Category Archives: World Records

2023 Promo Video and New Website

I am beyond thrilled to announce my new website: RecordBreakerRush.com and the new promo video that goes along with it.

Here’s the promo video

I retired from tech this year to pursue my dual passions of helping others accomplish more than they ever thought possible by breaking their own records and promoting STEM education.

David “Record Breaker” Rush is an engaging, talented, and inspirational speaker helping companies create a culture of record breaking through growth and thrive during challenging times. David has broken more than 250 Guinness World Records that have been viewed/heard over 150 million times, and was startup product manager #1 at a tech unicorn. David believes every person and organization is capable of breaking records and achieving more than they ever thought possible.

David’s unparalleled value proposition includes world records, startup product management experience, international news coverage, combined with audience engagement from being a juggler and entertainer. He can inspire businesses to think in new and challenging ways. With an EE degree from MIT and MBA from BSU, David brings intelligence, experience, and entertainment to any event.

Jedi Fire Knight

This is the first successful record attempt I’ve made since I busted my ribs in 3 places about a month ago. It feels good to get back into record-breaking mode and to get this record back.

Taking my record back!

Last time I broke this record I got 67 catches in one minute. I did drop the sword once or twice as well. My record had been surpassed by a mark of 104 catches since.

I ended up with a nearly clean run and 136 catches in one minute (more than doubling my previous mark!) when slow-motion footage confirmed the final spin wasn’t caught in time.

The one big clarification Guinness provided is that a glove can be worn during the attempt. That makes it quite a bit easier. Unfortunately, that didn’t save the hair on the top of my head during one record attempt mishap went the sword hit my thin spot.

It took 2 days of attempts since the small muscle in my arm got too fatigued on day one and I had to give up.

Fist Bump

Joey and I had to punch each other thousands of times to make this happen. We bled. We sweated. We bruised. We got rid of the unfair pain when Joey made me take off my brass knuckles (wedding band).

The final result: 273 alternating fist bumps in 30 seconds taking down the previous record of 174 by a large margin. We actually made contact 297 times in 30 seconds but Guinness has stringent qualifications for what constitutes valid alternating fist bumps and 24 had to be disqualified.

This one was more technical and challenging than the record I previously set for the most fist bumps in 1 minute with different people.

The main area of technique we had to work on was Joey’s drifting left arm. When moving each hand back and forth 5 times per second, it’s easy to lose control over some aspects and have form degrade.

Joey holds 1 other GWR himself (the fastest time to put on a t-shirt while doing a handstand) and has also been a model (and wrapped with wrapping paper).

3 Blind Dice

This is the third time Jonathan and I have broken this record.

I think that means this record has been taken away from us as many times as the other 32 we’ve broken together put together.

Bec and Jeziel from Perth, Australia are at fault here. They thought because it was their only record (‘child’) that we (holding 32 ourselves already) wouldn’t want it back once they took it from us. But little did they factor in, we love each of our children equally (ask any of our seven real children or 33 Guinness ones). Doesn’t every parent?

We got 656 dice caught blindfolded this time crushing ours and their previous record even more.

We dare them to take it back. Jonathan ‘Hollywood’ Hannon will walk across 10,000 dice over 9,800 miles to defend it.

Sausage Roll

I thought this was going to be easy. Aerodynamics, inexperience, cold, and pressure made it much harder than I expected.

The record was for the farthest throw and catch of a sausage roll into the mouth. The previous mark was 11 meters.

Jonathan and I are relatively fresh off the most throws and catches of a baseball in one minute so his arms strength is up. What I didn’t anticipate was how a 19-gram irregular shape would fly through the air. I thought this would be one and done but I kept missing the sausage roll. It would fly and catch the air just enough that I’d miss it.

It also didn’t help that I was trying to catch it at the furthest possible flight distance so I would have to bend down to my knees to try to catch it. By the time it made it that far, it was falling more vertically and that reduced the available entry angle to my mouth.

Finally, it was cold out and my wife was there with our baby who was getting just a little fussy adding to the pressure.

