Doug Pruden

Doug Pruden is a Canadian endurance sportsman and record holder. He holds or has held a number of Canadian and world records in push ups.

Doug Pruden displaying two world records: 677 one-armed back-of-the-hand push ups in one hour and 1781 back-of-the-hand push ups in one hour (2005)

Biography

Doug Pruden grew up in Northern Alberta. He adopted fitness and body weight exercises as a hobby in his late teens. He began video-taping push up challenges lasting 1 minute, 10 minutes, and 30 minutes, which led on to many world record attempts from 2000 to 2008.

Pruden has appeared in the Guinness Book of Records four times, and The Book of Alternative Records eight times. As of 2009, Pruden held 10 world records in various push up categories: one arm, one arm back of the hand, back of the hands, and fist/knuckles. His record for the most regular push-ups was 10,000 in eight hours. In 2005 he attempted to break the British record held by Kevin Jefferson, whose 2003 UK record was 1582 back of hand push ups in one hour. Pruden completed more than 1800 on his first attempt, but it was rejected due to errors in the claim. On 8 July 2005 he reapplied to Guinness World Records for the one-hour record. The final official count in this new record attempt was 1781, which was accepted by Guinness. On 8 November 2009 he did 1025 one arm back of the hand push ups in one hour at the Don Wheaton Family YMCA.

Doug Pruden doing knuckle push ups in Edmonton. (2015)

Push-up records

• 5557 Fist push ups in 3:02:30 hours on July 9, 2004 ^[1]
• 1000 Fist push ups in 18:13 minutes on July 9, 2003 ^[2]
• 114 one arm push ups in one minute in March 2003 ^[1]
• 546 one arm push ups in 10 minutes on July 30, 2003 ^[1]
• 1382 one arm push ups in 30 minutes on July 30, 2003 ^[3]
• 1,777 one arm push ups in 1 hour in November 2004 (2521 world record Paddy Doyle) ^[4]
• 1781 Back of Hand push ups in 1 hour on July 8, 2005 (world record of 1940 held by Paddy Doyle) ^[5]
• 677 push ups on one arm on the Back of hand on November 9, 2005 ^[6]
• 1025 push ups on one arm on the back of hand on November 8, 2008 ^[7][8]
• 59 push ups on one arm on the Back of Hand in one minute on March 24, 2007 ^[9]

Doug Pruden did 1025 back of hand push ups on one hand in 1 hour at Don Wheaton Family YMCA

Doug Pruden doing back of the hand push ups in an Edmonton gym without his Budweiser hat on.

Publicity

Pruden has appeared on television shows including the Late Show with David Letterman, Open Mike with Mike Bullard, and The Big Breakfast, and received news coverage on CTV, the National Post, The Globe and Mail, and others. He appeared in the 2008 Guinness Book of Records and 2010 book, Open Record Book, The Book of Alternative Records ^[1]; an entry in Canada’s Biggest, Smallest, Fastest, Strongest.^[10] Avenue Magazine feature story of Edmonton performers. [www.avenuemagazine.com].^[11] also Dec. issue. "Hector ig Canada" world record holder mentioned TG4 television site. "Ira's Abs" website story. Doug is also mentioned in the 2010 book Convict Conditioning by Paul Wade.^[3]

Politics

In 1992, Doug Pruden ran for City Council in Edmonton, Canada in Ward 5. He placed last in the ward race for City Councillor against seven other candidates, receiving a total of 1,949 votes.^[12] In 2024 he endorsed Justin Trudeau to beat Pierre Poilievre in Canada’s next general election.