How long should you hold it: 10-30 secs or 5-10 reps, for 1-3 rounds. To get the best boost from this exercise, you have to time it just right. If you’ve mastered the technique, you may eventually push it to 10 seconds. Planks are a great exercise to tone various parts of your body. Most experts recommend that holding a plank for 60 seconds and doing this for 3 times can help you to see results. If you can’t hold a plank for 120 seconds, you’re either a) too fat; b) too weak; or c) doing something wrong in your workouts. Holding the plank exercise for that long indicates that you have a reasonably strong core – and most others tend to agree with that assertion, myself included. You probably don't know that Tom Hoel held a plank for four hours and 28 minutes on May 22, 2015, setting a world record. He recommends bursts of … You probably don't know that this is the second plank record for Hoel, a 52-year-old Dane. Holding planks for 5 seconds at a time is what I recommend. However, you don’t have to do it for this long to see the benefits. If you’re truly bracing all of your muscles, it can be hard for someone to hold a plank for longer than 20 seconds—and a minute at most. Also, a recent study on 168 college students found that your average college-aged female has a plank time of about 1 minute, 30 seconds, while an average college-aged male has a plank time of about 1 minute, 46 seconds (2). All the exercises mentioned can be found in the adidas Training app with step-by-step instructional videos. His previous record of three hours and eight minutes, set in 2014, was obliterated by Chinese policeman Mao Weidong a few months later. Believe it or not there are actually challenges on how long to hold a plank exercise, with the leader being around 8 hours and some change. This exercise can test your resolve, but staying in the position makes sure you get the benefits it is designed for. A fit, healthy guy should be able to do a two-minute plank. Past 10 seconds, it’s way too easy to start relaxing somewhere and perform the exercise with bad technique. How many you do is up to your level of fitness. Plus, shorter planks can still give you a solid workout, Sklar says. In this case, I really like exercises like Plank to Downward Dog, Inchworms, High Plank & Low Plank done for shorter durations and repetitions.