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A lot of people are shocked to hear a fitness trainer say this. I hate planks. They're just so boring. Plus, they're a huge time sink. If you're doing three sets of planks and you're allowing enough time to recover between sets, that's well over 10 minutes. Talk about the most boring style of training. So today I'm going to show you three ways to make your planks more exciting and also more effective in a shorter amount of time.
The first way is by adding additional weight. By putting additional weight on your back, that's more load that your abs need to support. This requires the muscles to output more strength. Just like regular planks, make sure you have a flat back. With the added weight on your back, subconsciously, your body will want to start arching your butt up. This is to try and make your back more horizontal and more stable.
Even in a regular plank, your body will want to try and do this, but with the added weight on your back, it'll want to do it even more so. The heavier that weight is, the less time that's required for those planks to start becoming effective. Keep that butt tucked in and watch the seconds fly by.
The next way to make planks less boring. This is what I like to call active planks. The biggest factor that makes planks so boring is that you're not doing anything. You just wait. But these active planks turn a time based exercise into a rep based exercise. In order to do an active plank, you need to tense your abs while doing a curl in the plank position. Performing reps and turning this into an active exercise makes the seconds fly by. Also, this exercise is a lot like an ab wheel roller, so you won't be able to do that many reps.
The final way to make planks more enjoyable is to combine them with bands. “How do you use bands on a plank,” you ask? You will perform band pulls whilst holding the plank position. Just like active planks, this turns the exercise into a rep based exercise, which is more enjoyable. Also, with just one side of your body having to resist the force generated from the bands, your abs need to stop your body from moving while you are performing the exercise. So in addition to your abs having to resist the force of gravity in the plank, they also need to resist the movement from the bands. This puts your abs under a lot more stress, which means you're going to get more results from less time.
For the most effective and efficient training and diet, contact Tokyo Titan
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