What Happens To Your Body When You Plank 1 Minute Every Day

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Planks improve strength, flexibility, balance, posture, reduce chronic back pain, lower blood pressure, and enhance physique. But can we really get benefits from just 1 minute per day?

To the core

The benefits that can be expected, according to the science cited in this video, include:

  • Within 2–3 weeks, daily planking of just 1 minute per day activates deep core muscles, enhancing balance, which helps in everyday tasks and prevents muscle imbalances.
  • Strengthening core muscles through planks also helps alleviate lower back pain, with research supporting its effectiveness within 3 weeks.
  • Posture is important for good health, and planks align the spine and hips, improving posture naturally, which also helps alleviate back issues. So, there’s a good kind of synergy to this exercise.
  • Of course, many people exercising have the goal of a more toned body; regular planking leads to a toned core, sculpted shoulders, and leaner legs.
  • For those who care more about mobility, though, planking enhances flexibility in hamstrings, feet, and toes within 4–6 weeks.
  • Anything else? Yes, isometric exercises like planks are highly effective at reducing blood pressure, and, counterintuitively, more so than aerobic exercises.

The video also looks at a study in which participants did 20 minutes per day instead of 1, which predictably also significantly improved strength, endurance, flexibility, and reduced body fat.

However, another study cited gives the stats for just 1 minute daily, and that was not even a whole minute, so much as 30 seconds hold, 1 minute rest, 30 seconds hold—and still showed very good improvements.

For more on all this, plus links to three studies mentioned in the video, enjoy:

Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

Want to learn more?

You might also like to read:

Isometric Exercises That Are Good If You Have Osteoporosis (or if you don’t, but the point is, they are safe and beneficial for people with osteoporosis)

Take care!

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  • How much time should you spend sitting versus standing? New research reveals the perfect mix for optimal health

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    People have a pretty intuitive sense of what is healthy – standing is better than sitting, exercise is great for overall health and getting good sleep is imperative.

    However, if exercise in the evening may disrupt our sleep, or make us feel the need to be more sedentary to recover, a key question emerges – what is the best way to balance our 24 hours to optimise our health?

    Our research attempted to answer this for risk factors for heart disease, stroke and diabetes. We found the optimal amount of sleep was 8.3 hours, while for light activity and moderate to vigorous activity, it was best to get 2.2 hours each.

    Finding the right balance

    Current health guidelines recommend you stick to a sensible regime of moderate-to vigorous-intensity physical activity 2.5–5 hours per week.

    However mounting evidence now suggests how you spend your day can have meaningful ramifications for your health. In addition to moderate-to vigorous-intensity physical activity, this means the time you spend sitting, standing, doing light physical activity (such as walking around your house or office) and sleeping.

    Our research looked at more than 2,000 adults who wore body sensors that could interpret their physical behaviours, for seven days. This gave us a sense of how they spent their average 24 hours.

    At the start of the study participants had their waist circumference, blood sugar and insulin sensitivity measured. The body sensor and assessment data was matched and analysed then tested against health risk markers — such as a heart disease and stroke risk score — to create a model.

    Using this model, we fed through thousands of permutations of 24 hours and found the ones with the estimated lowest associations with heart disease risk and blood-glucose levels. This created many optimal mixes of sitting, standing, light and moderate intensity activity.

    When we looked at waist circumference, blood sugar, insulin sensitivity and a heart disease and stroke risk score, we noted differing optimal time zones. Where those zones mutually overlapped was ascribed the optimal zone for heart disease and diabetes risk.

    You’re doing more physical activity than you think

    We found light-intensity physical activity (defined as walking less than 100 steps per minute) – such as walking to the water cooler, the bathroom, or strolling casually with friends – had strong associations with glucose control, and especially in people with type 2 diabetes. This light-intensity physical activity is likely accumulated intermittently throughout the day rather than being a purposeful bout of light exercise.

    Our experimental evidence shows that interrupting our sitting regularly with light-physical activity (such as taking a 3–5 minute walk every hour) can improve our metabolism, especially so after lunch.

    While the moderate-to-vigorous physical activity time might seem a quite high, at more than 2 hours a day, we defined it as more than 100 steps per minute. This equates to a brisk walk.

