Planks
Planks! One of the toughest exercises out there. Take it from someone who has done planks every week for the last 5+ years. I’m here to tell you that there’s hope, though – they DO, in fact, get easier with time. They are literally no different than any other exercise when it comes to getting better at them, and honestly, they are arguably easier to get better at than other exercises from my experience. Even if you add 1 second to your plank every week, you’re progressing. It’s hard to secure that linear progression with other exercises. Let’s review.
First, if you’re new to planks, go do one and see what your longest/max plank time is. Say it’s 30 seconds. Not bad for just starting out. So here’s what I would do – I would take ~80% of your max time (so in this case 25 seconds), and perform four sets of 25 second planks. Once you hit all 4 sets for 25 seconds, then the next week, add 5 seconds so you are planking for 4 sets for 30 seconds. Once you hit that, increase the following week by another 5 seconds. Summary below.
The schedule assumes that your longest plank to start is 30 seconds.
Week 1 – four sets of 25 second bodyweight planks
Week 2 – four sets of 30 second bodyweight planks
Week 3 – four sets of 35 second body weight planks
Week 4 – four sets of 40 second bodyweight planks
Week 5+ so on, and so forth
Only increase the length when you can do the full amount of time for all four sets! This may look like the simplest progression that ever existed, and that’s because it SHOULD be the simplest progression! I see a lot of people do their max plank for 4 sets – I never really found that to work for me. Baby steps, every single week, by adding just 5 seconds to the sets of 4 – that’s what worked and has worked for me. My current max plank time is around 7 minutes, and I stopped doing the sets of 4 bodyweight planks when I hit ~4 minutes. I don’t really care to increase anymore – I’ve transitioned to planks with a plate on my back, and let me explain why. The problem that you are going to run into with planks is not the fact that they’re challenging as an exercise. Instead, I think you will start to see that for anything that’s timed, sitting there and staring at your phone’s clock for minutes at a time in a tough static hold can be mentally draining. I reached the point where I hated bodyweight planking for 4 sets – it felt mentally draining doing a static hold for that long. SO, I definitely caution you to think about setting a limit on your plank, and then transitioning to weighted planks using the same schedule and template above (add a 25 lb plate to start, then once you hit the 2+ minute range, transition to a full plate). You’re going to get the time that you want to get for bodyweight planks using the template above, but unless you just absolutely love planking, you’re inevitably going to end up hating it when you do it for several minutes at a time, simply due to mental fatigue.
During one of my long, ~4 min planks
Lastly, one more word of caution – once you start planking more and more, you’ll notice that the skin around your elbows will peel off due to the friction of your elbow against the mat. To mitigate this, I recommend wearing a hoodie or a long sleeve shirt every time you plank. Your elbows will thank you!
Oh, and I forgot to mention – YES! They certainly help developing six pack, but more importantly, a more developed core. You can also do plank variations, like the side plank, or “ninja” planks. We’ll cover these subjects in future posts. As always, reach out if you have any questions.
