in this video you're gonna learn a simple variation to the common plank
exercise that will give you a nasty core workout yo what's up it's Coach E here and
today I'm gonna show you just a really simple variation to the plank exercise
that will increase its intensity make it more difficult and further challenge
your core to make it stronger and more stable now the reason why this is very
important for the plank and why I wanted to share it with you is because it
adheres to two of the core principles of training one is specificity and the
other is progressive overload now when it comes to specificity if you're doing
the plank and your goal is to do like 500 minutes of plank or to hold the
plank for 10 minutes plank challenge whatever you know these things come out
on YouTube and Instagram especially if you're doing something like that you're
not adhering to the principle of specificity because the core at that
level of intensity the intensity where you're holding a plank
you're never gonna hold that for like five minutes for two minutes even a
minute is a bit of a stretch that's why once we get to a minute
once I train my clients by athletes to a minute we move on to something else more
difficult so that's with respect to specificity now progressive overload
yeah if you're doing a plank from 30 seconds to a minute and a minute to two
minutes two minutes to 10 minutes that's progressive overload but because going
from one minute to 10 minutes isn't useful from sports performance or a gym
performance perspective then you're failing the specificity test okay so how
do we overload while keeping specificity well yeah we can do the plank for a
minute that's awesome but now for tasks or activities say a
football linebacker he's banging up against another 300 pound behemoth that
plays gonna last for five to ten seconds we've got to challenge the core for five
to 10 seconds where the fatigue will set in at about that point okay how are we
gonna do that well here's the variation standard plank
you should know this by now elbows right under the shoulders spine is in neutral
chin is tucked scapula in neutral legs are straight hips they're straight
holding there breathing okay I don't know how long I can do this I don't care
I know I can do it for at least a minute a simple variation here that I want to
teach you is just moving the elbows the forearms wider apart and/or in front of
you so try it so you start in your normal elbows right under your shoulders
but then I could go to the edges of the mat here okay
and already I can feel greater intensity greater difficulty on the core I can
move it wise as wide as the mat and up even more difficult okay maintaining
breathing starting to shake now there's no way I can hold this for five minutes
and I'm gonna rest here so that's the variation that's all we need to do is we
alter the width of the forums or how far the floor arms are from your feet and
any combination thereof how you can apply that is by using the principle of
progressive overload get to try out one area and if you can only do that for say
10 seconds maybe you make that your goal for 30 seconds and then you further
increase how wide it is and once you're good pretty wide like let's go see what
that feels like out to here it's a little more challenging
once you can do that for 30 seconds then we can start to go in front and that's a
lot more challenging
okay the reason why I like this so much is because it's easy to adjust the
intensity just like doing a bicep curl ten pounds and go to 15 and you're over
20 pounds keeping within that 4 to 6 or 6 to 12 rep range that's a great
way to overload the biceps and make them stronger and make them grow this is
gonna help you do I kind of Ratchet it up incrementally so that you're still
working within say 15 to 30 second holds which is challenging and which is
specific for strength and then and once you get up to 30 seconds or even 60
seconds then you can increase the width or how high your forearms are on the
ground all right so that's the simple variation I think it's pretty simple and
it's very applicable and it adheres to the principles of specificity and
progressive overload so that's all I got for you today hope you enjoyed that one
and if you wanna learn more check out what I've got for you at the end of this
video peace