How to do a plank: a straight line, held only as long as it stays straight

A plank is a hold: you support your body on your forearms and toes and keep it in a straight line, with your midsection doing the work of stopping your lower back from sagging toward the floor. It's the "stop the arch" job in the core workout, which covers core training as a whole. This page is the single movement: the setup, how to brace, the faults, the easier and harder versions, and how long to hold.

How to do a plank, step by step

1. Forearms down, elbows under your shoulders. Forearms parallel, or hands loosely together, palms down or facing each other.
2. Legs straight behind you, up on your toes, feet about hip-width apart.
3. Squeeze your glutes, and tuck your hips under slightly, as if pulling your belt buckle toward your ribs.
4. Brace your midsection. Tighten it the way you would if someone were about to poke your stomach. Ribs down, not flared.
5. Head in line with your body. Look at the floor just in front of your hands.
6. Breathe. Short, steady breaths behind the brace, not one held breath.
7. Hold, and stop when the line breaks: hips sagging, hips rising, or your back starting to arch.

That's the position researchers use when they test the plank. In a study of 471 college students, the test position was forearms and toes only, elbows directly beneath the shoulders, and the body held rigid with the knees, hips and spine straight. The test ended when the student stopped or could no longer keep the position.¹

What a plank trains

The front of the trunk, mostly. In 18 college-aged adults, the plank produced more activity in the rectus abdominis, the front abs, than farmer's or suitcase carries or holds did, while the farmer's carry worked the muscles along the spine more.² And in 12 resistance-trained men, a plank held to failure with a weight of about 20% of body mass on the lower back worked the abs and obliques about as hard as heavy six-rep back squats, while the squats worked the muscles along the spine harder.³

So the plank is a good fit for the job the core workout gives it: training the abs to resist arching, which your main lifts do only partly. It isn't a back exercise, and it isn't the whole core.

Common faults, and a fix for each

• Hips sagging. Your lower back drops toward the floor. Squeeze your glutes and tuck your hips under; if they still sag, end the hold.
• Hips piked up. Your body becomes a tent. Lower your hips until your shoulders, hips and heels line up.
• Head hanging or craned up. Keep your neck in line, eyes on the floor just ahead of your hands.
• Holding your breath. Breathe behind the brace.
• Elbows drifting forward or shoulders shrugging. Elbows under your shoulders; push the floor away with your forearms.
• Shaking it out past your form. A few seconds of trembling is normal. Hanging on with your hips sagging isn't the exercise anymore.
• Holding through pain. Sharp pain is not effort. Stop, and see a doctor or a physical therapist.

How to do a plank for beginners

If you can't keep the line for twenty seconds, make the plank easier rather than holding a bad one. A 2026 study suggests the plank isn't the same exercise for everyone: in 30 healthy young adults, 15 trained and 15 untrained, holding a plank to failure, the untrained group used the muscles along the spine more than the trained group did. The authors conclude the plank isn't universally suitable across training levels.⁴ Easier versions, roughly from easiest:

• Incline plank. Forearms or hands on a counter, a bench or a sturdy table, body straight from head to heels. The higher the surface, the easier it is.
• Knee plank. Forearms on the floor, knees down, body straight from head to knees.
• Short holds. Several holds of 10 to 15 seconds in good position, with a short rest between, instead of one long one.
• The dead bug. On your back, the starting point the core workout suggests before the plank.

A PubMed search found no study comparing incline or knee planks with the standard version. They work on the same principle as the long-lever plank below, in reverse: a shorter lever, less load on your midsection.

Harder versions

• Long-lever plank. Elbows further forward, out in front of your head. In 19 people, a long-lever plank raised activity in the abs over a standard plank, a plank with the pelvis tucked under raised it in the obliques, and the two together raised both; the long lever did more of the work.⁵
• Feet raised. In 24 young adults who did recreational gymnastics, planks with the feet raised on wall bars at five heights produced more activity in the abs and obliques than the plank on the floor.⁶ A bench or a step does the job at home.
• Weighted plank. A plate on your lower back, placed by a partner, as in the squat comparison above.³
• Three-point plank. Lift one foot, or reach one arm forward, and hold without letting your hips rotate. Switch sides.
• Plank row. From a high plank on your hands, a dumbbell in each, row one dumbbell to your hip without twisting, then the other. Feet wider makes it easier.

Plank jacks, twists and crawls turn the hold into a moving exercise. They have their place, but they're different exercises, not progressions of the hold. A side plank trains the sides instead; the core workout uses it as the no-equipment version of the carry. And the top of a push-up is a high plank: how to do push-ups uses the same straight line.

How long to hold a plank

There's no single right number, and holding longer isn't the goal. Three findings point the same way:

• People vary a lot. In the 471 college students, athletes held the plank for about 123 seconds on average and non-athletes about 83, but the spread around each average was about a minute either way. Only about one in five stopped because of their abs; their legs and arms were the most common reasons.¹
• A longer hold isn't a harder one for the muscles. In 30 physically active adults, verbal encouragement stretched the plank from a median of 97.0 to 125.9 seconds and made it feel harder, but didn't change the muscle activity measured.⁷
• A harder version is. The long-lever and feet-raised planks above raised muscle activity over the standard plank, and the long-lever study used 30-second holds.⁵

So build to a hold you can keep in good position, then change the version rather than the clock. The core workout's rule of thumb is a good one: once forty-five seconds feels easy, make the plank harder rather than longer. Two or three holds at the end of a session, after your main lifts, is plenty.

If you'd rather not plan it alone

A plank takes a minute; fitting a core block into a week that already holds squats, presses and rows is the part a page can't do. Coaching is the version where your workouts are built around the days you actually have, and a weekly call looks at the week you just had and rebuilds the next one. Coaching to build muscle explains how that works, and here's how to apply. Otherwise: end your next session with three planks, each one stopped the moment your hips start to sag.