Turns out, it’s really hard…!
Keeping myself to myself as you do when social distancing, enjoying Yoga and considering how I’m going to to do to challenge myself despite current frustrations.
I reckoned to myself that ‘I have good core strength and reasonable endurance, how hard can it be to hold a plank for 40 minutes?’
I managed 4 minutes – a mere 10% of my bullish target.
So I fired up the internet and couldn’t believe my eyes:
Unbelievably the Longest plank EVER – Guinness World Records is an incredible time of 8 hours 15 minutes and 15 seconds. By some 62 year old dude!!!
It transpires that George is a hardcore former US Marine and DEA Supervisory Special Agent and is no stranger to record-breaking, but he shows it’s possible to push the boundaries at any age with perseverance and a strong mindset.
You can read more about the record here.
A study on 168 college students found that your average college-aged female has a plank time of about 1 minute, 30 seconds, while an average college-aged male has a plank time of about 1 minute, 46 seconds.
So then I found John Sifferman’s Totally Unofficial Plank Time Standards:
- Newbie: 30+ seconds
- Beginner: 1+ minute
- Intermediate: 3+ minutes
- Advanced: 5+ minutes
- Expert: 10+ minutes
- Master: 20+ minutes
- Wicked Sick: 30+ minutes
- Superhuman: 40+ minutes
- Olympian: 50+ minutes
- Plank Immortal: 1 hour or longer
My current performance puts me in the intermediate category which is not bad. I’m going to aim to get comfortable with 5 minutes (that must be possible) then 10 minutes and see if I can eventually achieve 40 minutes!
