Jonathan Ross, Senior Consultant Personal Training: Hi. Welcome to Plank School.
We're gonna learn a better way to do planks and a better way to progress planks once they start to get easier for you.
Starting off, we're gonna discuss how to do a plank the right way
and get your whole body involved in the plank, instead of just your abs.
First, we lie down on the floor face-down.
Tuck your elbows underneath.
The first thing we do is start the plank at your feet, not your abs.
You tuck your toes under. Then we straighten the knees to activate the legs. Then you tuck your butt under.
Then we lift the upper body by pressing the elbows down into the floor.
As you do that, you want to keep the head aligned with the rest of the body
so you should be looking at the ground right between your hands.
I'm gonna hold this just about 10 seconds and then release.
And I'm gonna take a short break and I'm going to perform the plank again, starting at the feet. Turn the toes under.
Straighten the knees. Tuck the butt. Then press the elbows in to get up.
The reason we do this is that the value in a plank is not in holding it as much as it is in creating it.
Just like an airplane, the hardest part of flying isn't keeping the plane up once it's up at your cruising altitude.
It's takeoff and landing. So, just like with our plank, takeoff and landing's the hard part.
We're gonna do one more set of 10 seconds, tuck the toes under, straighten the knees, tuck the butt, press the elbows, and we lift.
And you'll notice the straight alignment in the body from head, shoulders, hips and feet.
And then you release.
This can be way more valuable than providing one continuous plank, because you're creating the plank and then releasing the plank.
So, now, once this gets easy enough for you that you feel like you need a new challenge, we begin to lift a limb on a plank.
So, we start to move your extremities. Tuck the toes under, straighten the knees, tuck the butt, lift, and then we consider lifting one leg.
Then the other leg. And for more of a challenge, we shift over to one arm slowly and let the other arm lift slowly.
That's way more demanding, so be sure you take the time to balance slowly over the one elbow.
Now, once you need a new challenge from here, we begin to move your entire body. So, we start to do shifting planks.
So, we have shifting planks side to side; shifting planks front to back; and then we make circular shifting planks.
So, once we create a plank position we start to move your body around in different directions.
So, I get to a nice plank position, hold, and now the side-to-side shifting plank looks like this.
The body's moving right to left, holding the plank position.
The next option is a front-to-back plank
where you'll see I'm rocking through the ankles moving front to back while holding the plank position.
And the third option here is going to be a circular plank. It's a combination of front-to-back and side-to-side,
where you roll the body one direction and then roll the body another direction.
You're essentially drawing a circle with your body over the ground. The bigger you make the circle, the more challenging that option is.
And now for the final progression, if you still need to work harder yet, is gonna be doing walking planks.
So, we have a front-to-back walking plank and a side-to-side walking plank.
This is performed by getting to your plank position and then actually moving your body across the ground
by walking on your elbows and toes.
Get into the plank position and we start to walk backward just by moving the feet, not by bending the legs too much.
Walking up and back. And you can hear how demanding this is getting. So, I'm sure you can't wait to try.
That's the front-to-back walking plank. The next option, and our final one, is going to be the side-to-side walking plank.
You won't need anything after this, I assure you.
So, we turn to one side of your mat.
You create a plank position and we're gonna walk sideways, again, on the elbows and toes.
The goal with this is to maybe walk the length of your mat anywhere from two to four times,
depending on how long your mat is and how tired you get.
You want to keep the hips very controlled when doing this movement, so we try to minimize the amount of hip shaking.
Up in the plank position and we start to move. Take a step with the elbows and the toes.
Get to one end of the pad, I start to change direction, and return.
And as I go back, I'm gonna start to show you what happens when you get tired.
I'm getting a lot of hip-rolling now, getting very fatigued, so I'm starting to compromise my form.
That's usually when it's time to bail out and live to fight another day.
So, that's Plank School.
For more information on this, check out my other videos and also grab a copy of my book, Abs Revealed.
(Text on screen): Watch More Ab Videos: Plank School, Lateral Rolling Plank, Offset Arm Crunch on Stability Ball,
Side Plank, Medicine Ball Alternating V-Up, Circular Arm Crunch on Stability Ball.
Get the Book, Abs Revealed, by Jonathan Ross