MONTREAL -- A Montreal man on Friday will attempt to break the world record for the number of burpees performed in 12 hours.
Samuel Finn told CTV News he has been training for six months to prepare himself to perform 5300 burpees in the allotted time.
He's doing it in memory of his brother, Cedric, who died at age 27 after he was diagnosed with a rare form of soft tissue sarcoma.
A burpee is a particularly exhausting form of exercise, Finn said. It consists of a plank, a push-up and a deep squat jump. The activity is intense when performed repetitively, and painful--that's why he chose it.
"Ced went through a lot of pain while he was fighting cancer, and even though he was suffering so much, he was always extremely positive, he was always thinking about other people even though it was himself that was suffering. So I wanted to pick something that would be really suffering for me, to show that we can do much more than we think, even though we are going through hard times," Finn explained.
In October, a Michigan man did 5010 burpees in 12 hours, setting a new world record, Finn said.
At the Centre XPN in St-Hubert on Friday, Finn plans to smash that number--by doing almost 300 more. A trainer admitted it's an outrageous challenge.
"You need to be crazy to do it--burpees for 12 hours," said Jean-Francois Gaudreau, a trainer and owner of Centre XPN, where Finn will attempt to break the world record.
He will be able to take breaks during the attempt and will be monitored by cameras and Guinness World Record approved judges.
So far, he has raised $38,000 in memory of his brother.
