Exercise library
Plank
How to make a plank hard instead of long, the position most people get wrong, and the progressions that beat adding another thirty seconds.
How to do the plank
- 01Set your forearms on the floor, elbows directly under your shoulders, hands flat or clasped.
- 02Extend your legs behind you, feet about hip-width.
- 03Squeeze your glutes hard and tuck your tailbone slightly — this flattens the lower back.
- 04Pull your ribs down and brace as if bracing for a punch. Push the floor away so your upper back rounds slightly rather than sagging.
- 05Hold for 20 to 40 seconds of genuine tension, then stop. Quality ends before the time does.
Coaching cues
- Squeeze the glutes — it is what fixes a sagging lower back instantly.
- Push the floor away. A plank is an active push, not a hang.
- Brace hard enough that 30 seconds is difficult.
Common mistakes
FaultHips sagging toward the floor
FixSqueeze the glutes and tuck the tailbone. If it still sags, you are past your useful time — stop and do a shorter set.
FaultHips piked up in the air
FixEasier, and no longer an anti-extension exercise. Lower the hips until your body makes a straight line from ear to ankle.
FaultHolding for minutes
FixA two-minute plank you can chat through is trained endurance in a position you never use. Make it harder instead.
FaultHead hanging down
FixKeep your neck in line with your spine, eyes at the floor a foot ahead of your hands.
The plank is the most-performed core exercise and the one most often turned into a test of patience.
Time is the wrong variable
If you can hold a plank for two minutes, it stopped being a strength exercise somewhere around forty seconds. Everything after that is trained endurance in a static position you never actually adopt.
The productive version is twenty to forty seconds that are genuinely difficult. Getting there means making the position harder, not the clock longer.
Squeeze the glutes
The single most useful correction.
A sagging plank puts the lower back into extension and takes the abs out of the movement. People are usually told to “engage the core”, which is vague. Squeezing the glutes hard tilts the pelvis posteriorly, flattens the lower back, and puts the abdominal wall in a position where it can actually work.
Most people feel a plank become dramatically harder the first time they do it properly.
Push the floor away
A plank is an active push, not a hang between your shoulder blades.
Press through your forearms so your upper back rounds very slightly. That engages the serratus anterior and stops you resting on passive structures, which is what turns a two-minute hold into something easy.
Better than more time
Reach one arm forward. Lift one foot. Move your elbows further forward for a long-lever plank. Put a plate on your upper back. Elevate your feet.
Any of those returns the exercise to twenty hard seconds, which is where the training effect lives. For loaded anti-extension with more range, dead bugs do a similar job while moving.
Common questions
How long should you hold a plank?
Twenty to forty seconds of genuinely hard tension. If you can hold it for two minutes, the position is too easy to be training anything — the fix is a harder variation, not a longer hold.
What is the correct plank position?
Elbows under shoulders, a straight line from ear to ankle, glutes squeezed, tailbone slightly tucked, ribs pulled down, and an active push into the floor so the upper back is slightly rounded rather than sagging between the shoulder blades.
Why do planks hurt my lower back?
Because your hips are sagging, which puts the lumbar spine into extension and lets the lower back take the load your abs should be carrying. Squeezing the glutes hard usually fixes it immediately.
How do I make a plank harder?
Reach one arm forward, lift one foot, add weight to your upper back, elevate your feet, or move to a long-lever plank with your elbows further forward. All of them beat adding time.
Are planks better than sit-ups?
For most purposes yes, because the core's main job is resisting movement rather than producing it, and planks train exactly that without repeated spinal flexion. Neither will reveal abs — that is a body fat question.
Swap it out
Same training effect, different demand on the joints.