I’m about a third of the way through the 30 day plank challenge. I tried it last year but didn’t complete it and so I’m going again. Already I’m struggling to remember to fit it in, which is unforgivable as it will only ever take up 5 minutes of my day.

If you do a quick internet search for the details of the challenge you will find that there are as many variations of this as there are websites. The version that I am following can be found on http://30dayfitnesschallenges.com/

I find it very difficult. I can hold the pose reasonably well but my body starts to shake quite early on, which is off-putting. I guess it shows that I need to strengthen my core. Embarrassingly my young daughter is doing it with me and can hold each one with perfect form for much longer than the scheduled time. The difficulty is getting her to keep still for that long!

Of course it probably isn’t wise to do this in isolation and so I have been running followed by some press-ups, body weight squats and stomach curls three times a week. Combined I should be getting stronger and fitter. I can attest to this as my usually bad knee is easing off and becoming less of a problem.

Onward and upward. I’m currently on 60 seconds for the plank. If you fancy giving it a go then here is the schedule that I am following: