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Plank Pose in yoga is one of the most strengthening exercises you can practice. It challenges—and benefits—not only your abs but your lower back, glutes, hamstrings, shoulders, chest, and upper back. But these muscles need to work in orchestration with one another to execute a proper Plank Pose and that can be exceptionally difficult.
Following are are some dos and don’ts to help you avoid common mistakes in this strengthening element of your yoga practice or workout routine.
How to Do a Proper Plank Pose in Yoga
What’s important about the following insights has nothing to do with aesthetics and everything to do with safe alignment and proper Plank Pose muscular engagement.
1. DON’T Let Your Hips Sag
This means your abdominals aren’t engaging strongly enough to counter the downward pull of gravity on your pelvis, which is the mid-point between your hands and feet. You might feel this misalignment as pressure in your low back instead of a satisfying burn in your core. The ideal body position in Plank Pose is head, hips and heels in line, back straight, head neutral.
2. DON’T Lift Your Butt in the Air
Again, this alignment means you are underusing your core, especially your lower abdominal muscles, and recruiting your hip flexors instead to help take up the slack. Instead, aim to lengthen your sacrum and draw your pubic bone toward your navel to engage your lower core.
3. DO Press Through Your Hands and Spread Your Shoulder Blades
Without moving your hands, press them into the mat and also try to drag them toward each other to engage your chest muscles. This creates well-rounded support for your shoulders.
4. DON’T Place Your Hands Too Wide
Yoga teachers commonly tell you to place your hands beneath your shoulders. But for those with tight shoulders, that can feel limiting and even painful. Adjust them slightly wider if you need, but beware taking them too far afield or you’ll unnecessarily tax your shoulders.
5. DON’T Hang Your Head
This pulls your spine out of alignment and overstretches the muscles along the back of your neck and shoulders. Focus your gaze, or drishti, a few inches in front of your hands to maintain a neutral, stable position in your cervical spine.
6. DO Push Through Your Heels
Reach your heels toward the wall behind you. This simple action engages the stabilizing core muscles and creates tension throughout the connective tissue from your heels to your head. What results is enhanced stability.
7. DO Squeeze Your Glutes
This engages your posterior chain and takes some of the pressure off your hips and lower back. Bonus points if you try to magnetize your legs toward each other to engage your hip adductors.
8. DO Focus on Your Breathing
Inhale through your nose for a count of two and exhale through your mouth for a count of four. This focus elongates your exhalation, which serves to keep you calm, and, quite frankly, distracts you from the challenge so the time can seem to pass more quickly.
9. DON’T Hold Your Plank Too Long
Exactly how long to hold a Plank Pose? Listen to your body. If you’re newer to exercising, shoot for 20 seconds of work followed by 20 seconds of rest. As you progress, move to 30 seconds of work and rest, then 45, then 60, and eventually 2 minutes. But listen to your body before paying attention to your stopwatch. It’s better to maintain proper Plank Pose form for a few seconds than fall out of alignment and risk straining your muscles while you try to hold it for longer.
10. DO Try Different Plank Pose Variations
Train your muscles in different ways by exploring Side Plank, Forearm Plank, and Knee-Toward-Your-Chest Plank (as if you were stepping through from Down Dog).
This article originally appeared in Oxygen Magazine. Reprinted with permission.
