Our Advanced Plank Workout uses just your bodyweight in order to create a comprehensive challenge for all the muscles in your body.

Planks are a great measure of core strength and endurance, but they go far beyond helping out with a flat stomach. Along with the rectus and transverse abdominis, this isometric exercise also engages the muscles of the back, glutes, erector spinae, pectorals, shoulders, glutes, tensor fasciae latae, and hamstrings (to name a few).

The exact muscles used during these exercises depends on what variation you are doing.

For example, this routine uses front, side, and supine planks in order to really exhaust all of those muscles. A lot of these variations use similar muscle groups from different angles, but some of them use muscle groups that are otherwise a little neglected in a traditional version. For example, the side versions will require a lot of work from your obliques. Some of the unique movements that you will see in this 10 minute Plank Workout video are also great for calling upon muscles that might otherwise be left out.

There are many advanced plank exercises in this routine that should not be attempted unless you already have a good deal of core strength. Many of these moves also require that you are quite flexible, particularly in the lower body and specifically the hamstrings.

This is a 10 minute routine with 8 different plank variations. You will do 10 repetitions for each exercise, repeating the reps on both sides of the body when applicable. In between each of the movements there is a ten second break where you will be shown a slow motion demo of the next exercise.

The whole thing is pretty fast paced and challenging, so if you need to press pause at any point, feel free to do so and move at a pace that suits you.

If you have only moderate core strength but want to have a stab at completing this video, you can always do the routine by doing as many repetitions as you can handle, just try and make sure that you do an even number on each side of the body so that you develop your strength evenly.

Make sure that your muscles are nice and warm before jumping into this workout routine in order to avoid injury and muscle soreness. In fact, this particular workout goes really well sandwiched in between two bouts of cardio; 15-30 minutes before, and 10-20 minutes after (or vice versa).

The ten minutes of this core routine burns roughly 80-110 calories for an 180 pound man, and 65-95 calories for a 130 lb woman. These numbers will vary wildly on a large number of variables, including weight, gender, lean muscle mass, and the exertion levels of the individual doing the workout.

Do this routine 2-4 times a week to improve core strength, as well as overall flexibility and endurance, remembering to take extra days off if necessary to give sore muscles a chance to heal.