Plank timer: time your plank and see how it compares

Plank calculator and time chart: how long should you hold a plank?

For a forearm plank held in a straight line (no sagging hips, no raised bottom), these are the conventions most trainers use. The published data is below the table, and it is thinner than the internet suggests.

Percentiles from 471 students with an average age of about 20 ^[2]. Half the men held under 1:50 and half the women under 1:12. The study did not include older adults, so it is a yardstick, not an age norm.

The best published plank norms come from a study of 471 college-aged students, where the median hold was 110 seconds for men and 72 seconds for women ^[2]. A separate study of 120 adults, half aged 20 to 35 and half aged 60 to 79, reported an overall mean of about 145 seconds and found the test worked consistently in both age groups ^[3]. Those are medians and means, so plenty of fit people held for less. A clean minute is respectable; a clean two minutes is good going.

People search for a plank time chart by age, and the tables that circulate are mostly gym convention. The often-quoted line that plank time falls 10 to 15 percent per decade after 35 has no traceable primary source, so we do not repeat it as fact. Hold times do tend to fall with age and rise with practice, and the comparison that means something is against your own earlier times.

What is a plank?

A plank is one of the simplest and most effective bodyweight exercises in existence. You hold your body in a straight line, supported on your forearms and toes, and engage your whole core to keep that line steady. There is no equipment, no rep counting, no choreography to learn: you start a timer and stop when your form breaks down. The plank is sometimes called an isometric exercise because the muscles work without changing length. That single, demanding posture is what makes it so honest: a thirty-second plank tells you exactly where you are.

Proper form

1. Lie face down on the floor.
2. Place your forearms on the ground, elbows directly beneath your shoulders, hands flat or lightly clasped.
3. Tuck your toes and lift your hips so your body forms one straight line from head to heels.
4. Keep your neck neutral, gazing a few inches in front of your hands, not up.
5. Engage your core and glutes. Don’t let your hips sag toward the floor or pike up toward the ceiling.
6. Breathe steadily through the hold. Don’t hold your breath.
7. Stop the moment your form breaks. Quality over time, every session.

Benefits

A plank works the entire core (the deep transverse abdominis, the rectus abdominis, the obliques, the lower back, the glutes) alongside the shoulders, quadriceps, and stabiliser muscles in the arms. Done consistently, it builds the kind of trunk strength that supports nearly every other movement, from carrying shopping to lifting a child out of a car seat to running uphill without your form falling apart.

Isometric exercises like the plank have drawn fresh research attention: a 2023 network meta-analysis pooling 270 randomised trials and ~15,800 participants ^[1] ranked isometric training as the most effective modality tested for lowering resting blood pressure, ahead of aerobic, dynamic resistance, and HIIT protocols. If blood pressure is a personal goal, talk to your doctor before starting.

How Just Hold helps you track planks

Just Hold gives you a built-in plank timer that starts with a 5-second countdown so you can get into position. Stop it when your form breaks. Your time is logged with one tap and added to your shared chart with friends or family. You see who’s improving, who’s stalled, and who just stole the top spot. There’s no week-long onboarding, no exercise library, no reps to count: three exercises and a leaderboard. Start free → to track your first plank with your group today.

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