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Ready to build tight core muscles and reveal a washboard stomach? Look no further than the humble plank exercise. You can forget about performing hundreds of crunches, risking a back or neck injury in the process. Planks have an incredibly low risk of injury and actually help to improve posture.
Better yet, there are countless plank exercise variations to work your muscles harder as your strength progresses. Almost all variations work your midsection, abdominals, obliques, and deep core muscles. Many place secondary tension on arms, shoulders, back, glutes, and even hamstrings.
Ready to chisel out a mighty midsection? Start working your way through these 10 plank exercise variations.
Adding jacks significantly increases the engagement of your abdominal muscles during this exercise. They should be performed from the straight-armed plank position.
Purposefully tighten your core and keep your back in line. Plank jacks should be performed between 20-40 times before moving on to the next plank variation!
This move is best performed on a hard and smooth surface using a small towel to reduce friction. Assume the straight-armed plank position with the towel beneath your feet. Begin by crawling forwards then backwards with your arms.
Remember, keep your core tight! This plank exercise will also work your shoulders and triceps!
Begin the plank with your forearms parallel to the floor. Draw one knee towards your elbow, getting as close as you can without compromising your body position. Then, push your heel back towards its starting position before repeating on the other side.
There’s no twisting or bending during this exercise, and try not to let your foot touch the floor! Perform between 10-20 times per side and you’ll really feel your abdominals burn!
Side planks put greater emphasis on the obliques and deep core muscles. It’s a smaller group of muscles so this move quickly becomes tough. Build up to 30 seconds on each side with a quick transition.
Keep your body, head, and neck naturally in line while performing this move. Place your other hand on your hip and squeeze your hip muscles to straighten your posture.
This is similar to the regular plank, but with your feet elevated to place greater tension on your upper abs. You could use any secure object, such as a bench, sofa, or table.
Remember to keep that back straight and continue to breathe naturally.
This balancing act will greatly stimulate the abdominal and core muscles through stabilization. Begin in the forearm plank position on the ball and push your arms forward to roll the ball slightly. Hold this position for up to 60 seconds, then carefully roll it back.
Find a position that best engages your abs and midsection and remember to breathe naturally.
From the standard plank position, raise one of your legs behind you while keeping your body parallel to the ground. Hold this position for up to 30 seconds before switching to the other leg for a further 30 seconds.
Keep your body alignment in check and stay parallel with the floor throughout this exercise.
This is a tougher plank variation performed much like the previous leg lift plank, except you must also lift your opposite arm!
Again, it’s essential to keep a horizontal back during the entire exercise. Try doing 30 seconds on each side.
While in the side plank position, raise both your top arm and leg into the air as high as possible. Support yourself with your other arm and leg, but stability should be provided by tensing your midsection.
Hold each side for 30 seconds before switching.
Admittedly, this plank exercise is far harder than it looks. Get back in a forearm plank position, push your feet against a wall, and hold this position.
Increasing the elevation of your feet will increase the difficulty. If you can perform this exercise for 60 seconds, you’ll have incredible abdominal strength!
The post 10 Plank Variations You Should Try If You’re Tired Of The Standard Plank appeared first on Lifehack.
Today more than 50% of American adults are single, and 31 million of them live alone — making up 28% of households.
Living alone has become more popular in recent years, which may be because there are lots of benefits to living alone. Although it can be lonely at times, it teaches you a lot of things about yourself. It can make us stronger people, giving us a better understanding of ourselves and improving our relationships with others.
If you have ever lived alone, you’ll be able to relate to these 6 benefits of living alone.
Living alone gives you the time to focus on what matters the most to you, so you often realize how important your friends and family truly are. You will cherish the past times when you lived with your friends and family, and to continue the relationships you must make a conscious effort to spend time with your friends. This often means that you enjoy and value their company even more.
Living in a solitary environment gives you the opportunity to learn more about yourself, such as your strengths, weaknesses, motivations, behaviors, and desires. This can help you to become more self-aware and introspective, and it also encourages you to mature and grow as a person. These skills will improve your life and possibly even the lives of others around you.
Often people associate being alone with being lonely, but it can actually be very calming and peaceful. After a tough day, it feels great to be able to come home to your own private space. No noise, no mess, no drama to deal with – just peace.
This helps you to learn to enjoy your own company in lots of different ways; you can enjoy cooking alone, falling asleep alone, and being able to read and watch TV without being disturbed.
One of the main benefits of living alone is achieving true financial independence. People who live alone can’t rely on their housemates or parents telling them when rent and bills are due – you have to remember for yourself, or the bills won’t get paid! This quickly teaches you to be financially savvy, which is a skill that will benefit you for the rest of your life.