    It should be noted that these findings are preliminary. This is the first study of heart disease and diabetes risk and the “optimal” 24 hours, and the results will need further confirmation with longer prospective studies.

    The data is also cross-sectional. This means that the estimates of time use are correlated with the disease risk factors, meaning it’s unclear whether how participants spent their time influences their risk factors or whether those risk factors influence how someone spends their time.

    Australia’s adult physical activity guidelines need updating

    Australia’s physical activity guidelines currently only recommend exercise intensity and time. A new set of guidelines are being developed to incorporate 24-hour movement. Soon Australians will be able to use these guidelines to examine their 24 hours and understand where they can make improvements.

    While our new research can inform the upcoming guidelines, we should keep in mind that the recommendations are like a north star: something to head towards to improve your health. In principle this means reducing sitting time where possible, increasing standing and light-intensity physical activity, increasing more vigorous intensity physical activity, and aiming for a healthy sleep of 7.5–9 hours per night.

    Beneficial changes could come in the form of reducing screen time in the evening or opting for an active commute over driving commute, or prioritising an earlier bed time over watching television in the evening.

    It’s also important to acknowledge these are recommendations for an able adult. We all have different considerations, and above all, movement should be fun.

    Christian Brakenridge, Postdoctoral research fellow at Swinburne University Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University of Technology

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • The Brain As A Work-In-Progress

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    And The Brain Goes Marching On!

    In Tuesday’s newsletter, we asked you “when does the human brain stop developing?” and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:

    • About 64% of people said “Never”
    • About 16% of people said “25 years”
    • About 9% of people said “65 years”
    • About 5% of people said “13 years”
    • About 3% of people said “18 years”
    • About 3% of people said “45 years”

    Some thoughts, before we get into the science:

    An alternative wording for the original question was “when does the human brain finish developing”; the meaning is the same but the feeling is slightly different:

    • “When does the human brain stop developing?” focuses attention on the idea of cessation, and will skew responses to later ages
    • When does the human brain finish developing?” focuses on attention on a kind of “is it done yet?” and will skew responses to earlier ages

    Ultimately, since we had to chose one word or another, we picked the shortest one, but it would have been interesting if we could have done an A/B test, and asked half one way, and half the other way!

    Why we picked those ages

    We picked those ages as poll options for reasons people might be drawn to them:

    • 13 years: in English-speaking cultures, an important milestone of entering adolescence (note that the concept of a “teenager” is not precisely universal as most languages do not have “-teen” numbers in the same way; the concept of “adolescent” may thus be tied to other milestones)
    • 18 years: age of legal majority in N. America and many other places
    • 25 years: age popularly believed to be when the brain is finished developing, due to a study that we’ll talk about shortly (we guess that’s why there’s a spike in our results for this, too!)
    • 45 years: age where many midlife hormonal changes occur, and many professionals are considered to have peaked in competence and start looking towards retirement
    • 65 years: age considered “senior” in much of N. America and many other places, as well as the cut-off and/or starting point for a lot of medical research

    Notice, therefore, how a lot of things are coming from places they really shouldn’t. For example, because there are many studies saying “n% of people over 65 get Alzheimer’s” or “n% of people over 65 get age-related cognitive decline”, etc, 65 becomes the age where we start expecting this—because of an arbitrary human choice of where to draw the cut-off for the study enrollment!

    Similarly, we may look at common ages of legal majority, or retirement pensions, and assume “well it must be for a good reason”, and dear reader, those reasons are more often economically motivated than they are biologically reasoned.

    So, what does the science say?

    Our brains are never finished developing: True or False?

    True! If we define “finished developing” as “we cease doing neurogenesis and neuroplasticity is no longer in effect”.

    Glossary:

    • Neurogenesis: the process of creating new brain cells
    • Neuroplasticity: the process of the brain adapting to changes by essentially rebuilding itself to suit our perceived current needs

    We say “perceived” because sometimes neuroplasticity can do very unhelpful things to us (e.g: psychological trauma, or even just bad habits), but on a biological level, it is always doing its best to serve our overall success as an organism.

