Super-cool grandma alert! This 90-year-old just broke a fitness world record

90-year-old Ann Crile Esselstyn from USA is no ordinary grandma – she’s a cool grandma!

Ever since she was a child, Ann was athletic. Over the course of her life, she played and coached 10 different sports, maintained a healthy and physical lifestyle, and encouraged her children and grandchildren to follow in her footsteps…

Are you athletic? What’s your favourite sport?

So, on 6 March, she was able to take home an official record title, after becoming the oldest person to hold the dead hang position (female) in the world!

At 90 years and 231 days old, she held her body weight in a suspended position for an incredible total of 2 minutes and 52 seconds.

WOW!

“It was new for me to be going for a record, and to be celebrated in this way, since I have spent my life cheering for our 4 children and 10 grandchildren in their varied athletic events and achievements,” Ann told us. 

“I never ever in 90 years imagined that I would be fortunate enough to have the focused training, support, and desire to actually get a Guinness World Records title – [especially] at the age of 90!”

It is never too late – or too early – to work towards your dreams!

So how did she decide to go for it?

Last year, Ann had begun a daily fitness journey after her daughter-in-law Polly Labarre motivated her to try something new for 40 days, so she started riding on her exercise bike every morning before breakfast.

When that time was up, the habit was already formed, and now Ann exercises in some way – whether that be on her bike, or through yoga, running, or lifting weights – before her first meal of the day.

“And I LOVE my breakfast,” she added.

What’s one thing you do every single day and never skip?

So sometimes, she would try hanging from a bar to improve her posture – and perhaps make her taller, ha!

But it was her son Rip who inspired her to take on the record. 

“He asked me to go to the pull up bar and hang for as long as I could. We were on FaceTime. 

“I positioned the phone so he could watch, and hung for 1 minute and 15 seconds. Rip was flabbergasted!”

Doing dead hang for this long would be hard for many people, but can you imagine doing it at 90?!

When they found out that to break the record for the oldest person to hold the dead hang position (female), one had to hold it for 2 minutes, and that the current record holder was significantly younger than her, they decided that she should try and beat it.

“Because I was able to hang for 1 minute and 15 seconds without much training, it didn’t sound impossible,” she said.

So for the following 2 months, she would hang every day for as long as she could.

“Believe it or not, as the months went on, I could feel my hands starting to get stronger. The blisters that hurt so much at first turned to callouses; my back was feeling a little better,” she said.

Practice makes perfect!

So after all this training, it was finally time for the official attempt.

But what was the experience like?

“Time seemed to stop,” Ann said. “Everyone was quiet until the 2-minute mark. At 2 minutes and 30 seconds the room exploded with cheering. 

“My hands were just beginning to slip. I threw my head back, looked at the ceiling and squeezed. I could feel my face flushing. Slowly, my hands slipped off the bar, and my feet were on the floor. 

“My back and arms hurt, but the hurrahs that I had […] come close to 3 minutes left me in a state of amazement – and the pain in my back melted away with the joyful excitement around the room,” she added. “Maybe if I had known I was so close, I might have held on just a little longer. Another day!”

Congratulations, Ann, you are Officially Amazing!