When you spend your life living with your family and friends, you don’t need to learn to cope on your own. When you live alone, you are forced to learn about specific things like replacing light bulbs and de-icing fridges without any help from others. While this may seem like a challenge at the beginning, it teaches you to become truly independent. This also helps you to become more confident, as it instills in you personal pride and confidence in yourself.
Another one of the main benefits of living alone is that you often get better at making decisions. People who live alone get to do what they want, but to start with you might not always know what you want. For example; which internet provider do you want to choose? How will you decorate the bedroom? What will your diet be like?
You will start to become more confident in making decisions for yourself, as the final decision is always up to you. To begin with this can be stressful, but over time it makes you a more self-reliant person.
The post How Living Alone Can Make You A Stronger Person appeared first on Lifehack.
Another healthy vitamin to add into your daily diet to combat the stress of everyday life and time on your kin. Vitamin E is easily found in many tasty foods and so can be incorporated into your working week without a problem. You will find Vitamin E in pine nuts, sunflower and corn oils, and also in almonds, hazelnuts, and avocado.
So, have an afternoon snack of a bowl of nuts to get your daily does, or by adding in a handful of pine nuts to a salad. Or pine nuts are delicious in a ragu sauce! Also at the weekend you can whip up a delicious breakfast of eggs and avocado and get a huge dose of vitamin E to keep your skin looking amazing.
Vitamin E is a protective element against skin damage and so will support healthy skin growth and healthy cells. Meaning that your skin will be at its optimum and will quickly heal after any cuts or bruises. Vitamin E protects your skin from the elements also, and keeps it looking fresh and young.
By adding in certain foods to your daily diet you can promote healthier skin and this will work over long term and is far less expensive that buying many creams and serums. Plus by making a change to your routine and eating better foods, you will notice over time that your skin has changed for the better permanently. This method is far better than any short term fix.
The post Tip #7: Eat For Radiant Skin appeared first on Lifehack.
Another healthy vitamin to add into your daily diet to combat the stress of everyday life and time on your kin. Vitamin E is easily found in many tasty foods and so can be incorporated into your working week without a problem. You will find Vitamin E in pine nuts, sunflower and corn oils, and also in almonds, hazelnuts, and avocado.
So, have an afternoon snack of a bowl of nuts to get your daily does, or by adding in a handful of pine nuts to a salad. Or pine nuts are delicious in a ragu sauce! Also at the weekend you can whip up a delicious breakfast of eggs and avocado and get a huge dose of vitamin E to keep your skin looking amazing.
Vitamin E is a protective element against skin damage and so will support healthy skin growth and healthy cells. Meaning that your skin will be at its optimum and will quickly heal after any cuts or bruises. Vitamin E protects your skin from the elements also, and keeps it looking fresh and young.
By adding in certain foods to your daily diet you can promote healthier skin and this will work over long term and is far less expensive that buying many creams and serums. Plus by making a change to your routine and eating better foods, you will notice over time that your skin has changed for the better permanently. This method is far better than any short term fix.
The post Tip #7: Eat For Radiant Skin appeared first on Lifehack.
Vital to both your diet and healthy skin, antioxidants can be found in lots of different foods and it is highly recommended that they are a part of your daily diet. One of the most important antioxidants for healthy skin is selenium, this antioxidant works alongside vitamins like E and C and is essential for a healthy immune system. There are many ways to add this to your daily diet and boots your intake, you will find selenium in brazil nuts, tomatoes, eggs, broccoli, and shellfish.
By just eating four brazil nuts a day, you are getting the recommended amount! Easy to do and a tasty afternoon snack. Try and have eggs for breakfast at the weekend when you have more time to get some selenium into your diet.
Antioxidants are very important and selenium is a powerful player in the journey to healthy skin. Studies have suggested that a diet rich in selenium can help to protect against skin cancer and sun damage. It will also reduce the appear of age spots and your skin will look younger and healthier.
The post Tip #6: Eat For Radiant Skin appeared first on Lifehack.
Everyone knows that the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables that we consume everyday should be at least five. This is not as hard to incorporate into your day as you may think. There are so many varieties and different tastes out there that adding in five a day will only enhance your taste buds and make eating an even more delicious and tasty experience. Plus the benefits to your overall health and skin are second to none.
Pick from a rainbow of fruit and vegetables and add some into every meal. Or as a healthy snack you could have crudites of carrots and celery instead of a biscuit with that 11 o’clock cup of coffee! Spinach is a fantastic vegetable to have and easy to throw into a salad or a stir fry and it is rich in antioxidants.
Fruits and vegetables are full of antioxidants and these protect the skin from any cellular damage occurring through everyday life. Day to day exposure to the sun, smoking, pollution, and so on cause wrinkles and age spots. To combat this, you need to ingest a lot of antioxidants which you will get from your five a day.
The post Tip #5: Eat For Radiant Skin appeared first on Lifehack.