    For a long time it was thought that we don’t do neurogenesis at all as adults, but this was found to be untrue:

    How To Grow New Brain Cells (At Any Age)

    Summary of conclusions of the above: we’re all growing new brain cells at every age, even if we be in our 80s and with Alzheimer’s disease, but there are things we can do to enhance our neurogenic potential along the way.

    Neuroplasticity will always be somewhat enhanced by neurogenesis (after all, new neurons get given jobs to do), and we reviewed a great book about the marvels of neuroplasticity including in older age:

    The Brain’s Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity – by Dr. Norman Doidge

    Our brains are still developing up to the age of 25: True or False?

    True! And then it keeps on developing after that, too. Now this is abundantly obvious considering what we just talked about, but see what a difference the phrasing makes? Now it makes it sound like it stops at 25, which this statement doesn’t claim at all—it only speaks for the time up to that age.

    A lot of the popular press about “the brain isn’t fully mature until the age of 25” stems from a 2006 study that found:

    ❝For instance, frontal gray matter volume peaks at about age 11.0 years in girls and 12.1 years in boys, whereas temporal gray matter volume peaks at about age at 16.7 years in girls and 16.2 years in boys. The dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex, important for controlling impulses, is among the latest brain regions to mature without reaching adult dimensions until the early 20s.❞

    ~ Dr. Jay Giedd

    Source: Structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Adolescent Brain

    There are several things to note here:

    • The above statement is talking about the physical size of the brain growing
    • Nowhere does he say “and stops developing at 25”

    However… The study only looked at brains up to the age of 25. After that, they stopped looking, because the study was about “the adolescent brain” so there has to be a cut-off somewhere, and that was the cut-off they chose.

    This is the equivalent of saying “it didn’t stop raining until four o’clock” when the reality is that four o’clock is simply when you gave up on checking.

    The study didn’t misrepresent this, by the way, but the popular press did!

    Another 2012 study looked at various metrics of brain development, and found:

    • Synapse overproduction into the teens
    • Cortex pruning into the late 20s
    • Prefrontal pruning into middle age at least (they stopped looking)
    • Myelination beyond middle age (they stopped looking)

    Source: Experience and the developing prefrontal cortexcheck out figure 1, and make sure you’re looking at the human data not the rat data

    So how’s the most recent research looking?

    Here’s a 2022 study that looked at 123,984 brain scans spanning the age range from mid-gestation to 100 postnatal years, and as you can see from its own figure 1… Most (if not all) brain-things keep growing for life, even though most slow down at some point, they don’t stop:

    Brain charts for the human lifespancheck out figure 1; don’t get too excited about the ventricular volume column as that is basically “brain that isn’t being a brain”. Do get excited about the rest, though!

    Want to know how not to get caught out by science being misrepresented by the popular press? Check out:

    How Science News Outlets Can Lie To You (Yes, Even If They Cite Studies!)

    Take care!

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  • Should You Go Light Or Heavy On Carbs?

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    Carb-Strong or Carb-Wrong?

    A bar chart showing the number of people who are interested in social media and heavy carbs.

    We asked you for your health-related view of carbs, and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses

    • About 48% said “Some carbs are beneficial; others are detrimental”
    • About 27% said “Carbs are a critical source of energy, and safer than fats”
    • About 18% said “A low-carb diet is best for overall health (and a carb is a carb)”
    • About 7% said “We do not need carbs to live; a carnivore diet is viable”

    But what does the science say?

    Carbs are a critical source of energy, and safer than fats: True or False?

    True and False, respectively! That is: they are a critical source of energy, and carbs and fats both have an important place in our diet.

    ❝Diets that focus too heavily on a single macronutrient, whether extreme protein, carbohydrate, or fat intake, may adversely impact health.

    ~ Dr. Russel de Souza et al.

    Source: Low carb or high carb? Everything in moderation … until further notice

    (the aforementioned lead author Dr. de Souza, by the way, served as an external advisor to the World Health Organization’s Nutrition Guidelines Advisory Committee)

    Some carbs are beneficial; others are detrimental: True or False?

