It’s Day 5 of the Mykidstime 21 Day Health & Fitness Challenge! If you missed yesterday’s video, catch up with Day 4 here.
Our health and wellbeing expert, Fiona O’Donnell, explains what’s involved for Day 5 in the video below. We want you to tell us during the challenge how you are getting on so tag us on social using #mkt21days and we’ll give you some encouragement!
Mykidstime 21 Day Health & Fitness Challenge: Day 5 – Plank Variation
Today’s challenge is exactly that – it’s really a challenge! I find this exercise particularly challenging if I haven’t been doing it for a while, but my strength builds up pretty quickly if I do it frequently. So that’s what I’m going to ask of you today.
Now what I’ve shown you is the full version of the exercise. If you find that really, really difficult you can do it from your knees, but what I’m going to say to you is try to hold each position starting off for about three seconds. Again, if you find that too difficult, just bring it back a step and hold it for one second. You’re not aiming to speed through this movement, you’re really aiming to focus on your technique here, keeping your belly button pulled back towards your spine.
This exercise is designed to really work on stability in your shoulders and stability through your core and through the length of your body. Give it a go and let me know how you get on.
Let’s start off with hands under the shoulders in a full body plank position. From there, shift your weight to one hand and reach your other arm up towards the sky, coming back to centre and shifting to the opposite side.
Now this time we’re going to come back into a plank position, so bring the bum down a little bit, bring the body in line, pull the belly button towards the spine. Before you shift again, switch those hips right up towards the sky, squeezing them up back to plank position, hold it for a couple of seconds.
If you find this absolutely far too difficult for you, come down onto the knees and you can try it in the kneeling position.
If you have any questions throughout the Challenge, email Fiona or send her a message on Instagram, Facebook and use hashtag #mkt21days to let us know how you are getting on with the Challenge!
About the Author: Fiona O'Donnell
