A man planked for 9.5 hours, breaking the world record. Here's how he got abs of steel in less than a year.

• Daniel Scali, who has chronic pain, has set a plank world record with a time of nine hours 30 minutes.
• It was his second attempt after his first go was discounted because he used the wrong technqieu.
• Scali threw up four times during the challenge, but entertained himself with TV dramas.

A 28-year-old man has performed the world's longest plank, holding the position for nine hours, 30 minutes, one second.

Daniel Scali, who has Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), set the new record on August 6 and had it approved by Guinness World Records a couple of weeks afterwards.

Scali told Insider he first planked while training with friends in his backyard in November 2020 and managed two minutes.

Not long after, Scali realized he could plank for 15 minutes, and at the start of 2021 he set the goal of breaking the world record, which then stood at eight hours and 15 minutes.

Scali trained for seven hours a day

Scali, who lives in Adelaide, Australia, started training for the record on January 28 2021, working out for seven hours a day around a full-time job operating an automotive repair workshop.

He woke up at 5 AM every day to do a 50-minute group fitness class followed by a 4km run. In his lunch break, Scali went to the gym for an hour, and then he planked after work from 5:30 PM to 10:30 PM.

Despite receiving "little support" from the endurance coaches and athletes he reached out to for help, Scali equaled the then world record time in the space of four months, he said.

His first world record attempt of nine hours and nine minutes on June 18 was disqualified after failing to comply with correct technique, but Scali didn't give up.

Scali meditated and watched TV to entertain himself

The challenge required both mental and physical strength, and Scali worked with mindset coach Michael Sorgiovanni to prepare.

He practiced meditation "to try and make the time go by," and says he didn't get bored.

"During the attempt I was not allowed to watch anything for the first two hours," Scali said. "This was so I could get myself in a mental state of preparation, where I would be able to take myself to a space that my mind coach and myself created."

After two hours, he watched gripping TV dramas that would capture his attention, but said he can't actually remember what he watched.

In the tough moments of the challenge, Scali imagined seeing nine hours on the clock.

"I had a goal and I was dedicated to seeing it through," he said. "At the four-hour mark, knowing I wasn't even half-way there and thinking to myself, 'how am I going to get through another five hours?', I remember looking down and visualizing nine hours on the clock over and over again."

Scali threw up four times during the challenge

Seven hours into the plank, Scali said his body went into "stress mode" and he vomited on himself four times.

"I felt my body starting to turn on me and knew something wasn't right," he said. "I called for my coach to bring me a bin but unfortunately it came too late so I vomited on my right arm. You can only imagine how you naturally want to move when something like that happens."

Scali kept going by visualizing finishing the challenge and telling himself he was not going to fail.

He kept his energy levels up by eating two bananas and stayed hydrated by drinking electrolytes.

Training helps Scali manage his pain, he said

Having CRPS means "constant pain is a part of your day-to-day struggle," Scali said.

For him, this means constant pain in his left arm - he can't put it under water and battles with swelling - ever since he fell off a trampoline and broke his arm aged 12.

"The best way to explain CRPS is the nerves in my arm are sending the wrong signals to my brain," Scali said.

CRPS is prolonged pain, inflammation, and skin change after an injury, typically to an arm or leg, and it's rated 42 out of 50 on the McGill pain index, which is higher than child birth or having your finger amputated.

Scali said he's learned ways to manage the pain, including training.

"Fitness has been a huge benefit for me managing pain," he said, and hopes his plank record will help raise awareness.