How To Burn More Calories In Plank

We all HATE planks, but here's a way to make sure you're really getting the most out of it!

Cassandra Bodlak, group exercise manager at Sports Club/LA, recommends her clients do a slight modification that's a little more challenging: when in elbow plank, flip your hands over so your palms are facing up. 

Pressing through an elbow plank with palms facing down will help keep back muscles engaged and clasping hands together in a fist will enlist your chest muscles to help stabilise you, but flipping your hands over will make your plank even more about the core, Cassandra explains. "Performing a plank with palms up [will] disengage some of the support from the muscles of the hand and forearm," she says.

In other words, simply moving your hands will help you get on the fast track to year-long bikini-ready abs. Another reason to go palms up? You'll help unround those hunched-over shoulders. "It takes the pronator teres (one of the major forearm muscles) and positions it in what is called the 'anatomical position' (palms forward when standing, palms up when prone in a plank), which is the most desirable position in which to function," Cassandra explains.

"We are all busy typing on keyboards these days, encouraging a particular position of the forearm: palms down. Simply repositioning the forearms in your plank helps to create a balance."

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