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Plank
It's the ab exercise everyone thinks they've mastered and almost nobody does well. You don't win at the plank by holding it longer: you win by squeezing harder for less time.
Plank with Nora. Nora and Hugo are our models, created with artificial intelligence, on a competition floor.
What it works
- Your whole core, working without moving to stop your hips from sagging
- Glutes, which keep your lower back from dipping
- Shoulders and serratus, holding the weight of your torso on your forearms
How to do it
- 1Get on your forearms
Elbows right under your shoulders, forearms parallel and hands relaxed. Toes on the floor and legs together or hip-width apart.
- 2Line up your body
A straight line from your head to your heels. Hips neither sagging nor raised. If you can't tell, stand side-on to a mirror or film yourself with your phone.
- 3Squeeze your glutes and tuck your hips
This is what turns the plank into an ab exercise. Think about bringing your pubic bone toward your belly button, without moving anything on the outside.
- 4Push the floor away with your elbows
As if you wanted to push the floor away from you. Your upper back rounds slightly and the serratus kicks in. Long neck, eyes on the floor a hand's width in front of your hands.
- 5Breathe
Short breaths through your nose without letting go of the tension in your abs. Holding your breath isn't holding the plank.
The mistakes you see most
- Holding for minutes, loosely. Two minutes with your hips sagging doesn't train what thirty seconds of real squeezing does. If you can go past a minute without shaking, you don't need more time: you need a harder variation.
- Letting your lower back sag. That's what ends up making your lower back hurt. It's almost always fixed by squeezing your glutes, which hold your hips up from below.
- Raising your butt. With your hips up, your body rests and your abs stop working. It's the cheat your body does on its own when it gets tired: that's when it's time to stop.
- Looking straight ahead. It strains your neck and adds nothing. Your head follows the line of your back.
Variations
- On your knees. The way to start. Same hip tuck, less weight to hold up.
- Side plank. On one forearm and the edge of your foot. It works the obliques and the gluteus medius, which stabilizes your hips when you walk.
- Lifting one foot. Removing a point of support forces you not to rotate your hips. It makes it much harder without adding weight.
- With weight on your back. A plate on your upper back, placed by someone else. The clean way to make it harder without making it longer.
Frequently asked questions
How long should you hold a plank?
Twenty to sixty seconds per set, squeezing hard, is the range almost everyone works with. Once you can hold it for more than a minute without your hips moving, you'll get more from switching variations than from adding seconds.
Will it give me visible abs?
Abs show when there's little fat over them, and that isn't decided by any one exercise but by what you eat and how much you move in a day. The plank strengthens the area; whether it shows is another matter.
Plank or classic crunches?
They do different things. The plank trains your abs by holding still, which is how they work most of the day; the crunch trains them by shortening. The sensible thing is to have both in your week.
Why do my arms shake?
It's normal at first: they're small muscles holding on for a long time. If the shaking throws your posture off, end the set there.
And to keep track of what you lift
In the Reverfit Workout app every exercise comes with its animation, and you log the weight and reps set by set, with what you did last time right in front of you. Free and with no ads.
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