How to Do a Perfect Plank

| BY:
How to Do a Perfect Plank

Crunches might receive most of the attention when it comes to sculpting a six-pack, but if you want a strong, chiseled middle, it also pays to stay still.

Isometric exercises such as the plank are among the most effective ways to train your core, according to a study from the University of Waterloo.

The reason: Not only does holding a rigid position extend your muscles’ time under tension (a key growth factor), but it also reinforces your core’s primary job: stabilizing your spine.

So consider the plank a fitness twofer — a tool that will both strengthen every muscle between your hips and shoulders and help give you one less ache to worry about.

Plank: Step-by-Step Instructions

Athlete Does Plank | Push Pull Legs

  • Assume a push-up position: Get on all fours with your feet together and your body straight from head to heels. Make sure your wrists are directly beneath your shoulders. (You can also perform the plank on your forearms, making sure they’re parallel with your palms facing down.)
  • Squeeze your glutes and brace your core by drawing your belly button toward your spine to lock your body into position. (To achieve this, it helps to imagine that someone is about to punch you in the gut.)
  • Hold this position for up to 90 seconds. Rest for one minute. Repeat three to five times.

Make it easier: Perform the exercise with your hands on a stable elevated surface, like a table. The farther you are from the ground, the easier the exercise becomes.

Make it harder: Widen your legs to shoulder-width and raise an arm, or a leg, or an arm and the opposite leg. The less contact you have with the ground, the more unstable you will be, and the more difficult the exercise will become.

Bonus tips: To make sure you’re using correct form, have a friend place a yardstick along your back. It should touch your head, upper back, and butt. Squeezing your glutes and bracing your core will help you maintain that alignment.

Also, press your hands into the floor. Doing so will activate your serratus anterior muscles (located below your shoulder blades), creating tension in nearly every muscle between your hips and shoulders.

Muscle Groups Targeted by Planks

Planks are pretty much a catchall for working different muscles.

“When you do a plank, you not only engage all of the muscles in your core, but also your glutes, thighs, and shoulders — it really is a total-body exercise,” says exercise physiologist Martica Heaner, Ph.D., author of Cross-Training for Dummies.

Core muscles

core muscles | how to engage your core

  • Rectus abdominis: Residing in the middle of your abdomen, the rectus abdominis is your “six-pack” muscle. It helps you bend or flex your torso.
  • Transverse abdominis: The transverse abdominis is your deepest core muscle and wraps around your body horizontally and helps stabilize your spine, pelvis, and lower back.
  • External abdominal oblique: Your external obliques sit on the side and front of your abdomen. They help you stabilize your core and twist and bend your trunk to the side.
  • Internal abdominal oblique: Lying underneath your external obliques (deeper in your body, not down towards your legs), your internal obliques assist with the function of your external obliques as well as help maintain intra-abdominal pressure.

Upper body

Deltoid Muscle Diagram | Cable Rear Delt Fly

  • Deltoids: A triple-headed muscle (front, side, and rear) that forms the “cap” on your shoulder, the deltoids help move your arm 360 degrees.

Back muscles - back stretches

  • Latissimus dorsi (lats): Your lats, the big fan-shaped back muscles on either side of your spine, help control motion at the shoulder.

chest muscle anatomy | chest muscles

  • Pectoral muscles: The muscles of your chest also assist in moving your arms and help you push and squeeze.

Lower body

glute muscle anatomy | dumbbell deadlift

  • Glutes: Your butt muscles (glutes) help protect and stabilize your lower back, pelvis, and hips.

quad muscles | thigh anatomy

  • Quads: Situated on the front of your thighs and responsible for knee extension, your quads help stabilize your body during the plank.

hamstring muscle anatomy | do squats make your butt look bigger

  • Hamstrings: The muscles that run down the back of your legs, the hamstrings, help with keeping your hips level (i.e. not sagging down toward the floor).

3 Benefits of Planks

Yes, planks can help you score a stellar six-pack, but they also provide some other unique benefits.

1. Work multiple muscle groups

Again, the plank targets multiple muscles at once, and it does so quite effectively, too. Holding the static plank position extends your muscles’ time under tension, which is key to triggering muscle growth.

It’ll also help you practice bracing different parts of your body at once, which is a useful skill that can transfer to other exercises.

2. Strengthen your core

Ultimately, planking reinforces your core’s primary job: stabilizing the spine. When you strengthen the armada of muscles that support and stabilize your spine (i.e., your core), you reduce the amount of stress placed on it. “Stability exercises like planks are the key [to protecting your back],” Heaner says.

Crunches and sit-ups do a fine job of working your abs, but planks, when done correctly, train all sides of your core, from the front to the back.

3. Lower impact than other core exercises

Planks also limit the amount of stress placed on the spine. “Crunches and sit-ups mobilize and bend the spine, and in doing so, they compress the discs in between the vertebrae,” Heaner says. “While some people can handle this, it can be too much stress on spinal structures for some.”

How Long Should You Hold a Plank?

Woman Holds Plank Position | Rotator Cuff Exercises

According to Heaner, there is no perfect amount of time to hold a plank. Instead, what matters is building up your muscular endurance.

“Working up to being able to hold a plank for one to three minutes is a great (and difficult) goal,” she says, adding that it’s also worth your time to work on performing variations of the plank with different arm and leg movements. “This shifts your body weight and throws the plank off balance for increased challenges to the core muscles.”

(With enough work, maybe you’ll one day claim the world record for holding a plank at more than nine and a half hours.)

Plank Tips for Beginners

Never done a plank before? Don’t be intimidated. It’s easy to work your way up to doing one like a pro.

Get comfortable

First, start with either the basic full plank or forearm plank. If the full plank hurts your wrists, then opt for the forearm plank, or prop yourself up on large dumbbells or push-up bars.

Pace yourself but prioritize progress

It’s OK to start small. “Unless someone is used to doing full-body push-ups, it’s likely that when they first try a plank they would not be able to hold it for even 5 seconds,” Heaner says. “So for a beginner, holding it for 5 seconds, resting, then picking it up again for another 5 seconds, and so on, is a sensible approach.”

She suggests adding 5 to 10 seconds to your plank every week to work your way up to holding it for a full minute. “It’s fine to do them every day since they are an endurance exercise.”

Try harder variations

When you become comfortable holding a basic plank for 10 to 30 seconds, Heaner says you can progress to more advanced variations, like side planks. You can also escalate the forearm or full plank by doing a single-arm or single-leg plank, which involves rotating the torso or lifting one arm or one leg (or even one arm and one leg).