Pro Surfer Lakey Peterson Says the 8-Point Plank Is Her Go-to For Core Stability

Ali Greenman, NASM- and ACE-certified personal trainer and founder of Final Straw Fitness, told POPSUGAR that a "regular" plank on your toes or your knees tends to be very passive. "You aren't intentionally contracting any muscles, and your body is only 'firing up' what it needs to in order to stabilise," she explained. "In an eight-point plank, you are consciously contracting pretty much all of your muscle groups, making it a very active hold versus a passive one."

Ali said that the eight-point plank may look easy because you're not balancing on your toes with your legs straight, but "the key here is trying to pull your knees to your elbows without actually moving." By this, she means, "you will need to squeeze your butt, the front and back of your thighs, all the muscles around your stomach, your chest, your back, shoulder muscles, and arm muscles."

She further explained, "Imagine if you were laying on your back with your knees up, feet on the floor, and trying to crunch your elbows to your knees. You want to use those same mechanics while holding the eight-point plank, meaning you want to engage your abdominal muscles." This is called an isometric contraction of your abs. It will also cause you to shake a lot (trust me, I tried it, and it does big time!).

She said that Chiropractor Eric Goodman, DC, founder and creator of Foundation Training, accurately explains how to do an eight-point plank in the video here. You can follow along yourself for a Tabata sequence where you'll do eight-point planks for eight rounds of 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off. "Requiring your body to produce enough energy to flow to all of those muscle groups will make it pretty hard, pretty fast!" Ali noted. Your core will be in for a treat.