King of Most Trades Trivia Quiz

Answer: Holding the most Guinness world records at a time

Brooklyn-born Ashrita Furman was once considered "non-athletic", so never thought he could ever claim a Guinness world record of his own even though he was fascinated with the concept. Since breaking his first record in 1979, Furman has set over 550 Guinness world records and has even held the record for holding the most records.

Answer: Most number of jumping jacks

Furman has held records in all of these events but the jumping jacks was his first entry. The previous record was 20,088 and Furman absolutely smashed this with 27,000 in a time of six hours and forty-five minutes. There are many variations of this record with punters trying to achieve the most jumping jacks in 30 or 60 seconds, most jumping jacks while on fire or most people doing jumping jacks at one time.

Whilst this list is not definitive, it lends itself to the records being televised and able to be watched by millions - and let's face it, who really wants to watch someone spend nearly seven hours straight dong jumping jacks?

Answer: Australia

Furman had already set records in forty different countries at this stage. 2003 saw him breaking the record for the fastest mile run while hula hooping. This record was set at Uluru, also known as the Ayer's Rock, in central Australia. With this, Furman also met his personal goal of breaking a record on every continent.

Answer: Great Wall of China

A kangaroo ball or space hopper is a large rubber ball with handles. A person can sit on it and use the handles to prevent themselves from falling off.

Furman chose the Great Wall of China as the backdrop when he set the record for the fastest mile travelled while sitting on a kangaroo ball. You have to give Furman full marks for creativity going by the range of records set by him.

Answer: Gluggling

Furman has created several new activities including gluggling (underwater juggling) and landrowing (rowing overland using a converted indoor rowing machine). Furman glugged for 48 minutes at Underwater World in New Zealand, rowed 1500 miles (2400km) on his landrower in Bali, Indonesia, and completed a long distance sack race against a yak (although it's unclear if the yak was also in a sack!) in Mongolia in 2007.

Answer: Samurai sword

The goal of the record was to cut the maximum apples mid-air within one minute, using a Samurai sword. In 2012, Furman managed to cut 29 apples in 60 seconds. He broke his own earlier record of 27 apples with this feat.

Answer: Using his nose

Unbelievable as it may sound, in 2007, Furman set the record for the least time taken to push an orange for a mile using only his nose. This task took him 22 minutes and 47 seconds. It was another case of Furman beating his own previous record - a time of 24 minutes and 36 seconds.

Answer: Freediving distance

That's correct folks - Furman first set a Guinness world record for all of these activities, except freediving. The longest distance underwater on a pogo stick world record was set in 2007, farthest distance underwater on a unicycle was set in 2013, and longest time hula hooping underwater (2 minutes and 38 seconds) was set in 2007.

Answer: Somersaulting

Furman set the somersaulting record in 1986 by somersaulting 12.25 miles along the route of Paul Revere's famous Massachusetts' ride. According to Furman himself, he completed 8341 somersaults overcoming dizziness, nausea and exhaustion and only stopping to throw up (that's all the rules allow for!).

Answer: Mount Baden-Powell

Mount Baden-Powell, named after the founder of the Boy Scouts, is located in the San Gabriel Mountains of California. It has an elevation of 9,407 feet or 2,867 meters. Furman wore steel peg stilts during the climb and all breaks taken by him were while he continued to wear the stilts. The total time taken was 1 hour and 52 minutes.