Charlotte man breaks world record for most pushups in an hour

Charlotte resident TShane Johnson is a veteran, a motivational speaker and now a Guinness World Record holder.

On Saturday, Johnson broke the record for most pushups completed in one hour. The previous record, which had stood for over 30 years, was 2,919. Johnson smashed the previous record by completing 3,050 pushups in 60 minutes.

He was also attempting to break the record for most pushups completed in 12 hours. Johnson finished with 16,500 pushups completed, a few thousand short of the 19,325 world record.

"[There] were some small little things we didn't account for, as far as how much time between breaks and, of course, just the amount that it takes on your body to do that long after completing the first world record, but it was a win," said Johnson.

Johnson's spent the past five months training for this event.

"We've been consistently training five months, at least once or twice a day for six days a week," he added.

According to Johnson, Saturday's attempt at breaking two world records was one of the longest endurance events he's ever done.

"You just kind of zombie. You just go through it," he explained. "It's like next one. OK, next one."

Johnson's no stranger to pushing himself to the limit. In 2018, he hiked up to 22 miles a day from Orlando, Fla., to Los Angeles to raise money for homeless veterans for his foundation, Hike Across America.

"What I always found was interesting was to watch people write checks and post on Facebook, but they could never really understand the identity of somebody going through something tough," said Johnson. "As I started to run and realized I garnered a bigger audience with doing this than I did with talking about homeless and mental health issues and how we could fix it, it just kind of turned into this where, OK, we got a great audience. I can do these things, and we'll be able to help."

Johnson said the training and attempting of breaking the Guinness World Records helped connect him to "a lot of great people" and helped "get a lot of really great messages out."

"I do these things to inspire regular people to do amazing things," said Johnson. "I'm not an athlete with a $150 million contract. I didn't play sports my whole life. I was just given an opportunity by God to do things that make an impact."

For now, Johnson said he plans to take about a week off to recover from completing more than 16,000 pushups in 12 hours, but then it's back to the grind.

"I'll probably start focusing a little bit on some boxing. I think we've got our first fight in July, so [I'll] probably go down that route a little bit, just from my personal side, but once COVID [restrictions] lift back up, I'll probably do another run or world record."