Are Plank Exercises for You?
By
Dr. Michael Yessis
This article originally appeared at
www.dryessis.com.
One of the latest rages in the fitness industry is the plank exercise. In
essence, plank refers to maintaining your body in a straight line from head to
toe, as for example, in the up position of a push-up. Your body can also be in a
plank position when facing sideways while supported on one arm. This exercise is
touted as being very effective for developing the core (i.e. the abdominal,
lower back, and sometimes hip muscles). In reality, however, the plank position
is a very poor exercise for strengthening the core for several reasons.
First, the strength that you gain is isometric (static) strength, which isn’t
transferable to dynamic strength. Understand that dynamic strength is more
functional because it can be used in your daily movements. Static or isometric
strength is very specific to a particular point in the range of motion and is
effective mainly for holding purposes. This means it enables you to hold a
position for an extended period of time.
This is why the plank exercise is effective only for developing static
strength to hold the body in a straight line posture. It is not effective for
enhancing any movements that use the core muscles, especially dynamic movements
with the axis of rotation in the waist or hips. Thus, any value gained from
doing the plank exercise is specific only to holding the position seen during
the exercise.
Second, many people do not have the strength to hold themselves in a plank
position. Some lack the arm strength, especially when doing the side plank while
others lack the abdominal strength to hold a straight line position through the
midsection. Some may be able to assume the position. However, in order to
develop isometric strength, you must hold the position for five to six seconds.
This compounds the difficulty of the exercise for some people.
Third, the plank exercise involves mainly the abdominal muscles when holding
the push-up up position. It does not affect the lower back muscles and only
partially the hip flexors. The side plank position, however, does involve all of
the core muscles but not equally.
For these reasons, if you are truly interested in developing the core muscles
not only for maintaining straight line body position posture but also to help
improve your everyday movements, especially those involving bending and
twisting, you do not want to do plank exercises.
Instead, you should do some of the standard exercises such as sit-ups,
reverse sit-ups, reverse trunk twists, back raises, back raises with a twist,
hip abductions, abductions, flexions, and extensions. There are no exercises
that involve all of these actions to develop all of the core muscles.
If you want more information on the execution of these exercises and the
muscles that they develop, see Kinesiology of Exercise. It is a very
detailed book, well illustrated with muscle and exercise pictures and complete
descriptions of not only how the exercise should be done but also what happens
when you change grips, stance, and execution.
Dr. Michael Yessis is a professor emeritus in biomechanics and kinesiology
and president of Sports Training Inc., a diversified company that does
specialized work with athletes and develops specialized training equipment. Dr.
Yessis is the foremost U.S. expert on Russian training methods. He has been to
Russia multiple times, has worked with Russian coaches such as Yuri
Verkhoshansky, and has translated and published Russian training articles in the
Fitness and Sports Review International for over 29 years. He also wrote the
number one article read in Muscle and Fitness (Kinesiology, Training Notebook)
for over 25 years. Visit his website at www.dryessis.com.
Elite Fitness Systems strives to be a recognized leader in the strength
training industry by providing the highest quality strength training products
and services while providing the highest level of customer service in the
industry. For the best training equipment, information, and accessories, visit
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