    True! Glycemic index is important here. There’s a big difference between eating a raw carrot and drinking high-fructose corn syrup:

    Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?

    While some say grains and/or starchy vegetables are bad, best current science recommends:

    • Eat some whole grains regularly, but they should not be the main bulk of your meal (non-wheat grains are generally better)
    • Starchy vegetables are not a critical food group, but in moderation they are fine.

    To this end, the Mediterranean Diet is the current gold standard of healthful eating, per general scientific consensus:

    A low-carb diet is best for overall health (and a carb is a carb): True or False?

    True-ish and False, respectively. We covered the “a carb is a carb” falsehood earlier, so we’ll look at “a low-carb diet is best”.

    Simply put: it can be. One of the biggest problems facing the low-carb diet though is that adherence tends to be poor—that is to say, people crave their carby comfort foods and eat more carbs again. As for the efficacy of a low-carb diet in the context of goals such as weight loss and glycemic control, the evidence is mixed:

    ❝There is probably little to no difference in weight reduction and changes in cardiovascular risk factors up to two years’ follow-up, when overweight and obese participants without and with T2DM are randomised to either low-carbohydrate or balanced-carbohydrate weight-reducing diets❞

    ~ Dr. Celeste Naud et al.

    Source: Low-carbohydrate versus balanced-carbohydrate diets for reducing weight and cardiovascular risk

    ❝On the basis of moderate to low certainty evidence, patients adhering to an LCD for six months may experience remission of diabetes without adverse consequences.

    Limitations include continued debate around what constitutes remission of diabetes, as well as the efficacy, safety, and dietary satisfaction of longer term LCDs❞

    ~ Dr. Joshua Goldenberg et al.

    Source: Efficacy and safety of low and very low carbohydrate diets for type 2 diabetes remission

    ❝There should be no “one-size-fits-all” eating pattern for different patient´s profiles with diabetes.

    It is clinically complex to suggest an ideal percentage of calories from carbohydrates, protein and lipids recommended for all patients with diabetes.❞

    ~Dr. Adriana Sousa et al.

    Source: Current Evidence Regarding Low-carb Diets for The Metabolic Control of Type-2 Diabetes

    We do not need carbs to live; a carnivore diet is viable: True or False?

    False. For a simple explanation:

    The Carnivore Diet: Can You Have Too Much Meat?

    There isn’t a lot of science studying the effects of consuming no plant products, largely because such a study, if anything other than observational population studies, would be unethical. Observational population studies, meanwhile, are not practical because there are so few people who try this, and those who do, do not persist after their first few hospitalizations.

    Putting aside the “Carnivore Diet” as a dangerous unscientific fad, if you are inclined to meat-eating, there is some merit to the Paleo Diet, at least for short-term weight loss even if not necessarily long-term health:

    What’s The Real Deal With The Paleo Diet?

    For longer-term health, we refer you back up to the aforementioned Mediterranean Diet.

    Enjoy!

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Related Posts

  • The Most Anti Aging Exercise
  • Dr. Greger’s Anti-Aging Eight

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Dr. Greger’s Anti-Aging Eight

    This is Dr. Michael Greger. We’ve featured him before: Brain Food? The Eyes Have It!

    This time, we’re working from his latest book, the excellent “How Not To Age”, which we reviewed all so recently. It is very information-dense, but we’re going to be focussing on one part, his “anti-aging eight”, that is to say, eight interventions he rates the most highly to slow aging in general (other parts of the book pertained to slowing eleven specific pathways of aging, or preserving specific bodily functions against aging, for example).

    Without further ado, his “anti-aging eight” are…

    1. Nuts
    2. Greens
    3. Berries
    4. Xenohormesis & microRNA manipulation
    5. Prebiotics & postbiotics
    6. Caloric restriction / IF
    7. Protein restriction
    8. NAD+

    As you may have noticed, some of these are things might appear already on your grocery shopping list; others don’t seem so “household”. Let’s break them down:

    Nuts, greens, berries

    These are amongst the most nutrient-dense and phytochemical-useful parts of the diet that Dr. Greger advocates for in his already-famous “Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen”.