In the end, we walked away with a successful catch of a sausage roll in the mouth of 83 feet 10 inches or 25.5 meters over doubling the previous mark.

100 x 100 Balloons

This record takes about 1,000 times as long to set up as it does to break. That wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have to set it up 5 times to finally get a qualifying run.

Huge thanks to the Pettey family for their help blowing up the balloons and affixing them to the floor in preparation for this record. (And thanks as well to my wife, kids, the Snyders, and several others for the previous attempts).

On the previous attempts there was always something that disqualified it, including this one with a very sad picture here:

After 5 attempts, I think I finally got it with a run of 22.38 seconds to pop all 100 balloons with only my feat beating the current market of 24.98 seconds.

Blowing the Horn

This record is one that looks SUPER easy and yets up being SUPER tricky.

I have attempted this record with super-record breakers Andre Ortolf and Jonathan “Hollywood” Hannon with multiple attempts each and despite our best efforts, I have never actually held the record for “Most toots of a party blower in one minute (team of 2). The previous record was 78 held since 2018. We finally got a qualifying run of 86.

It took well over a dozen attempts and frame-by-frame analysis to confirm that neither Eirinn nor I were touching the blowers at the same time to confirm that this attempt will not be disqualified by Guinness for that reason.

This is Eirinn’s first official Guinness World Records attempt (though you may have heard her voice behind the camera or seen her face giving commentary). Her brother Joey edited the video and provided commentary.

Putting Away the Laundry

After hanging 5 T-shirts last week for a Guinness World Records title, I was reminded that many people fold their shirts to put them away. It is a more practical way to store the humble T-shirt. As the current record holder for the most T-shirts worn in one minute (with my wife, the most T-shirts worn for a half marathon (111), and several others, I decided I needed to take on the record for the most T-shirts folded in one minute to clean up my mess. The previous record was 23.

I tried out a few different shirt folding techniques including the 3-second fold, but the handy: fold one arm in, then the other, then the bottom proved to be the quickest overall. It allowed me to fold 31 T-shirts in one minute.

Some people might think it odd that the thing I choose to do on my birthday is laundry: but for those who know me, it makes perfect sense.

Hanging It Up

When your wife tells you to hang up your t-shirts, the directive is clear. When Guinness asks you to do it, make sure you follow all 17 rules. For both, it’s imperative that you do it as quickly as possible.

I’ve had this record on my radar for years but the long list of 17 rules is rather daunting. The first thing I needed to consider was how small the opening was allowed to be. I got out a bunch of my t-shirts and the necks were all way too wide. My wife’s shirts were much better candidates. Then the hangers I use for my t-shirts were then not wide enough! Talk about fitting a large hanger through a small opening.

As the current record holder for the fastest time to put on 10 t-shirts, I decided it was time to learn how to put them away. It turns out it’s a lot slower to clean up a mess than to make it.

At the end of the day, I was able to follow those 2 plus the other 15 rules to take down the current record of 27.93 seconds with a run of 16.78 seconds.

Fly Away

I’m used to practice, practice, practice, then making an official attempt. This time it was attempt, attempt, attempt. I had practiced this one a few years ago when I made official attempts at it for over an hour, but I hadn’t practiced again since.

I knew the kind of plane I wanted to make: one I could throw accurately and far vs just far. I can make planes that will fly further, but they have so much variability in where they land my arm might fall off before I got one to land in the tiny bucket.

I set up 4 cameras with external batteries so they didn’t run out of juice and decided on 6 planes as a good number to get plenty of throws in while giving my arm time to rest between the throws without running myself to the ground by going to get them too often.

I had several close calls before finally landing a throw into the bucket from 15 meters out (49.21 feet).

Most of my throws were landing short of the bucket but I did have a few that sailed long. I think 15 meters was a good target to be ambitious but not have to spend multiple days going after it. The previous mark was 6 meters (which I believe was the minimum Guinness set when someone else created the record but never successfully attempted it).