Down for the challenge
Woman hopes 76 squats squash Guinness record
Katy Kellett rarely shies away from a fitness challenge.
The Chelmsford resident has taken adult tap dancing classes, was formerly a professional figure skater for Disney on Ice, has run the Boston Marathon to benefit The Jimmy Fund, has climbed every 4,000-foot mountain in New Hampshire, and recently won a fitness challenge at Planet Dance in Lowell, also where she took the tap dancing class.
The competitive streak reignited in her after winning the fitness challenge, and she set her sights on her next conquest: breaking a mark recog
nized by the Guinness World Records.
While she took a remote fitness class at Groton’s Driven Fit from her basement, her instructor, CaraMia Pandozzi, challenged the class to do as many jump squats as they could in two minutes.
“She did, like, an obscene, unhumanly amount,” Pandozzi said. “I can’t do that.”
The next day, they joked about the possibility of her breaking a record, and the day after, she texted Pandozzi something like, “‘Hey, this is wicked crazy, but look at this,’ and there was her filling out the Guinness submission form for it,” Pandozzi said. “‘I was like, ‘Oh … she wasn’t kidding. She’s actually going to do it.’ ”
From Kellett’s perspective, she realized after some research that 80 jump squats was the male record, but there was no female record. She contacted Guinness “on a whim” in October about the female record, and was told the benchmark the group had set was 60. Kellett said she aimed to come as close to the male record of 80 as possible in her attempt.
After she heard back from Guinness in January, she trained toward that goal for two months at Driven Fit, in her basement and at other remote and in-person gyms including Pure Barre in Burlington and Orange Theory in Westford.
Specifically, Pandozzi coached Kellett weekly on Zoom and occasionally in person, and gave her workouts to do in between on her own. Typically, Kellett would practice jump squats in a given timeframe, either 20 seconds, 40 seconds, a minute or two minutes. Sometimes, she’d go for speed, other times she’d go for power. She even practiced with pillows under her feet to make sure her form was correct, and sometimes strapped weights to her ankles for a new challenge. She also put in plenty of time with a jump rope and weights.
“I’ve never had to train somebody to break a world record before, so, you know, it was new to me,” Pandozzi said. “I just did my best not only as a professional, but as her friend who wanted to see her do it. I did it to the best of my ability.”
Oftentimes, Kellett said she would practice matching the pace of the man who broke the record with 80 jump squats. Although she hasn’t hit 80 yet, she said she has hit 79 in practice.
Kellett’s family also supported her throughout her training. She said her sons often saw her practicing her squats and joined in. Kellett’s husband Owen, also an athlete, helped her train as well. Because he was a sprinter in college, he gave her pointers for increasing her speed.
“My whole family’s been really supportive of this very random idea,” she said.
Training wasn’t easy, though, as she is also a part-time attorney at her own firm and a mother to three sons, ages 3, 5 and 7.
“I get them in in the morning, before they wake up and then in the evening, like after they go to bed. So it’s a lot of juggling, but we’re making it work,” she said, adding that her sons are “big Guinness record fans.”
After eight weeks of repeated jump-squatting, Kellett said she’s “excited to, you know, work (back) into my normal routine, but probably not quite as many as I’ve been doing,” she said with a laugh.
When it was time to attempt the record on April 14, she knew she had to do it at Driven Fit. To comply with Guinness’s rules, she had an attorney and a personal trainer as witnesses, as well as an official timekeeper, a photographer and a videographer. She also brought her family along as well as her trainers from all her gyms, plus her former figure skating coach. Seeing all those people cheering her on reminded Kellett of her wedding, when “you have your whole family (there), and everyone’s there just supporting you in that big moment,” she said.
Assuming the Guinness staff approves of her attempt, she’ll have shattered the record with 76 jump squats in a minute.
Her husband isn’t at all surprised by her success.
“She had been doing drills and training sessions where she was hitting those marks, so you wouldn’t want to say it was a foregone conclusion, but you know, it was clear that she was prepared for it and she was ready to do it,” he said. “It’s consistent with Katy, and she always aims high for everything that she does.”
Done with that challenge, Kellett is already on to her next one. She and her husband signed up for a virtual Appalachian Trail challenge. By the end of the year, the pair hopes to “hike” the length of the trail, 2,190 miles, by walking around their neighborhood.
Kellett is also scrolling through existing Guinness records online to see if there may be another she could break.
“I don’t know if there’ll be another Guinness World Record,” she said, “but it is tempting.”