Whenever you’re feeling a little stagnant in your training, taking on a new fitness challenge is the quickest way to snap out of that funk. Maybe you’ve been out of the gym for a while and need to ease back in, or perhaps you want to test a weak point. No matter the inspiration, committing to a small daily habit helps rebuild both consistency and confidence within yourself.<\/p>\n
That’s exactly what Jacob Siwicki, founder of Siwicki Fitness<\/a>, did earlier this year. For Lent, which lasts just over a month, he challenged himself to hold a two-minute plank every single day. By the end, he not only built deep core strength<\/a> and shoulder strength, but also lost six pounds.<\/p>\n “The most surprising part was how mental it is,” Siwicki shares. “After the first week, the plank is barely a physical test; it’s a focus test. On the days I showed up with the right motivation, I could hold it well past two minutes without much trouble. On days my head wasn’t in it, those same two minutes felt brutal.”<\/p>\n Planks always look simple, but once you’re staring at that countdown clock, it starts to feel like the slowest minutes of your life. Ready to try the challenge yourself?<\/p>\n Related: This World Cup Conditioning Blueprint is the Gold Standard for Restoring Real-World Athleticism and Building Explosive Power<\/a><\/p>\n How to Do Planks<\/p>\n Dig your forearms into the ground with elbows under shoulders and forearms parallel on the floor, keeping your legs extended straight behind you.<\/p>\n Engage your core, squeeze your glutes, and keep your body in a straight line from head to heels.<\/p>\n Hold the position for 2 minutes while breathing steadily.<\/p>\n What Are the Benefits?<\/p>\n Planks engage the entire body, making them an efficient exercise for full-body endurance and strength, while also emphasizing deep core stability. Planks support better posture and double as a mental toughness challenge, teaching you to stay determined as discomfort kicks in. As Siwicki noted, that became a lesson that now translates into the rest of his training:<\/p>\n “The body almost always has more left than the mind believes,” he says. “I completed the whole run, and I’ve never felt better in my core or my shoulders. I also dropped six pounds over the stretch.”<\/p>\n Tips and Progressions<\/p>\n To get the most out of the two-minute daily plank challenge, focus on maintaining full-body engagement from head to heels, keeping glutes tight, core engaged, and shoulders stacked. If you struggle to hold a traditional plank, start by dropping to your knees or elevating your hands on a sturdy surface like a bench or box to reduce the load while you get used to the move.<\/p>\n Once you’ve mastered the plank, there are tons of ways to add to the challenge. Side planks are a strong next step for targeting the obliques<\/a> and improving lateral core stability, while single-leg planks increase the demand on your core. You can also try dynamic variations like shoulder taps or toe taps to challenge anti-rotation strength, or rows to build upper-body stability under load.<\/p>\n Related: Sports Performance Coach Shares a 20-Minute Workout to Boost Longevity and Build a Stronger, More Functional Core<\/a><\/p>\n This story was originally published by Men’s Journal<\/a> on Jun 27, 2026, where it first appeared in the Fitness<\/a> section. Add Men’s Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whenever you’re feeling a little stagnant in your training, taking on a new fitness challenge is the quickest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":769673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[64,63,366014,538,54973,137,366012,366013,366015],"class_list":["post-769672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-core-stability","tag-fitness","tag-fitness-challenge","tag-health","tag-jacob-siwicki","tag-plank-challenge","tag-siwicki-fitness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}