Love them or loathe them, planks seem to feature in most ab workouts. Yet as we get older, and our focus shifts to a more functional style of fitness, planks aren’t the gold standard. When we talk about functional fitness, we’re referring to building the muscles you’ll use in everyday life, such as when you’re carrying a heavy bag of groceries or lifting a grandchild up and out of their crib.
While planks are great at engaging the muscles in your midsection, they don’t train your core for how it’s used in everyday life.
On the other hand, standing ab exercises are great at mimicking the movements you do make every single day. Most involve some sort of movement, twist or reach, and as you’re standing, your core will be working hard to stabilize your spine during the exercises.
Plus, you don’t need any additional equipment or to try and get down onto the floor if you have mobility issues or injuries. Remember, if you do have specific injuries you’re working with, it’s always best to seek personalized advice from a qualified professional.
Below, Tom’s Guide’s resident personal trainer, Sam Hopes, has put together a 10-minute standing core workout that helps you burn fat and build functional fitness better than holding planks. Read on to find out more.
What is the workout?
All you’ll need for this workout is your bodyweight and something to time yourself on — this could just be the stopwatch on your smartphone. As you get stronger, you might want to add weight to the exercises, and you can check out the best adjustable dumbbells for working out at home here on Tom’s Guide.
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Sam recommends completing each of the exercises below for a minute before taking a short break. Do three sets in total. If this is too difficult, complete the exercise for 30 seconds, followed by a 30-second break, and work up to the full minute. Remember to move slowly and with control.
Wood chops: 1 minute
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Start with your feet shoulder-width apart, and either place your hands together, connecting your fingers, or holding the dumbbell in both hands, to one side of the body.
Engage your abs, and lift and rotate the dumbbell above your opposite shoulder. As you lift, pivot your left foot so your torso to help the elevation. This is the lift part of the movement. Moving with control, lower the dumbbell back to your starting position, keeping your core engaged — there should be minimal movement from the trunk during this exercise.
Standing bicycle crunch: 1 minute
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Begin in a tall standing position, feet hip-width apart. Bring your hands behind your head (but don’t lock your fingers), and draw your shoulder blades toward each other so that your elbows are facing directly out from the sides of your head and your upper arms are parallel to the floor.
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Contact your abs and raise your left knee while rotating your torso as you bring your right elbow down towards it. Try to touch your knee with your elbow, but don’t worry if you can’t right away. The focus should be on the core, so don’t angle the knee inwards and make sure you keep your elbows wide. Don’t pull your body down to meet the knee. Return to the start position and repeat on the other side.
Squat hold with oblique crunch: 1 minute
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Start with your feet wider than hip-width apart and push your glutes back, as if you’re sitting down in a chair, and lower into a wide squat. Place your hands behind your head, and slowly bend to the side, lowering your elbow down towards your knee, before reversing the movement so you’re back in your starting position.
Repeat on the opposite side. If it’s too difficult to stay in the squat hold, once you’ve completed one oblique crunch on each side, raise up out of the squat, before lowering back into it and repeating.
What are the benefits?
As well as working on your core strength, these exercises will all help you build better balance and coordination. Exercises like the woodchop and the standing bicycle crunch require you to balance on one leg and rotate your torso, meaning that you’ll be engaging the deep stabilizer muscles in your core to stop yourself from falling. This, in turn, can help you prevent falls and injuries in your daily life, helping you stay independent for longer.
Of course, these exercises aren’t just for seniors — this quick circuit is fantastic for anyone who’s travelling, or wants some exercises they can stand up and do next to their desk. Because standing exercises require you to work against gravity to stay upright, you’ll burn more calories doing them than you would when performing isometric exercises, like a plank.
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