about these lunatics (and I say that with respect), don't go for a world record tomorrow. Start here:
- The 30-Day Consistency Rule: Don't try for a PR (personal record) every day. Instead, commit to a 2-minute plank every single morning. The consistency builds the tendon strength that 10-hour records are built on.
- Record Your Form: Set up your phone and film yourself from the side. You’ll be shocked at how much your hips sag when you think you're straight. Fix the form before you add the time.
- Breath Control: Practice "box breathing" while planking. Inhale for 4, hold for 4, exhale for 4, hold for 4. This lowers your heart rate and prevents the panic response that makes people quit at the 3-minute mark.
The world of competitive planking is strange, painful, and deeply impressive. It’s a testament to the fact that our bodies can usually go a lot further than our minds want them to. Whether you're aiming for ten hours or just sixty seconds without shaking, the principle is the same: stay still, keep breathing, and don't look at the clock.