All hail the plank! The ultimate core-stability exercise that has many benefits including strengthening your abdominal muscles and back. This exercise is known to build core strength and endurance, important while doing everyday activities—at home or in your workouts.
In a fitness class you may hear, “we’re doing a two-minute plank”. You say, “no problem!” You get yourself to the floor like you’re doing a push up, you hold yourself up by placing your forearms on the floor and anchoring your toes into the ground. Your back is straight and you’re contracting your abs, glutes and quads, things are looking good. After two minutes you mentally pat yourself on the back for making it through, but how did you really do? Did your form start to fail? Was your core engaged the entire time? Were you benefiting your body or serving your ego?
After years of teaching I’ve found that many people struggle with maintaining good form while holding a plank for long periods of time. An option is to do a series of planks only holding each set for 10 sec with a short rest between sets.
Dr. Stuart McGill professor of spine biometrics at the University of Waterloo agrees and states that, “holding a plank for longer than 10 sec intervals is not useful for the average person.” You can read more about his research here.
Getting into the plank position is straightforward but holding it takes strength and endurance. When you’re struggling with either components, the best thing to do is to modify (e.g. go onto your knees). There’s no shame in modifying, especially if it allows you to maintain good form.
Try changing up how you perform your planks and reap the rewards of a truly stronger core.
