NJ Man Breaks World Record [VIDEO]

Kyle Gurkovich, the Piscataway school teacher so moved by the loss to cancer of a student that he wanted to raise money for cancer research, has unofficially broken the Guinness Book world record for most pull ups in 24 hours. Everything was done by the book, with proper witnesses, video recording, etcetera, so it should just be a matter of confirmation before his name goes in the official record books. It happened this weekend at the Retro Fitness in Piscataway with a lot of supporters cheering him on. I was one of them. The old record stood at 4,030 and set by a former Navy Seal. Here's Jersey Strong for you...a school teacher did 4,182!

It started at 10 am Saturday. It almost didn't even happen.

During the week, as bad luck would have it, Kyle got a stomach flu. He was still not well when he began the attempt. Then at 1,000 pull ups, something tore in his forearm. He had been training for weeks leading up to this, and who knows if it was a combination of the training together with the dehydration from being sick, but at 1,000 pull ups he felt the searing pain in his right forearm. Somehow, no doubt with the student Daniel Nols in mind, he fought through it. It hurt for the entire rest of the event. He kept going. He would do a set of four, add it to the counter, another set of four, add it to the counter. People watching talked among themselves, commenting on how it was eerie that he barely broke a sweat. They had no idea at the time how much pain he was in. Occasionally people broke out in applause, as was the case when I was there Saturday evening and we watched him cross the 3,000 mark. It was at that point, with 13 hours still remaining, that I knew there was no stopping him. "Team Gurk" t-shirts were flying off shelves at Retro, all proceeds going to Sloan Kettering in honor of Kyle's former student who didn't make it. Daniel's dad was even there cheering on his son's old teacher. With my kids needing to be in bed I regret that I couldn't be there around 1:30 in the morning when the record was finally broken. We have this video of the moment. Keep in mind as you watch it that he needed to get to 4,031 to break the record. Then he just kept going. His original plan was to pad the lead as much as possible. But after having fought his way through over three thousand after something ripped in his forearm, at 4,180 he tried doing yet another set of 4. This time he couldn't get past the final 2. The pain was just so intense, it was impossible. After 4,182 pull ups, Kyle Gurkovich waits now for the official confirmation from Guinness and inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records as the new record holder. JERSEY STRONG, BABY!

If you'd be kind enough to look at this Sloan Kettering donation page set up in honor of his student Daniel Nols and, if possible, contribute a little, it would be greatly appreciated. Click here for more info.