Vernon resident swings her way to a world record<\/p>\n
Published 3:08 pm Tuesday, June 23, 2026<\/p>\n
On June 19 Tammy Kovaluk broke the world record for most weight lifted by kettle bell swing in 12 hours.<\/p>\n
After 10,105 reps of kettle bell swings for a total of 416,326 pounds swung, the record was hers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe women\u2019s record I did it kind of halfway through. The men\u2019s record was like 11 and a half hours,\u201d said Kovaluk.<\/p>\n
The previous mens record was 410,896 pounds.<\/p>\n
In 2021, Kovaluk broke two Guinness world records for most chest to ground burpees by a female for both 12 hours and 24 hours.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve also done some insane races. I find it that it just helps my personal mental growth to kind of go into that cave every few years and it\u2019s also changed me a lot as a person,\u201d explained Kovaluk.<\/p>\n
Specific preparation for the record attempt began in February.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would mix in endurance sets, longer endurance work, heavy short intervals and then a lot of strength work, just to help with injury prevention,\u201d said Kovaluk. \u201cThe longest workout I did was three hours so it wasn\u2019t that long, but I know my body has endurance.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the week leading up to the attempt not everything went as planned.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery 10 years or so something comes on and I get a headache and my back gets really painful,\u201d explained Kovaluk. \u201cA week before it hit me again and I just got better two days before (the attempt), so I was not feeling very confident but in hindsight it helped me really recover from the training so I felt super fresh.\u201d<\/p>\n
While attempting a record like this, she says it can also be challenging mentally.<\/p>\n
\u201cThinking short term goals. It really helped having a really positive environment and having people help out and then just focusing on the next hour because it was over daunting otherwise,\u201d said Kovaluk.<\/p>\n
Not only is it important to stay focused mentally but she says you have to fuel your body as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was quite hot, that was the hard part. I was feeling very nauseated and then at that point it was just like (eating) salty chips when I can and it was getting harder and harder to get it down. Coca-Cola for some reason helps settle my tummy,\u201d said Kovaluk.<\/p>\n
Along with coke and chips she also had fruit, pickle juice and some gels.<\/p>\n
As Kovaluk battled through the heat she thought of her good friend Rai Moreno.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s battling lymphoma. So sometimes when I was really suffering I was like I\u2019m not going through chemo. My friend is probably feeling worse than I am right now. So I wanted to dedicate it to him,\u201d said Kovaluk.<\/p>\n
The post record celebration didn\u2019t go the way Kovaluk thought it would.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember I was like, I\u2019m gonna have beer and pizza and (after) I was so nauseated. The next day even it took me a bit to come around.\u201d<\/p>\n
The world record attempt was completed at Iron Heart gym where Kovaluk is a personal trainer. Richard and Jenny Chippendale are the owners of Iron Heart gym and were major supports throughout the day. During the day many people did kettle bell swings or push ups along side Kovaluk.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cBringing a whole community together\u2026 It\u2019s such a positive environment, to just have everybody together and joking around. You end up building better friendships out of these suffering attempts. It was very cool to see,\u201d stated Kovaluk. <\/p>\n
As for the record being officially verified, all of Kovaluk\u2019s logbooks and witness statements must match and be sent in with the entire 12 hours of footage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019ll take me a couple weeks (to put together) and then it takes them like three months (to verify it),\u201d explained Kovaluk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vernon resident swings her way to a world record Published 3:08 pm Tuesday, June 23, 2026 On June…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":757330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,79004,87674],"class_list":["post-757329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-okanagan","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}