After hundreds of hours working toward a better stomach, I’ve either prescribed or witnessed every crunch, leg lift, and torso twist variation known to man. While some worked better than others for “feeling the burn,” I quickly concluded that a lot of stupid stuff occurs in the commercial gym environment.
In the context of abdominal training, we have the abdominal crunch and the twist machine. These are two machines that actually stimulate the mechanism of spinal herniation in laboratory settings. We throw them in a gym filled with bad backs and include the ability to perform the movement under load. While most spinal trauma rarely occurs as an acute injury, this is a damned good way to buck that trend.
With that said, thousands of repetitive spinal flexion and rotation movements that build to cumulative injury are a far greater threat to the back. This explains why it’s possible to throw the back out while bending over to pick up a pencil. Because the lumbar spine is an area with a limited ability to rotate (and to a lesser extent flex), we want the abdominals to prevent excessive movements such as bending and twisting to protect the spine in daily life. This means that if your job involves hours of sitting, standing in place, or repetitively bending over, doing several hundred crunches on a stability ball with a plate behind your head may not be the smartest idea.
So what does this mean for abdominal training? In the words of physical therapist Shirley Sharmann, “During most activities, the primary role of the abdominal muscles is to provide isometric support and limit the degree of rotation of the trunk, which, as discussed, is limited in the lumbar spine.”
In order to train the abs to stabilize the trunk and prevent excess motion (versus creating it), exercises such as planks and side planks are excellent tools for building isometric strength and endurance. The problem with these exercises for enhancing your physique is they only provide low load abdominal contractions that do little to define the stomach. But throw in a few twists, a push-up or two, and some crawling along the floor and it is my firm belief that the plank will do more to chisel your core (and protect the low back) than the crunch ever could. Allow me to explain…
The anti-crunch
For both core training and beyond, the plank can truly be seen as a bang for your buck exercise.
By requiring the client to support his weight on his forearms or hands, this exercise can literally be seen as the mirror opposite of the crunch in both its position and benefits. While excess crunches create or reinforce a kyphosis posture (or a hunch back), plank variations have a positive impact on scapular stability by forcing the client to stabilize the trunk with the arms and/or elbows. Because crunches primarily target the upper portion of the rectus abdominus (six pack or beer gut), an imbalance in the strength/stiffness often appears between the upper portion of the stomach and the lower abdominals and external obliques (side abs), which is a bad thing unless your goal is to look like Quasimodo.
As you will see in the examples below, modified plank variations involving movement of the arms and legs are a fantastic way to target these areas to address this imbalance. By flexing one portion of the torso, several hundred crunches actually retard the muscle’s ability to strengthen by creating excessive shortness and an inability to contract and relax. By integrating all areas of the core to maintain stability, the plank allows us to target a certain area of the stomach while still involving its neighbors.
Perhaps most important when comparing these exercises is the potential for progressive resistance. While the crunch requires more volume or additional weight to increase its level of difficulty, the plank can always be made more challenging with nothing more than body weight and creativity.
Putting your plank together
When putting together plank progressions, we have taken the traditional plank matrix—which involves holding in a frontal plank followed by a side plank on each side—to the next level by adding a component of movement. For both physique and stability purposes, clients at our gym are then introduced to planks involving various arm and leg motions that require stabilization of each of the six quadrants of the core.
- Frontal plank, left arm
- Frontal plank, right arm
- Frontal plank, left leg
- Frontal plank, right leg
- Side plank, left side
- Side plank, right side
When combining these movements together, we come away with a stability task of the highest order. For new clients, this begins with our traditional plank progression. View an example of one of our circuits.
After this progression can be held for at least 30 seconds in each position, we introduce movements such as crawling, push-ups, and various stepping patterns with the upper and lower extremities to challenge the stability of the traditional frontal plank. The goal is to maintain a stable torso while pressure is applied to each area.
In our system, we always include an exercise that involves movement of the arms followed by movement of the legs and a side plank variation. The order of these exercises can be changed based upon the client’s particular need.
In this set up, we perform each exercise back to back while maintaining an abdominal brace and minimal movement of the torso. The advantage of this set up is that we can target particular areas of the core for either preferential stability and/or development. Listed below are a few examples of progressions that we utilize for specific areas of the stomach.
#1: Lower rectus abdominus: For someone who tests poorly in lower abdominal strength, we begin with a plank that involves leg movement first in our circuit. This is followed by a side plank variation that also involves leg movement. View the circuit.
#2: External obliques: Because the external obliques have been shown to be best recruited via movement of the arms and upper extremities, we begin this circuit with a plank involving arm movement. This is followed by a side plank variation also involving arm movement. View the circuit.
#3: Transfer to standing: Despite the effectiveness of these exercises, they were useless unless transferred to a standing position. In order to alleviate this issue, we added a vertical core exercise that involves bracing in a standing position to complete our abdominal circuit. View the circuit.