    For brevity, we’ll not go into the science of these here, but will advise you: eat a daily portion of nuts, a daily portion of berries, and a couple of daily portions of greens.

    Xenohormesis & microRNA manipulation

    You might, actually, have these on your grocery shopping list too!

    Hormesis, you may recall from previous editions of 10almonds, is about engaging in a small amount of eustress to trigger the body’s self-strengthening response, for example:

    Xenohormesis is about getting similar benefits, second-hand.

    For example, plants that have been grown to “organic” standards (i.e. without artificial pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers) have had to adapt to their relatively harsher environment by upping their levels of protective polyphenols and other phytochemicals that, as it turns out, are as beneficial to us as they are to the plants:

    Hormetic Effects of Phytochemicals on Health and Longevity

    Additionally, the flip side of xenohormesis is that some plant compounds can themselves act as a source of hormetic stress that end up bolstering us. For example:

    Redox-linked effects of green tea on DNA damage and repair, and influence of microsatellite polymorphism in HMOX-1: results of a human intervention trial

    In essence, it’s not just that it has anti-oxidant effect; it also provides a tiny oxidative-stress immunization against serious sources of oxidative stress—and thus, aging.

    MicroRNA manipulation is, alas, too complex to truly summarize an entire chapter in a line or two, but it has to do with genetic information from the food that we eat having a beneficial or deleterious effect to our own health:

    Diet-derived microRNAs: unicorn or silver bullet?

    A couple of quick takeaways (out of very many) from Dr. Greger’s chapter on this is to spring for the better quality olive oil, and skip the cow’s milk:

    Prebiotics & Postbiotics

    We’re short on space, so we’ll link you to a previous article, and tell you that it’s important against aging too:

    Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)

    An example of how one of Dr. Greger’s most-recommended postbiotics helps against aging, by the way:

    (Urolithin can be found in many plants, and especially those containing tannins)

    See also: How to Make Urolithin Postbiotics from Tannins

    Caloric restriction / Intermittent fasting

    This is about lowering metabolic load and promoting cellular apoptosis (programmed cell death; sounds bad; is good) and autophagy (self-consumption; again, sounds bad; is good).

    For example, he cites the intermittent fasters’ 46% lower risk of dying in the subsequent years of follow-up in this longitudinal study:

    Association of periodic fasting lifestyles with survival and incident major adverse cardiovascular events in patients undergoing cardiac catheterization

    For brevity we’ll link to our previous IF article, but we’ll revisit caloric restriction in a main feature on of these days:

    Fasting Without Crashing? We sort the science from the hype!

    Dr. Greger favours caloric restriction over intermittent fasting, arguing that it is easier to adhere to and harder to get wrong if one has some confounding factor (e.g. diabetes, or a medication that requires food at certain times, etc). If adhered to healthily, the benefits appear to be comparable for each, though.

    Protein restriction

    In contrast to our recent main feature Protein vs Sarcopenia, in which that week’s featured expert argued for high protein consumption levels, protein restriction can, on the other hand, have anti-aging effects. A reminder that our body is a complex organism, and sometimes what’s good for one thing is bad for another!

    Dr. Greger offers protein restriction as a way to get many of the benefits of caloric restriction, without caloric restriction. He further notes that caloric restriction without protein restriction doesn’t decrease IGF-1 levels (a marker of aging).

    However, for FGF21 levels (these are good and we want them higher to stay younger), what matters more than lowering proteins in general is lowering levels of the amino acid methionine—found mostly in animal products, not plants—so the source of the protein matters:

    Regulation of longevity and oxidative stress by nutritional interventions: role of methionine restriction

    For example, legumes deliver only 5–10% of the methionine that meat does, for the same amount of protein, so that’s a factor to bear in mind.

    NAD+

    This is about nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, or NAD+ to its friends.

    NAD+ levels decline with age, and that decline is a causal factor in aging, and boosting the levels can slow aging:

    Therapeutic Potential of NAD-Boosting Molecules: The In Vivo Evidence

    Can we get NAD+ from food? We can, but not in useful quantities or with sufficient bioavailability.

    Supplements, then? Dr. Greger finds the evidence for their usefulness lacking, in interventional trials.

