A 72-year-old Valley man set a world record for weightlifting Thursday, according to Blast! Fitness in Mesa.
At 8 a.m. Thursday, Pat Howden set out to do 5,500 nonstop tricep extensions with 8-pound weights in about 90 minutes.
“Crazy Pat,” as his friends call him, is no stranger to these types of challenges.
In 2010, he did 3,350 tricep extensions in 45 minutes at Gold’s Gym in Loveland, Colorado. He said he also did 15,000 tricep dips in one week.
He has a scrapbook filled with articles written about him.
It all started when he was about 50 years old.
“A friend of mine … he says, ‘Patrick, when you get to the age of 50, it’s all downhill.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘You’re getting old.’ So, I went home and I did 22 pushups,” Howden recalled.
Howden said that in a year’s time, he was doing 144 pushups twice a day, every other day.
“I don’t like the word ‘can’t,’ ” the former Marine said. “It’s not in my vocabulary.”
The Illinois native said he was an alcoholic and smoked three to four packs of cigarettes a day for about 30 years, but he quit it all cold turkey.
“I looked in the mirror and I didn’t like what I see. I don’t like that guy,” he said.
Now, Howden shares his story about alcohol and tobacco use and exercises almost every day.