By stiffly holding your body in a plank position you strengthen your core which are the muscles connecting the lower and upper body. Plank exercises also help to tone your abs, legs, arms, hips and improve your posture and body balance. If you are new at planking it’s important to start this exercise in short periods of time and take longer breaks after. The most important thing is to keep up the work every day to ensure the best result.

The action plan is simple: to do a plank each week, increase the time and alternate it with other exercises. If it’s too hard at the beginning, make sure you get some rest and don’t overload your body. Remember, each day doing exercises step by step makes progress.

Plan for week 1: Start from 20 seconds and increase to 60 seconds.

Plan for week 2: Gradually increase the time from 60 seconds to 90 seconds.

Plan for week 3: Gradually increase the time from 90 seconds to 120 seconds.