Holding plank for 2 minutes

Planking is a great exercise that engages the muscles deep within your core as well as pretty much every muscle in the front of your body. I've always been embarrassingly bad a planks my whole life. I always admired people who can hold plank for 4 or 5 minutes strauight but just never really saw it as an option for me. Recently I did a fitness assessment where you do 3 exercises AMRAP style (as many reps as possible) for a minute than hold plank for as long as you can. The assessment should be repeated once a month to track progress through your training. All of my results were pretty solid except for my plank which was straight embarrassing compared to the rest of my results (maxing out at 1 minute and 24 seconds!) I took a step back at my results and started looking into what it means if you can't hold plank well and how I can improve my fitness weak link. 

Planks are a huge reflection of your core strength. Core strength helps shed belly fat making you look thinner, and more importantly to some people it helping support your spine and reducing back issues. The stronger your core is the better your posture is (which I have to admit my posture is terrible - makes sense when you look at my plank results). Core strength is so much more important than looking good in a bathing suit or getting defined abs. As we get older the stronger our core is the better our balance is - therefore the less likely we are to fall and break bones in our senior years. 

It's suggested 2 minutes in plank position is a good assessment for long term health. Being able to hold plank for this long generally means you have lowered amounts of belly fat and are supporting your back muscles in your daily activities through your core which helps prevent injury. Proper form while planking is so important to not hurt your lower back muscles. While planking the goal is to always keep your body as straight and stiff as a board and imagine your belly button being drawn in as high as it can go into your spine. Engaging your belly button is how you get to your deeper core muscles through this exercise. For women it's also suggested to engage your kegal muscles throughout your plank hold as well to help ignite the lower abdominal muscles. 

In my journey to being able to hold plank for 2 minutes straight (hopefully beyond 2 minutes!) I am going to hold plank for my max time every evening and track my time to see my progressions. My goal is to be able to hold plank for 2 minutes straight (pretty much double the amount of time I can sustain now) in 2 months time. I also plan on continuing planking daily to maintain my growth with it and not loose the progress I make. It's amazing how fast your body can push itself and grow with daily exercise. It's equally amazing how fast your body can loose it's gains and backtrack when you don't exercise daily!