Strongman shatters karate chopping record
By Natalie Paris and agencies
Last Updated: 2:51pm GMT 19/03/2008
A karate-chopping strongman from Cornwall has smashed the record for breaking concrete blocks with your bare hands.
Ed Byrne, a 40-year-old martial arts master, chopped through 55 granite and concrete edging stones in 4.86 seconds using only the power unleashed by the palm of his hand.
The ninth dan black belt shattered the previous record of 17.49 seconds.
He said: "I used to break things when I was a kid for fun with my friends and I would break things easily whereas my friends wouldn’t.
"People think it’s a lot easier to break blocks than it actually is - I make it look easy.
“I have hypnotherapy and picture breaking the slabs. I also feed off the energy of the crowd.”
For his next challenge, the muscle-bound karate king hopes to break more blocks in one stack than ever before with a single strike.
The record currently stands at 31 slabs of concrete in one chop.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/19/nkarate119.xml
The Brown Ribbon Campaign approves of breaking concrete.