INTERNATIONAL: A 30-year old German man, who’s an IT-professional has cracked an unusual record: hula hooping while in the abdominal plank position, for 6.34 minutes.

"The hardest part is the plank. I hardly notice the hula hoop", says Kai Sandmeyer, who established the record Ehingen.

When he saw a video of the former record holder on Facebook, Sandmeyer decided to try the challenge and hopefully set a new Guinness World Records.

While he was not taken seriously at first by friends and family, Sandmeyer trained intensively before and after work every day to almost double the former record of 3.14 minutes.

The biggest challenge for Sandmeyer, who comes from Lentersheim a small town in the south of Germany, was the bureaucracy linked to the record, namely a 36-page long rule book.

To make his performance count, Sandmeyer had to be filmed from several angles, had to have two witnesses present and perform at a public place, in his case the gym of a nearby school.

In case he was not successful, Sandmeyer had given the record of hula hooping while doing push-ups a thought.

"Since there is no record yet, 10 push-ups would probably be enough. But actually, the bureaucratic effort is just too much for me." Sandmeyer added on Friday 4 February.

^{PHOTO: KAI SANDMEYER PERFORMING HULA HOOPING WHILE IN PLANK POSITION/ SOUNDBITES FROM SANDMEYER WHILE DEMONSTRATING HOW HE SET WORLD RECORD/ FILE OF HIM SETTING WORLD RECORD}