    How to boost NAD+, then? Dr. Greger prescribes…

    Exercise! It boosts levels by 127% (i.e., it more than doubles the levels), based on a modest three-week exercise bike regimen:

    Skeletal muscle NAMPT is induced by exercise in humans

    Another study on resistance training found the same 127% boost:

    Resistance training increases muscle NAD+ and NADH concentrations as well as NAMPT protein levels and global sirtuin activity in middle-aged, overweight, untrained individuals

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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  • Scheduling Tips for Overrunning Tasks

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Your Questions, Our Answers!

    Q: Often I schedule time for things, but the task takes longer than I think, or multiplies while I’m doing it, and then my schedule gets thrown out. Any ideas?

    A: A relatable struggle! Happily, there are remedies:

    • Does the task really absolutely need to be finished today? If not, just continue it in scheduled timeslots until it’s completed.
    • Some tasks do indeed need to be finished today (hi, writer of a daily newsletter here!), so it can be useful to have an idea of how long things really take, in advance. While new tasks can catch us unawares, recurring or similar-to-previous tasks can be estimated based on how long they took previously. For this reason, we recommend doing a time audit every now and again, to see how you really use your time.
    • A great resource that you should include in your schedule is a “spare” timeslot, ideally at least one per day. Call it a “buffer” or a “backup” or whatever (in my schedule it’s labelled “discretionary”), but the basic idea is that it’s a scheduled timeslot with nothing scheduled in it, and it works as an “overflow” catch-all.

    Additionally:

    • You can usually cut down the time it takes you to do tasks by setting “Deep Work” rules for yourself. For example: cut out distractions, single-task, work in for example 25-minute bursts with 5-minute breaks, etc
    • You can also usually cut down the time it takes you to do tasks by making sure you’re prepared for them. Not just task-specific preparation, either! A clear head on, plenty of energy, the resources you’ll need (including refreshments!) to hand, etc can make a huge difference to efficiency.

    See Also: Time Optimism and the Planning Fallacy

    Do you have a question you’d like to see answered here? Hit reply or use the feedback widget at the bottom; we’d love to hear from you!

    Don’t Forget…

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  • Is ADHD Being Over-Diagnosed For Cash?

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    Is ADHD Being Systematically Overdiagnosed?

    The BBC’s investigative “Panorama” program all so recently did a documentary in which one of their journalists—who does not have ADHD—went to three private clinics and got an ADHD diagnosis from each of them:

    So… Is it really a case of show up, pay up, and get a shiny new diagnosis?

    The BBC Panorama producers cherry-picked 3 private providers, and during those clinical assessments, their journalist provided answers that would certainly lead to a diagnosis.

    This was contrasted against a three-hour assessment with an NHS psychiatrist—something that rarely happens in the NHS. Which prompts the question…

    How did he walk into a 3-hour psychiatrist assessment, when most people have to wait in long waiting lists for a much more cursory appointment first with assorted gatekeepers, before going on another long waiting list, for an also-much-shorter appointment with a psychiatrist?

    That would be because the NHS psychiatrist was given advance notification that this was part of an investigation and would be filmed (the private clinics were not gifted the same transparency)

    So, maybe just a tad unequal treatment!

    In case you’re wondering, here’s what that very NHS psychiatrist had to say on the topic:

    Is it really too easy to be diagnosed with ADHD?

    (we’ll give you a hint—remember Betteridge’s Law!)

    ❝Since the documentary aired, I have heard from people concerned that GPs could now be more likely to question legitimate diagnoses.

    But as an NHS psychiatrist it is clear to me that the root of this issue is not overdiagnosis.

    Instead, we are facing the combined challenges of remedying decades of underdiagnosis and NHS services that were set up when there was little awareness of ADHD.❞

    ~ Dr. Mike Smith, Psychiatrist

    The ADHD foundation, meanwhile, has issued its own response, saying:

    ❝We are disappointed that BBC Panorama has opted to broadcast a poorly researched, sensationalist piece of television journalism.❞

    Click here to read their full statement!

    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

    Learn to Age Gracefully

    Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails: