Five points of technique when using plank position

TRAINING TIME: TIM RUDD 

While coaching exercises that involve the prone plank position, I utilize a five-point checklist to ensure spinal health and appropriate strengthening of posture.

The plank is a great beginner level exercise to teach spinal stability as an anti-extension and flexion exercise of the spine. This is required to perform many strength exercises safely and effectively as well as many athletic skills required in sport.

1. 1. Your athletes should maintain a standing type posture in a horizontal position. This means that the axis of the ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, and the ears should stay in a line and the spine should maintain a natural curvature.
2. 2. The shoulder girdle should maintain a neutral alignment and not collapse back or round forward. The scapula (shoulder blades) should stay bedded and not wing out or squeeze together.
3. 3. The pelvis should remain in a neutral alignment. It is common for the lower back to be flattened in a tail tucking like posture. Focus on maintaining a natural lumbar curve.
4. 4. The hips should stay parallel to the ground and centered side to side. It is a common error to collapse the feet inward. Rather, the feet should remain perpendicular to the ground.
5. 5. During plank-oriented exercises where a limb is lifted from the ground, only the limb and not the body should move. It is a common error to drop the hip of the lifted limb and/or to pull the hips out of center. Maintain the starting posture and only move the limb.

Tim Rudd is an IYCA specialist in youth conditioning and owner of Fit2TheCore.