Plank Form
I always tell people to KEEP MOVING but one of the best exercises you can do involves no movement at all. I’m talking about planking. Planking may seem like a fad when world leaders are doing it (remember Canada’s Prime Minster Trudeau planking on a desk?) and the world record for longest plank is over 9.5 hours. But the research on the benefits of planking is so significant that the US army swapped out sit ups for planks this year!
Benefits of Plank
What they found is young recruits flinging themselves up and down to crank out as many sits ups as possible were injuring their backs, using other muscles besides their abdominals, and basically by-passing the ab muscles. (I should note: sit ups don’t have to be a bad exercise when performed with proper form, but at superspeed it’s hard to do them properly.)
In plank, no other muscle is going to pick up the slack. Your abs are going to do the work, or they are not. According to research, planks activate more ab muscles and engage them more intensely than sit ups. So, you build strength, definition, and endurance. […]
