25 Swimming-Related Records You Should Break This Summer
Summer is around the corner, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll be spending a good amount of time near or in a swimming pool. Floating around on a raft may be relaxing for a while, but why not set up a challenge for yourself?
Here are 25 swimming-related records — some great for pool parties, some requiring Olympian-level fitness training — for you to break this summer. You’ll earn a sense of accomplishment and a nice tan in the process.
- Create an underwater human pyramid. To break the Guinness World Record, you need at least 63 people in the formation.
2. Balance standing on an inflatable raft in the pool. You’ll need to avoid falling in for at least 4 minutes, 37 seconds.
3. Give a lot of high-fives from a pool in 15 seconds. You must slap hands with at least 14 people to break the record.
4. Cannonball as a group. To break the record, 233 people must jump in at the same time.
5. Make your pool glow. The world record has never been officially counted, but judging by pictures, it looks as though having about 100 glow sticks floating in your pool may break the record!
6. Jump rope underwater. Peter Nestler, the current record-holder, jumped rope 1,871 times underwater in one hour in 2014. On his first breath, he completed 22 rotations, but soon was averaging seven to nine rotations per breath.
7. Fit a swim cap around three people’s heads. The record right now is two heads.
8. Go skinny-dipping with a lot of friends. The record stands at 744 people skinny-dipping at one time, which was set in New Zealand in 2013.
9. Throw a water balloon farther than a second baseman throws a baseball to home plate. The current Guinness World Record for throwing a water balloon is 127.36 feet (38.82 meters).
10. Throw a flip-flop into someone else’s yard. Your flip-flop will need to land at least 85.11 feet away to break the current record.
11. Throw flip-flops as a group. To break the Guinness World Record, you would need to beat an entire high school population from Australia.
12. Run 100-meter hurdles while wearing swim fins. To break the Guinness World Record, do so in under 14.82 seconds.
13. Turn your pool into a giant bathtub, and collect rubber duckies to float in it. The largest known rubber duck collection includes 1,439 variations of duck.
14. Gather a group to swim a 100-x-100 meter relay. Yes, that’s swimming 100 meters 100 times. The current time record for this relay is 1 hour, 29 minutes, 3 seconds.
15. Swim freestyle for 50 meters. And finish in less than 20.26 seconds for men, or 23.24 seconds for women, to break the world records. Keep in mind that these records were set by Olympians.
16. Swim 200 meters in under 2 minutes. Among professional swimmers, this is considered a way to separate winners from mere competitors. The first athlete to accomplish this was Don Schollander.
17. Fly through 50 meters of water. Roland Schoeman set the current 50-meter butterfly record of 23.26 seconds at the 2013 Arizona Masters Championships in Phoenix.
18. Swim competitively while being impressively old. Jaring Timmerman holds the record, having been 104 while competing in two masters swimming races.
19. Throw the most epic pool dance party. It will need to last more than 55 hours to break the Guinness World Record.
20. Bench-press underwater. The current world record-holder, Gerald Rioual, completed 36 reps with a 110-pound barbell in 90 seconds without coming up for air.
21. Hold your breath underwater. The current record for holding one’s breath without the aid of pure oxygen is 11 minutes, 35 seconds for men, and 8 minutes, 23 seconds for women.
22. Tread water for days. In order to break the record, you would need to tread water for more than 85 hours!
23. Sew a beach towel larger than most actual swimming pools. To break the Guinness World Record, your beach towel would need to be bigger than 285 feet 10 inches by 82 feet 8 inches.
24. Befriend some millionaires and build a pool 14 stories deep. Right now, the deepest pool in the world is in Montegrotto Terme, Italy. It’s 42 meters deep (137 feet, 9.54 inches) at one point and holds 1.135 million gallons of thermal water.
25. Befriend some billionaires and build a pool the size of a lake. The biggest known pool in the world, situated at the San Alfonso del Mar Resort in Algarrobo, Chile, is more than 3,000 feet long and holds 66 million gallons of saltwater.
Tim Murphy is the founder and CEO of Presidential Pools, Spas & Patio, the nation’s largest pool builder, based in Arizona. Since 1991, the company has been transforming backyards, providing custom design and building services for swimming pools, spas and patios in the Phoenix and Tucson metro areas.
