Guinness World Record holder: Twenty-year-old Kuwar Amritbir Singh creates the Guinness World Record for “Most Push ups with claps (finger tips) in one minute.” A resident of Punjab’s Batala city, Singh achieved the milestone in his second attempt.

Guinness World Record holder Kuwar Amritbir Singh

Interestingly, this fitness enthusiast from the nondescript village of Umarwala in Gurdaspur district of Punjab now has a following of 168k on Instagram, with followers from all around the world. He also has a YouTube channel aiming on workout techniques minus the frills.

Taking to his social media handle on Sunday, Singh informed about the milestone. Singh wrote, “Guinness World Record Holder Yes I Did it, “Most Push ups with claps (finger tips) in one minute”.”

Singh shed light on his journey in achieving the record and underlined the importance of positive approach in life while interacting with Sudhanshu Mishra of The Statesman.

In conversation with Guinness World Record holder Kuwar Amritbir Singh…

How were you introduced to the field of Fitness?

I started this journey in 2019, since my childhood, I have been a huge fan of books and movies. It helped me to learn about a lot of things. I used to get so much motivation from them.

As we know, Punjab has been land of fitness enthusiasts, who used traditional ways to practise for it. After knowing these things I strived to introduce those traditional ways in the modern time as nowadays those practices got replaced by gyms. So, by practising at home I tried to present how a passionate heart even with limited resources can achieve big things.

As we know, maintaining fitness is not a cakewalk, and when it comes to building world records it’s even harder, so how much time did you dedicate to your training?

Yes surely, It has been about 2.5 years now that I have been training. On normal days, I follow about 4-5 hours of dedicated sessions. 2-2.5 hours in the morning and the same in the evening, however, ‘enough’ is not the word when it comes to hard work, especially when your dedication and aim is different, people call this a waste of time, but rather than leaving it, I take it as a bigger challenge and work harder.

In your Instagram post, you mentioned a brief period of setbacks. How did you manage it and what di you learn from it

I made my first record in 2019, but that record was only in Indian record books – World Records of India, India book of record. However, it lent a place to my work but still, I thrived for Guinness records, which has an international standard.

Following year, I applied for the LIMCA book of records, but didn’t receive any response from them. On the contrary, due to getting engaged with that I was not able to give proper attention to practice. I had planned to apply for Guinness once I passed LIMCA but it was in vain. I applied for Guinness in Nov, 2021 and in Dec of that year I registered my first record of continuous exercise for 3 minutes.

But, in March 2022 my record was disqualified. I was hugely disappointed that I tried and waited for 3 months, but got this result. However, as the saying goes “Jo hota hai acche ke liye hota hai“, this also happened for a good reason. And, that rejection taught me that this much hard work is not enough, as every rejection presents you one more opportunity for getting more.

What was your reaction when your record was accepted?

It takes about 75 months for acceptance of record. However, unlike my first attempt when I didn’t practise during this period, this time I continued practising hard and prepared for three more records. After 75 days, I received the mail that my record was in processing due to lack of documents. Soon I completed the documents and sent them.

After 1 month, on 28th July I received the acceptance mail, it was 7:27 pm, that moment was exactly similar to a Bollywood scene as after the acceptance I ran to the field and screamed my heart out to mark the accomplishment. At that time the only motivation I had was from my Instagram followers, who showered love on me and I had vowed to get this record for that support. And obviously, when I told my parents, they were also extremely happy and proud.

As you are just 20, an age when normally people have no fixed path, you are breaking these big records. What is your advice for youngsters?

I would advise everyone that no matter what you are doing and aiming for, the most important thing is first, how much hard work you are putting in it. Second, how much passion you have, how many boundaries you can break to accomplish it. And third, listen to what your heart says, not what people say.

Generally, we go with the notion that getting a government job or going abroad makes you successful, but that is obviously not true. The fact is that if personalities like Sachin Tendulkar, Amitabh Bachchan or Lata Mangeshkar would have listened to society and didn’t follow their passion, would we have ever got those shining stars, probably they would have even not landed on a job and would regret their decision. So, what is important is that you stay firm with your decision and keep working on it.

What next?

There is a saying, that one should never disclose their next step, but I will definitely say that whatever I will do will make the country proud and will surely motivate youth.

At last I will say that, even if you are at zero, with passion and hardwork you can fly high in the air. “Na daro arr so jab jaye lado, Nishchay kar apni jeet karo“