I have a love-hate relationship with planks. Mostly hate. My problem is I’m really bad at doing planks so I rarely do them. And because I rarely do them, I never improve. It’s a vicious plank cycle. But I wanted to change this and actually start incorporating planks into my routine.
The Plank Challenge
I saw one of my favorite YouTubers (Koboko Fitness) post a plank challenge video and I decided to commit to doing it every single day for 30 days. Would I become the master of planks? Most likely not but I was curious to see if planking every day would help me at least get a little better at them.
Here’s the video:
In the video you are supposed to hold a high plank for 30 seconds, a regular forearm plank for 30 seconds, side planks for 30 seconds each, and two plank variations for 30 seconds each.
My Experience
The first time I did it I struggled so much. The high plank and forearm plank were the hardest for me to do and hold. By the 20 second mark I was shaking (don’t judge me) but I somehow made it to 30 seconds on all the exercises.
It took about a week of doing the plank challenge before I started feeling like they were actually getting easier. I wasn’t shaking as much and, more importantly, I wasn’t dreading planks as much.
So fast forward to now! I’ve finished the 30 days and I’d be lying if I said planks are now super fun to do. They are still challenging and my arms still shake but because of this challenge I went from being able to hold a plank for maybe 30 seconds to being able to hold a plank for 2 minutes!!!
I really recommend doing this challenge if you also struggle with planks or if you are looking to incorporate more planks into your workout routine. Give it a shot and see if after 30 days (heck, even a week!) how much you have improved. I’m going to keep doing this challenge about twice a week so that I can continue to improve.
