‘It was really tough’: Edmontonian beats burpee world record, raises money for autism

An Edmonton police officer and father has officially broken the Guinness World Record for most chest-to-ground burpees in one hour.

Const. Stephen Schaefer completed 949 burpees during a special event at Generate Fitness on Saturday afternoon.

“It was really tough,” Schaefer said after the final burpee.

“I just had to keep going, I had to just count down the minutes in my head. Everybody was so great at telling me what time was left on the clock.”

While he came up 50 burpees short of his original 1,000-burpee goal, Schaefer’s 949 beats both the previous records: 870 for the male record, according to the official record website, with the most ever done in one hour  previously held by a woman, at 920.

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Schaefer planned his record-beating event as a fundraiser for Autism Edmonton, because his nine-year-old son Jason lives with the condition.

“It felt good, having him here and watching me. I think that gave me a lot of strength.

“I’d seen (Jason) in the background do a couple of burpees along with me, that was really cool.”

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The total money raised was just under $5,000 as of Saturday evening, with an original goal of $3,000.

“Jason was diagnosed when he was three. Autism Edmonton was an organization that was a support for us, we were able to get a lot of resources from them,” Schaefer said.

3:49 Edmonton police officer to attempt burpee world record for autism

Officials from Autism Edmonton said that the organization relies completely on donations and receives no government funding.

“Stephen has really done all the work all himself,” said Leslie Allen, executive director of Autism Edmonton.

“His son, who lives with autism, loves working out, so he combined it all.” she said.

“It got really tough in the last 15 minutes or so,” Schaefer said. “But I wasn’t even thinking about that, I was just trying to focus on each burpee at a time.”

The record will now wait to be verified by record officials.

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