Plank

Equipment: Bodyweight

New to this

Your first plank

What weight should I start with on the plank?

Aim for 20 to 30 seconds on your first attempt, not the two minutes you've seen people post about. Three sets of 20 clean seconds beats one shaky minute.

Elbows under your shoulders, forearms flat, feet together. Your body should make one straight line from your heels to the back of your head.

Add 5 seconds a session. When you can hold 60 seconds with good position, stop adding time and start adding difficulty instead.

What usually goes wrong on the plank?

Your hips sag toward the floor. This is the one that matters. Squeeze your glutes and tuck your hips slightly under. If they sag again, end the set.

Your hips ride up into a peak. You're resting rather than working. Lower them until your body is flat.

You hold your breath. Breathe normally the whole way through. If you can't, you're past the point where the set is doing anything useful.

When 60 seconds gets easy

Holding longer stops paying off past a minute or so. Move to loaded ab work instead, where you can add weight the way you would on any other exercise.

How to do it

Get into a prone position on the floor, supporting your weight on your toes and your forearms. Your arms are bent and directly below the shoulder.
Keep your body straight at all times, and hold this position as long as possible. To increase difficulty, an arm or leg can be raised.