Health Benefits of Practicing The Plank Exercise Every Day
- Shubhangi Jindal
- May 31, 2021
- 5 min read
By Shubhangi Jindal | May 31, 2021, 11:37 IST
Infographic: Benefits Of Practicing The Plank Exercise Regularly
Builds Endurance
Aids Metabolism
Calms The Body And The Mind
Constructs Core Capacity
Improves Mental Health
Major Stress-Buster
Meta Title: Health Benefits of Practicing The Plank Exercise Every Day
Summary: A detailed guide to the various health benefits of practicing the plank exercise everyday.
Section: Fashion - Trends
It's time to re-plank your way into fitness, the quarantine has left us with an ample amount of time to dedicatedly work towards making our body fit and healthy. All bodyweight movements, like the benefits of a good plank exercise, is a simple way of getting into the workout mood without any extra gear. Maintaining a monthly time goal to practice planks regularly and staying committed to it, is the right way to start your fitness regime.
The benefits of plank exercises can prove to be largely helpful. They not only build your core definition and boost your metabolism, but also improve body posture and strengthen your back, further reducing the risks of a back injury. While performing a plank, engaging the muscles of the stomach that are responsible for flattening your abs and stabilizing your core from front to back, is essential, to attain all the multiple benefits of a plank exercise, at once. To make it more fun than usual, you can also try out a number of plank variations, to ease your way into a good workout.
They may not always be that easy but when done with proper form, alignment and dedication, the benefits of a plank exercise can become the forces to be reckoned with. These trying times are testing the limits of our body and health like never before, now is the time to actively step up and exercise to save your life.
Ahead, we have listed down all the essential health benefits of a plank exercise, to motivate you into dedicatedly adding planks into your regular workout routine, in order to guard your physical and mental well-being, for the rest of your life.
1. Initiates Weight Loss
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Planking regularly is an excellent way of challenging the strength of your core muscles, that makes sure you burn calories on a day-to-day basis. Having strong muscles are an added advantage because they allow the body to burn extra calories even while you’re at rest, without you having to indulge in more intensive workouts such as pilates and crunches.
Tip : Planking everyday will ensure that your metabolism rate remains high all day long.
2. Builds Your Core Strength
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Planks are a core-strengthening exercise. The right way of doing planks involves using all the four stomach muscles that flattens the abs and stabilizes the core from front to back. Reverse planks work incredibly well for your entire core muscle groups, including the transverse abdominus, the rectus abdominus, the external obliques and the glutes, that together help in increasing your core capacity.
Tip : Practicing reverse planks in the right way will strengthen your core muscles and lead to the formation of abs.
3. Increases Body Flexibility
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Flexibility is not just obtained by stretching your body to its limits but also by performing resistance exercises such as planks. Getting into the hold position, while doing a plank, expands and stretches all the posterior muscles of your back as well as your legs, increasing your overall body flexibility and making it a perfect strength and stretch exercise in disguise.
Tip : A plank is an all in one exercise that also works as a great flexibility enhancement movement for the body.
4. Better Bone Health
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Indulging in doing planks regularly, promotes healthy blood circulation in joints which enables them to move smoothly against one another. This weight-bearing exercise in turn creates new bone tissues that results in the formation of healthier, more stronger bones.
Tip : Body weight and resistance exercises such as planks, work incredibly well for the formation of new bone tissues instantly.
5. Coordinates Body Balance
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Planks help build endurance for various muscle groups that are responsible for the way your body carries itself. It also strengthens your core that allows the body and the muscles to coordinate and work together as a single unit in order to help us maintain balance in physically exhausting situations for longer times.
Tip : Practicing side-planks regularly is crucial in order for you to support your body weight easily.
6. Boosts Your Mood
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Knowing that your body is physically stressed can be draining to your mental state. Planks are a great way to ease your state of mind and boost your mood instantly, as they target a group of muscles that commonly strain people, which helps eliminate related anxiety and worry.
Tip : Besides strengthening your body, planks release endorphins, your body’s feel good chemicals, in order to relieve all your stress.
7. Strengthens Your Back
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The plank strengthens your spine and abdominal muscles, which naturally results in a strong posture. The improved posture alone helps align the vertebrae, taking off unnecessary stress from the spinal region. In turn arranging the ligaments in the back properly, further preventing painful back injuries and other serious ailments.
Tip : Try holding on for a longer duration of time while doing a plank, in order to achieve a stronger back definition.
8. Corrects The Body Posture
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The plank position is very similar to standing, that requires staying upright and tall with your shoulders back and your stomach pulled in. This exercise holds your body in a way that keeps the bones and the joints in alignment to improve the overall working of your muscles, helping you develop a good posture and a confident personality overall.
Tip : Planking in the right position targets the core muscles that are responsible for good posture, effectively improving it.
9. Shapes Your Glutes
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While we are putting in all our efforts to strengthen our core, planks also additionally help us in shaping our glutes by increasing tension in the hip area. A good plank involves following the correct technique, you must squeeze your glutes and keep them contracted hard the whole time, in order to achieve the desired result.
Tip : Leg raise planks are the best way to challenge your glutes to the maximum.
10. Benefits Of Plank Exercise: FAQs
Q: Does plank exercise help reduce belly -fat ?
A: Plank strengthens the rectus abdominis (visual “six-pack” muscles), transverse abdomens (deep core stabilizing muscles), that together helps in reducing belly fat.
Q: What does a plank mainly focus on?
A: A good plank exercise mainly focuses on the core muscles and strengthens the entire body.
Q: How to pull your body into a perfect plank position?
A: Here's how you perform a normal plank. Lie down on the ground on your stomach; then support your body weight on your elbows and toes while keeping your back straight, and hold on to this position.
(Written as The Fashion Editorial Intern at Femina India, under Senior Fashion Stylist Yukti Sodha)
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