Tips On A Better Plank

The plank position utilizes your entire core. That means that when you are in a plank, you are locking out not just your abdominals, but your shoulders and your glutes. Your butt is part of your core, so use it. Your eyes should be a few inches in front of your fingertips to keep your neck neutral. It is not ideal to be craning the neck up to look at the person across from you or to relax your head entirely and look at your toes. Straight line head to heal. Squeeze everything: shoulders, core, butt, legs. You should be as solid as a rock, nothing should be fluffy or disengaged.

One key piece of the plank is the hip tuck. If you have ever experienced pain in your back while performing a plank, you are not tucking your hips. You hear that you should keep your hips neutral so you are forming a straight line shoulders, hips, heels. You may have your hips in line, but that doesn’t mean your low back is in the correct position. Think about tucking your butt cheeks under your pelvis and push your hip bones up so your back is completely flat and not arched.

Your hands should be right under the chest so we aren’t putting any unnecessary pressure on the shoulders. In order to engage the shoulders properly, we have to corkscrew the elbows in. When we rotate through the wrists so that the crook of your elbow is facing outward, you are pulling the shoulder blades down and back into the correct position with a little help from the lats.

To relieve some of the pressure on the wrists as well as to relax the shoulders a touch, spread your fingers out wide. If you are experiencing pain in your wrists, one option is to grab a pair of dumbbells and hold on to them to take your wrists out of the bent position. Another option you have is drop onto your elbows to take the wrists out of it completely. If your shoulders are taking too much of the pressure, you can drop into a low plank here too with your hands apart and your eyes between your palms. In either position, hands or elbows, we can immediately make the plank easier by dropping to the knees. However, a plank at the knees doesn’t stop at the knees. The hips still stay in line with the head, and the toes stay dug into the ground to keep the glutes engaged and the hips tucked.

Once you’re in position, lock and hold!