How to Do a Plank: A Single Move for Stronger Abs

Want a single exercise move that will give you rock hard abs. Build a hard core with this deceptively simple exercise.

It's hard to believe the plank could provide such a great workout—until you try it. Keith Scott, A.T.C., C.S.C.S., a strength coach in Medford, N.J., recommends conquering the plank before attempting any heavy weight exercise.

Get into pushup position on the floor.
Now bend your elbows 90 degrees and rest your weight on your forearms. Your elbows should be directly beneath your shoulders, and your body should form a straight line from your head to your feet. Hold the position for as long as you can. Your goal should be to hold it for two minutes.
"The plank helps develop strength in the core, shoulders, arms, and glutes,"
says Scott, making it a great prerequisite for lifting heavy weights or playing intense sports. Even though you aren't moving or lifting weight, you have to constantly squeeze your abs to hold the position—most people can't last 30 seconds on their first attempt.
Ways to improve your plank time
The longer you can hold the plank, the more resilient your lower back will be to injury, and the better your abs will look once you burn the fat off them. Follow these tips for longer plank times.

• Practice: Perform planks several times each day, trying to hold the position a little longer each time.

• Use body-weight exercises: Pushups and pullups will improve your core strength.

• Squat and deadlift: Guys who are strong in these specific lifts find planks are no problem.

HOLD IT
If you don't have the core strength yet to do a regular plank, you can build up to it by doing a bent-knee plank. If you can hold a plank for more than two minutes with ease, you can move on to these tougher variations.

• Lift one leg up. By simply raising one leg in the air, you dramatically increase the demand on your core to fight your body's natural urge to rotate.

• Lift one arm up. Again, your body will want to fall to one side. Don't let it!

• Use a Swiss ball. Rest your forearms on the ball and you'll have to stabilize your body and stop the ball from rolling out from under you.

 

Global Planking Day

On May 13th, 2011, American journalist Michelle McMurray wrote an article titled “First Annual Global Planking Day: May 25, 2011”^[9] calling on readers to join the inaugural holiday of planking.

Planking: Really?

Meme -/meem/ [By analogy with gene] Richard Dawkins’s term for an idea considered as a replicator, especially with the connotation that memes parasitize people into propagating them as much as viruses do.                 
It started as a simple question “will people stop and help you on the street?” Those words by Tom Green began today’s sensation known as planking.
Comedian Tom Green (who may or may not be the father of planking) wanted to know whether or not people would help others on the street. To answer this question, he (or one of his co-workers) went out on the street and planked face-down on the ground where he laid there silently. People passed, some curious, half an hour to an hour later, one man asked if an ambulance should be called. At that point he got up and just walked away.
This experiment, performed in 1994 was, and appears to be, the earliest form of planking, but was likely not done to intentionally create a new fad, as it was designed to answer a question about human behavior.
Planking is currently defined as lying stiff as a board on a surface where your upper body and legs hang off the surface. While this definition of planking isn’t incorrect, sophomore Alex Bernard defines planking exactly, “You must be laying down on any surface with your body at a one hundred eighty degree angle.”
The only difference between the two definitions is that modern planking engages the core much more efficiently. Freshmen Jacob Green planks because, “it helps make my core stronger.”
Modern day planking requires the ability to lay face-down on a small portion of one’s chest and stomach. Raising the legs and holding up the upper half of the chest requires the core to work and makes planking a great exercise.
During a study at Millennium High School, a student planked on two separate occasions: during a parent teacher night and during a passing period. The purpose was to see how the planker was viewed and treated.
During parent-teacher night, parents were curious but kept a distance from the planking student. One parent went so far as to accuse the school of lacking discipline. Even so, the parents kept out of the student’s personal space.
During a passing period, students were curious and invaded the same student’s personal space. It is thought that the difference in behaviors is two fold. First, many teens knew what planking is, and secondly the passers-by knew the planker.
The study concludes that planking is much more effective if done around those who are strangers and unfamiliar with the trend.
Whether its modern planking or old-fashioned planking, planking is a fun activity that has gone viral. So if you’re bored out of your mind and looking for something to do, plank. It’s fun, it’s popular and it’s great for your core.

