Plank

Who it's for

Beginners learning what a braced middle feels like, and anyone coming back from a break who wants core work with almost no load on the fingers. At low intensity and 4 minutes it fits in any week, including a deload. If your feet already stay on steep ground and you can hold a hollow body, a harder tension exercise is a better use of the time.

Common mistakes

• Sagging hips. One straight line, glutes squeezed. A sagging plank loads the lower back and trains nothing.
• Piking the hips up. The other half of the same error, and it's more common in flexible climbers. It makes the hold easier without making it useful.
• Holding the breath. Breathe through the 30 seconds. If you can't, the brace is too hard rather than too good.
• Racing past 30 seconds with a broken shape. Stop the hold when the line goes. Time with bad shape is just time.

How to progress

Three clean holds of 30 seconds with 1 minute rest first. Then hold longer, or lift one foot, which is a bigger step than it sounds. After that, stop adding seconds: move to hollow body holds or hanging work, where the core has to fight a load rather than just hold a shape. Two or three times a week is fine, and it needs no recovery to speak of.