Getting with the program
Over a four-week period, we generally begin with six repetitions and progress by two repetitions per week until we reach twelve repetitions. Once the client has mastered the circuit with good form, we either increase difficulty by elevating the feet or introduce a more advanced rep progression such as a countdown or density circuit to really crank up the volume.
As with the above, planking progressions can utilize various equipment pieces such as dumbbells, medicine balls, stability balls, and bands to really spice up this combination. So the next time someone tells you to “hit the floor and give me twenty,” just pick one exercise from each category based upon your need and perform it back to back (we recommend starting with 8–12 reps).
Frontal plank—upper extremity:
Frontal plank—lower extremities:
Side plank:
Vertical core:
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Chris Kelly is an experienced fitness journalist, personal trainer, and teacher. He is the owner of Peak Fitness, a personal training studio located in Tampa, Florida. As both a teacher of personal trainers and the owner of a busy studio, Chris specializes in innovative systems for managing the training of large and diversified client populations. 
No doubt the plank is biomechanically better than crunches or other alternatives. I still can’t get over this fascination with core endurance. Its always puzzled me as to why anyone would want to train to hold this type of contraction.
Using the core to transfer momentum from the legs in explosive throws and using the core to brace the spine to push,pull or hold heavy ass objects. Now thats real athleticism. Screw anything endurance related. I’d pair that with long slow running in terms of usefulness.
Teach your clients correct form for deadlifting and squatting and you’ll never have to use this silly group of exercises. Once they’ve got the form down maybe throw in some decline situps and gradually add weight by getting them to hold a plate overhead or by using a weighted vest. Once they become advanced enough in the squat teach the finer points of the goodmorning which can really hit the lower back and hamstrings.
We all know deadlifts are king of the back development. It doesn’t matter if your client can only lift the bar. Teach them a lift that they can use through the rest of their strength and fitness journey.
Are these exercises valid for powerlifitng?
For the most part deadlifting squatting and benching primarily utilize the abs as stabilizers so why are these “silly” exercises?
The comments listed here are clearly a very strong argument for education of the fitness professional that is instructing. I would venture to say that anyone teaching exercise to a client must keep the client’s objectives as most important in what they are teaching. However working within their capabilities is extremely important and working beyond them or risking their health with an exercise pulled out of the air would make the professional negligent. I train mostly half hour appointments between 40-60hours per week. Every client’s health history has been reviewed, they have been put through a functional movement screen, posture assessment, as well as several standardized tests and measurements for tangible evidence of starting points, strengths, deficiencies and bilateral symmetry. All aspects of fitness are equally important for the most fit body: Balance, endurance, speed, strength, power, agility, mobility, stability, flexibility, aeorobic capacity, anaerobic capacity, nutritional fuel, supplemental fuel, hydration, rest. Basic movements focusing on one or two aspects or non-movements (Isometrics) for beginners are essential. They have to start somewhere… Once the basics are achieved adding variations as a building block on those foundations tackle the issues of recruiting various other tyoes of fibers for elicited responses. Every aspect of fitness directly correlates to every other they are webbed together. I love having an opportunity to work with people that are narrow minded and uneducated and like to call themselves fitness professional or personal trainers – they usually end up as clients. Its basically finding the hole in their swing and they get REALLY frustrated when all of their weaknesses in their own bodies and their poor at best teaching techniques become exploited as negligent and severely lacking. Looking forward to the responses!!! Best wishes in fitness -
You can pretty much create a functional test for so many specific tiny muscles in the body and find that they are “weak” when you put a person in a certain position. And then charge people up the ass to balance them out. lol. I guess I dont work with the general public so I’m not overly concerned with working with fat unmotivated individuals. In my field we actually care about real results.
Anyway, I was mostly trying to comment on the relevance of this article on a powerlifting + athletic performance site and the usefulness of the exercise towards these populations.
I always argue with coaches when they want more “core” training. I tell them to get under a 315# front squat and tell me their “core” isnt working.
Kids always want extra core, and to them that means endless amounts of crunches/bridges and what not. I let them do it, after the workout, outside the gym door. Rarely do I prescribe direct abdominal/core training other than low back, glute and hamstrings. I consider them part of the “core.”
As a previous poster alluded to, you can devise a test for any muscle group to show you a weakness.
Farmer’s walk, suitcase carries, squats, deadlifts, bulgarian twists, sledgehammer training, prowler pushes, some sort of weight overhead swings and some explosive medball throws.
Damn I think I just turned myself on.
this article is very good.i see why most people here don´t like planks:the touch the ground with theirs gut and can´t do a 5 second plank.planks and moving planks are very good excercise.
Some people lack the core strength to even get under a bar for a front squat. These types of exercises can help bring their core up to par just like a power lifter who is having trouble with their bench lockout doing dips or using bands/chains.
am i in the twilight zone? I always see people doing this exercise and never really think it does much for them. I could probably sleep in this position. I’ve never considered it a good exercise. I always thought of it as a waste of time. Of course I’m not an expert or very strong, so I’m open to learning anything to help me get stronger.
But when I see an article like this on elitefts I’m tempted to give whatever is being said instant credibility. Still, I will not use this exercise any time soon. Maybe dave is attempting to be all things to all people. Is elitefts no longer a powerlifting website?
As someone who has tweaked his “core” (lower back) more times than I can count while working with barbells, having these plank techniques to rehab (prehab?) with has been very valuable. Sure, all the suitcase lifts, deadlifts, etc. work the hell out of the core, but being able to maintain and develop core endurance – yes endurance – while coming back from an injury is important to everyone (even powerlifters I would imagine). I say endurance because you are using these “core” muscles in many, many movements during your average workout, even when you’re not “working” them. Think they might get fatigued? I agree that explosive core power is important to develop too (and very useful for sport and real world activities); however, for injury prevention, I say give me more core endurance.
With reference to core endurance and it not transferring to explosive/powerlifting movements I would like to add that Stuart Mcgill, in his book Ultimate back Fitness and Performance, states, and Im paraphrasing, that endurance to the core musculature is what gives it its rigidity and strength. As long as you do heavy deadlifts, squats,some weighted ab work, etc you will develop the other side of the spectrum, and develop a strong torso. Explosive strength is developed by med ball throws, jumps, sprints, etc. Planks build endurance on top of that. Abs are postural muscles and are more likely to be slow twitch dominant anyway, so they should be trained with higher reps or longer iso hold times.
I can’t believe how much abdominal strength, endurance and stability is misunderstood. Abdominal strength does not give you lumbar stability under normal ADL (activites of daily living). You need abdominal strength under heavy phasic loading ie squats, deadlifting etc. Ab strength should be trained using those exercises. Planks will not give you abdominal strength. Endurance and timing are necessary for the intrinsic control muscles to control lumbar neutral zone. This is a completely differant system than phasic abdominal strength and must be trained differantly. You can be very strong and unstable in the lumbar spine.
Also the artical took Shirley Saharmans work completely out of context.
Why not do ab rollouts as a more advanced plank, and weighted ab rollouts to progress even more? Then you are building strength instead of simply increasing endurance.
Thanks for the article. I find these exercises useful as I find it quite difficult when squatting or deadlifting to really tense my abdominals as I seem to have a weak mind-muscle connection to that area of my body for some weird reason. I figure if I work at it it will get better and perhaps even improve my lifts. I found the movement variations particularly useful.
I’m I missing something here? Wasn’t one of the key elements of this article about how more harm than good can be done by doing excessive rotational and flexion abdominal exercises. Always try to take in the cumulative affects of exercises. The plank is a great exercise that can be modified from beginner to elite training stages. I think the personal trainer who was negative about this article probably is trying to protect their income. The plank is an easy exercise to learn that can become progressively beneficial to most without shelling out money for the supervision of an arrogant trainer. I thought it was just us strength coaches that have super egos.
Good morning,
Thank you for this article. I really enjoyed it and will be incorporating it in my overall routine/plan.
However, I have a question.
After looking at some of the “vertical core” exercises I noticed a common theme (except for the farmers’ walk) of explosively moving a weight up and down in front of you. Are dumbell (or kettlebell) swings a good “vertical core” exercise?
Thanks.
Some of these comments are funny. Next thing you know, people will be blasting push ups as an inefficient exercise. What do people expect the body is doing when the arms are not moving? Surely, not a plank. Let me guess, the charlatans will say, “but the push up is a better bang for your buck exercise because you’re working several muscle groups”. Obviously, training nowadays has become one-dimensional. Planks are either inefficient or efficient. No middle ground? I could have sworn I’ve read about people developing a stronger “core” by doing planks and their variations, especially people coming out of rehab. And what, there’s no “rehabilitation” section, either?
Haters remember, you’re only as strong as the weakest link. The core should always be a priority as every major functional move translates through here. The take home message about these exercises, is that whenever you work your core –or any lift for that matter– you need to maintain “neutral spine” position to avoid stress on a flexed spine. This is why crunches suck as do bent back goodmornings for spine health. We all have a certain number of “cycles” –being an inappropriate stress on the spine– for one person it could be 1000, someone else 10,000. When you reach that number, the integrity of the spine will give out to herniations etc. If you want to do 100′s crunches week in week out you’ll reach that limit sooner. These exercises are the gold standard, as in Dr McGill’s book ultimate back fitness, a great companion to the best book ever written, Mel Siff’s Supertraining.