A 64-year-old grandfather awaiting a hip replacement completes 10,000 kettle bell swings for new record

A 64-year-old grandfather man has set a record for the quickest time to complete 10,000 kettle bell swings - while waiting for a hip replacement.

Jack Gilchrist set about completing the Worldwide Kettlebell Challenge - to do 10,000 swings in a month - but found he was racing through them.

The carer completed it in just 21 days - a feat he said experts told him is unheard of.

So now he's set his sights - and his six pack - on doing 100,000 of the super strength swings in around 200 days.

Each swing sees him hold a 4st metal bell in EACH hand, and swinging them in a skiing motion while moving in an out of a semi squat.

And his fitness prowess comes despite waiting for a hip replacement for two years - pushed back by Covid-19.

Muscly Jack, from Chorley, Lancashire, said: "People normally do 500 a day for 28 days, taking weekends off.

"The most I've ever done is 1,200 in a day.

"I'm 64 this year and the kettlebell swings only form a small part of my daily workout.

"I walked over 800 miles in the first lock down last March.

"Also, I have been waiting for a hip replacement for nearly two years.

"The 10,000 swing challenge is world wide and has been going on for years.

"It's for all sorts of athletes across all ages.

"At the start of this last lockdown I thought 'I'll give that a go'.

"It was really hard, but such fun, and my immediate thought was 'I reckon I could do that every day for a year.'

"The bells are four stone each so I am swinging eight stone in my hands.

"When I first started I was struggling to do sets of ten and now I can do sets of 50 pretty easily

"I look younger than I do in pictures of me in my 30s.

"I think this is how people are supposed to look it's just that loads just look older than they are."

Jack started his first 10,000 challenge on November 9, 2020, and completed it a week early on December 6.

The gym fanatic decided to keep going and aim for 100,000.  He's currently 81,430 swings into it and is due to finish in around a month, on June 6.

He's had just 29 rest days since he started - mostly to allow his hands to recover.

Jack said this will set a new record for completing 100,000 swings in the fastest time -a feat he says has never been recorded before.

"My maximum on the kettle bells, is 203 per hour," said Jack, whose hip operation scheduled for March 2 last year was postponed.

"In the first month my hands got ripped to pieces.

"It was hard but my god it was good fun.

"It's a dynamic powerful exercise where everything comes from your core.

"Your secondary muscles like arms come into it a bit.

"I don't think I'm phenomenally good.

"There is just never a back door as far as I'm concerned.

"I feel that 'life's too short' goes for everything - relationships, health, everything.

"I've had my bio markers measured and I am physically in the condition of a 35 to 37  year-old man," he said.

"Add to that my blood pressure is 110 over 60 and my resting heart rate is 39."

Jack said he asked the founder of the Worldwide Kettlebell Challenge if anyone had attempted anything like him.

"He said 'Jack you're crazy - no one has come close," he said.

"He said I can safely say I'm the only person in the world who is doing this."