World Record

A few years back, a good friend of mine, Tim Sikes, set the world record for push-ups in one hour. I was one of the people priviledged enough to witness the event. In fact, I was one of several people called on to count the push-ups. As an added honor, my signature can be found on the official certificate of witnesses.

Here is a link as proof for any of you skeptics of Tim's accomplishment.
And another.
And yet another.
Page 16 of this newspaper, saved in Adobe Acrobat format.

Tim was interviewed by All Things Considered.

In case you are wondering, the record, as set by Tim, is 3669 push-ups in one hour. That works out to a little over 1 push-up per second for the entire duration of an hour.

In case you are wondering, here's how he did it:
- His first four sets were 75 push-ups each. He prepared as his son (the unofficial timekeeper) would count down a minute. He would drop into position and do 75 push-ups in about 25 seconds, then stand and rest and stretch his arms.
- After the first four sets, he went to 60 per set. One set per minute. Each set took him about 25 seconds to perform at first.
- As time wore on, around the 45 minute mark, he was unable to complete 60 pushups in a minute with enough rest. Occasionally, he was unable to do more than about 30 or 40 before collapsing on the floor in a heap to rest a bit.
- With 8 minutes left, he surpassed the record. During the last 8 minutes, he only managed a bit over 200 push-ups. Several times he collapsed in a heap, unable to move.

Toward the end, the crowd gathered (about 60 people or so) was urging him on. A mutual friend and former Marine (acting like a true Drill Sergeant) was literally an inch from his face, screaming on encouragement (and a few choice words fit for a Marine). Tim was plain exhausted. But he still did push-ups.

He did more push-ups in the last 8 minutes than I can do if given all day long.

A side note - there was an ambulance there on hand, just in case. The EMT's weighed Tim before and after the event. He lost 8 pounds in that hour. Most of it was a puddle of sweat on the floor where he would drop to do his push-ups. Gross, I know!

We went out for supper that evening, and Tim was his normal jolly self, albeit more tired than I could possibly imagine!