An Australian man proved that you can overcome chronic pain and become a world record holder if you set your mind to it.

28-year-old Daniel Scali recently set the Guinness World Record for the longest abdominal plank, holding the position for a whopping nine hours, thirty minutes and one second. That’s an incredible feat on its own, but the record is made even more impressive when you consider that Scali has been dealing with chronic pain for more than half of his life.

According to Scali, he battles complex regional pain syndrome on a regular basis. He said that he broke his arm in a trampoline accident when he was 12, and ever since he’s been dealing with pain in his arm. He said that while the pain has persisted, how he views his pain has changed.

“The pain is still there. The pains aren’t changing, but my attitude towards the pain changes,” Scali told CNN. “If you had decided to tell me five years ago that I would have … gone for a record of attempting to go for a plank, there’s no way I would have believed it.”

Winning Out Over Chronic Pain

Interestingly, this was Scali’s second attempt to etch his name into the history books. Previously, he planked for nine hours and nine minutes, which would have broken the previous record of eight hours, 15 minutes and 15 seconds, but Guiness officials took issue with his hip position during that attempt. Scali shook off the disappointment and set the record on his next official attempt.

And if you think you can’t relate to this workout warrior’s story, think again. Scali attempted his first plank less than a year ago, and he fared just like many others trying the exercise technique for the first time.

“My first plank was in November 2020 and that was for two minutes,” he said. “And the two minutes felt like an absolute lifetime.”

A couple months later, Scali began to look into how to apply for the Guinness World Record and got help from a coach who helped to improve his technique and look past the chronic pain in his left arm. Scali wore a compression band to help ease the pain, but he said there were times during his planking when he wouldn’t be able to move his arm. He said thinking about others in a similar battle helped him push through the discomfort and ultimately achieve his goal.

“But I would know someone else is out there watching me, you know. I would know that someone else is fighting a more severe disease than what I’ve got. There’s always someone out there worse than yourself,” said Scali “I wanted to show people that no matter what pain you deal with, no matter what issues you have, if you want to do it and you believe you can do it, then go for it.”

Awesome words to live by from an inspiring person who won’t let chronic pain hold them back from achieving their dreams!