Riot Plankers

On July 28th, fans gathered at the Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Los Angeles for the premiere for the documentary “Electronic Daisy Carnival Experience” about the annual electronic music festival. When the crowd became too large, people began spilling into the street and police were called on to the scene to control the increasingly chaotic situation. During the standoff, a group of fans planked in a row in front of the police:

Global Planking Day

On May 13th, 2011, American journalist Michelle McMurray wrote an article titled “First Annual Global Planking Day: May 25, 2011”^[9] calling on readers to join the inaugural holiday of planking.

How To Plank

Planking is a simple yet wildly entertaining phenomenom.
Heres how it works:

 

You must lay face down

Your legs must remain straight and together with your toes pointed.

Your arms must be placed by your side, held straight with your fingers pointed.

Click Here to learn how to plank

planking (fad)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Planking or the lying down game is an activity consisting of lying face down in an unusual or incongruous location. The hands must touch the sides of the body and having a photograph of the participant taken and posted on the internet is an integral part of the game.^[1] Players compete to find the most unusual and original location in which to play.^[1] The term planking refers to mimicking a wooden plank.
Since 2011, many participants in planking have photographed the activity on unusual locations such as atop poles, roofs and vehicles, while some "plankers" engage in the activity by planking only their upper body and feet while leaving the back suspended.

History and origination 

Comedian Tom Green claims to have invented "planking" as early as 1994.^[2] Gary Clarkson and Christian Langdon claim to have invented planking in 2000,^[3] first becoming popular in North East England.^[4]
The lying down game spread to the rest of the world, where it has also been known as "시체놀이" ("playing dead") (2003, South Korea),^[5][6] "à plat ventre" ("On one’s belly", France 2004),^[7] "extreme lying down" (2008, Australasia), "facedowns" (2010, USA and Ireland),^[8][9] and "planking" (2011, Australia & New Zealand and worldwide).^[10]
Critics of the lying down game compare the game with the slave trade-era practice and manner of stowing African slaves upon the planks of a slave ship's lower hold, as illustrated in the Brookes abolitionist poster imagery.
Notable incidents:

• The game made news in September 2009, when seven doctors and nurses working at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon, England were suspended for playing the lying down game while on duty.^{[13][13][14][15]}

• On 13 May 2011, a 20-year-old man from Gladstone in central Queensland was charged for allegedly planking on a police vehicle.^[16]

• On 15 May 2011, Acton Beale, a 20-year-old man, plunged to his death after reportedly "planking" on a seventh-floor balcony in Brisbane, Australia.^[17]

• On 29 May 2011, Max Key, son of New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, uploaded a photograph to Facebook of himself planking on a lounge suite, his father standing behind him. After the photograph was reproduced on the front page of the New Zealand Herald two days later, the Prime Minister's office initially declined comment,^[18] but later that day, confirming that the photograph was indeed genuine, Mr. Key remarked that he doesn't see anything wrong with planking when done safely, and that it was he who had actually introduced Max to planking in the first place, having seen a video of the phenomenon on YouTube.^[19]

• On 2 Aug 2011, Anna Sophia Berglund (Playboy Miss January 2011 and then girlfriend of Hugh Hefner) posted a tweet that read, "I got Hef to plank! @playboy" and included a link to a photo of Hefner planking on a table in what appears to be a meeting room at the Playboy Mansion.^[20]
•  

• Teapotting

  Teapotting is one of the many variations of planking that arise shortly after planking went viral. Teapotting consisted of bending the arms in a shape of a teapot in reference to the children's song "I'm a Little Teapot". This variation was created by teachers in Mortlake College as an attempt to create a new 'craze' after viewing the amount of attention planking received. ^[21]
  

  Owling

  Owling is a variation on planking in which a person squats "like an owl".^[22] It was first documented on 11 July 2011 in a post on the social news website reddit.^[22]
  

  Horsemaning

  Horsemanning involves posing two people so that they appear to be a single body with a detached head and is a revival of a photography fad popular in the 1920s.^[23] It is thought that the name comes from the Headless Horseman in Washington Irving's short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.^[24]