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How long can you plank?
Cryptic Vigilante
I normally don't attempt to perform planks for as long as possible; I instead attach a weighted belt to my torso and perform them between two benches for no more than around 45 seconds. I also include a slight movement where I let my body fall a little and then rectify the position by pushing upward with my abs:
I just attempted to perform unweighted planks for as long as possible and got bored after 3 minutes. Any exercise that you can perform for that long is just going to improve your muscular endurance while actually accomplishing very little regarding strength/hypertrophy. Just because an exercise is uncomfortable or makes you feel sore the next day really isn't a good indication that it's making you grow. You can bet your ass that Olympic marathoners are in constant pain during/after after a marathon, and I'd invite you to contemplate the size of their legs. Congestion and burning are in fact two factors that are down the list of what triggers hypertrophy. In order:
1- Amount of load on the eccentric phase
2- Amount of load on the concentric phase
3- Time under tension
4- Congestion
5- Burning
Planking for 3 minutes completely discards the first two factors (ie. the magnitude of the resistance) in favor of the last three, which really isn't the optimal trade-off for hypertrophy; a compromise between semi-heavy load and appreciable duration is, which typically translates to 8-12 reps performed under a minute. If you can plank for that long it just massively hints that the unweighted version is way too easy for you; an analogy to that would be to swing light 10lbs dumbbells for over 3 minutes hoping to develop huge arms. You don't see a whole lot of guys benefiting from that at the gym regarding their arms, why would that be any different for the abs?
I just attempted to perform unweighted planks for as long as possible and got bored after 3 minutes. Any exercise that you can perform for that long is just going to improve your muscular endurance while actually accomplishing very little regarding strength/hypertrophy. Just because an exercise is uncomfortable or makes you feel sore the next day really isn't a good indication that it's making you grow. You can bet your ass that Olympic marathoners are in constant pain during/after after a marathon, and I'd invite you to contemplate the size of their legs. Congestion and burning are in fact two factors that are down the list of what triggers hypertrophy. In order:
1- Amount of load on the eccentric phase
2- Amount of load on the concentric phase
3- Time under tension
4- Congestion
5- Burning
Planking for 3 minutes completely discards the first two factors (ie. the magnitude of the resistance) in favor of the last three, which really isn't the optimal trade-off for hypertrophy; a compromise between semi-heavy load and appreciable duration is, which typically translates to 8-12 reps performed under a minute. If you can plank for that long it just massively hints that the unweighted version is way too easy for you; an analogy to that would be to swing light 10lbs dumbbells for over 3 minutes hoping to develop huge arms. You don't see a whole lot of guys benefiting from that at the gym regarding their arms, why would that be any different for the abs?
