Pressing News: A Day in the Life of an Extreme Ironer

What the hell is extreme ironing?

Glad you asked. In a nutshell, extreme ironing is exactly what it sounds like, combining some form of extreme activity with the everyday act of ironing.

Are you a rock climber who wants to add a twist? Strap an ironing board to your back for some rappelling, ironing fun.

Do you love skydiving? Throw a board on your feet and have a friend jump out of the plane with a shirt in need of pressing and an iron.

Have you been itching to add a generator to your bike so you can randomly produce electricity when you bike? Of course you are.

So why stop there? Add an ironing board and get your morning ironing done while you grab some exercise.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg, believe me.

So how did this start, and perhaps more importantly, why?

There seem to be two stories out there explaining the inspiration for extreme ironing. The first theory credits the band  Monster Magnet and the music video for their song, "Negasonic Teenage Warhead."

Though this theory seems like it might have spawned as a joke, it does set the bar high. After all, if you can iron on an asteroid, you can certainly iron while hanging off the side of a cliff face, am I right?

The second theory credits a British knitwear factory worker, Phil Shaw of Leicester, who decided one night that he would do his chores on his own terms.

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I returned home after a long day in the knitwear factory, and the last thing I wanted to do was start on a pile of ironing. The sun was shining and I preferred the idea of an evening out pursuing my (somewhat unsuccessful) hobby of rock climbing. Then it occurred to me to combine these activities into an extreme sport—the result: extreme ironing.

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Listen, each year I like to balance my checkbook while I run with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. Until you've combined the satisfaction of responsibility with the thrill of a near-death experience, you haven't lived.

I kid, I kid.

But extreme ironing has certainly caught on in small pockets around the world. There are Extreme Ironing competitions and clubs, and world records have been recorded. From Guinness World Records:

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The most people extreme ironing underwater is 173 and was achieved by de Waterman Diving Club (Netherlands) in Oss, Netherlands, on 28 March 2011.

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So fire up your generators, grab your extension cord, or purchase a battery-powered iron and get going—there is extreme ironing to be done!