In this exercise guide, weve got tips on how to do the Copenhagen plank properly, the muscles worked, benefits and things to consider when doing the movement. "We're working on the (inside) to counteract all the strong . However, there are many ways the exercise difficulty level can be scaled up or down depending on your abilities. Do you want to be doing more core strengthening exercises like Copenhagen Plank? Privacy Policy. How to Do a Copenhagen Plank For Stronger Abs | Well+Good Imagine your heels, butt, and back of your head are all touching a wall and your body forms a straight line in order to get the most benefit out of the exercise, she suggests. The Copenhagen Plank Will Upgrade Your Ab Workout, 8-Minute Ab Workouts Won't Build a Six-Pack, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. Your #1 site for all things sports rehab, sports performance, and orthopedic rehabilitation is: https://www.sportsrehabexpert.com/http://www.annarbor.physio . Your abductors also help stabilize your leg, preventing your knee from collapsing when youre balancing on just one foot, she adds. How to do a Copenhagen Plank: Technique, Benefits, and Variations Still, your obliques, the muscles responsible for rotating your trunk, get a large chunk of the action. What is the proper form for Copenhagen Plank? Once youre ready to tackle the Copenhagen plank, try one of the modifications below and progress through other variations as you build up strength and stability. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); All Content Copyright Roman Fitness Systems 2019. Then return to the starting position and repeat. The Copenhagen is a little bit different, according to Samuel. How to Perform & Program the Copenhagen Plank for Eccentric Adductor This plank variation challenges even the strongest coreand gives runners an extra form boost, too. Copenhagen planks are mainly aimed at improving strength in your hip and groin muscles, known as adductors; however, they also work the core and more specifically, the obliques. Based on the look of it, you can probably guess that the Copenhagen plank is a seriously challenging move. These muscles are primarily responsible for the adduction of the hip which moves the leg towards the midline. It is suggested that you perform hip mobility exercises to warm up the muscles before doing a Copenhagen side plank. That said, make sure to schedule it for the beginning of your mat workout (the way you want to do dips or pull-ups before getting into the heavy stuff . We may earn a commission through links on our site. To start, youll need a bench, or ideally a raised platform that doesnt have a back on it, like an ottoman. Although this may not sound like the most exciting muscle group to strengthen, it is actually incredibly important for healthy functional movement. Try and hold the Copenhagen plank for as long as possible, repeated a few times a week. While nutrition plays an important role, adding exercise into your routine improves the process of achieving your goal. Mix the Copenhagen plank into your usual resistance training regimen and try holding it for 10 to 20 seconds at a time, doing three to four sets on each side, suggests Ros. But once you master it, according to Mens Health fitness director Ebenezer Samuel, C.S.C.S., and fitness editor Brett Williams, N.A.S.M., the Copenhagen plank will provide plenty of core-crushing benefits, especially if you're a runner. According to experts, squatting is one of the most effective exercises for improving athletic performance. These modifications will add extra difficulty to the Copenhagen Plank and challenge your core and stabilizer muscles. The origin of the exercise is a bit of a mystery, but it's safe to say it was invented way before the early 2000s. It's mainly used to strengthen the groin and hip muscles. The Copenhagen plank is the most challenging exercise known to humans. Aside from the main variation, there are several options to progress and regress the Copenhagen plank. As is the case with any plank variation, think: Abs on, glutes on. Copenhagen Plank can cause strain on the lower back if done incorrectly. Lift the hips up until your body is in a straight line with the lower leg off the floor. Do that. To attack the obliques and get some added value by tapping into the adductors and abductors, a smart modality to implement would be the Copenhagen plank. Groin pain has a high prevalence across an array of different sports such as soccer, hockey, lacrosse, football, Rugby, Australian football, and many other activities. Related article: Advanced Plank Exercises for Insane Core Strength. Most importantly, remember to breathe, says Ros. The exercise is isometric and involves a squeezing movement to keep your legs together. Your bottom leg can be straight if using a chair or bench, or it can be bent if the surface prevents you from straightening the leg, such as when using an ottoman or couch. Build Serious Abs Strength with this Side Plank Series 2013;48(14):1108-1114. The Copenhagen Plank, or the Copenhagen Side Plank, is a side plank variation that, in addition to training the abdominals, targets the adductor (groin) muscles. Ultimately, the benefit of stronger adductors is the reduce risk of groin injuries and pain. Place your left foot on a bench, box or Ottoman, right elbow on the bench. These muscles are responsible for moving your legs to the center of your body. How (and Why) to Do Copenhagen Planks - lifehacker.com.au But the movement does need to be executed properly to ensure you gain the benefits and dont cause injury to your back. The Copenhagen plank or Copenhagen adduction exercise is a side plank variation that targets the muscles of the inner thigh and groin, the adductors. Due to the close proximity of the origin of the adductors and the insertion of the abdominal muscles, this further supports the use of Copenhagen plank variations in rehab or injury risk reduction programs for the groin. Copenhagen Plank - Exercise demonstration video and information for Olympic weightlifting - The Copenhagen plank is a simple exercise for adductor strength and hip stability. Say youre a soccer player. If the variation with the top leg straight is too challenging, you can either rest the bottom leg on the ground or bend the top knee. If you notice your form is breaking down, consider scaling back to a modification. Build abs, obliques, and shoulder strength with the Copenhagen plank delt raise. Another way to increase intensity is to perform a Copenhagen plank raise. 1) Set up with your head perpendicular to a bench and facing away. A 30 second hold would be really good and a 60 second hold would demonstrate very good adduction strength. How to Do the Copenhagen Plank - DG Athlete How to Do a Copenhagen Plank for Strong Thighs and Core Just 10 seconds at a time, over three sets, is a great place to start. To begin with start with your knee on the chair. Start with as much of your leg on the support as possible. As such, a better name might be the adductor plank, or adductor side plank, but the Copenhagen name has stuck. First up, let's have a look at the anatomy of the groin. As the Copenhagen plank aims to strengthen the hips, it would be ideal to start by performing some hip mobility exercises to warm the muscles up and improve the range of motion. Obviously, this trains the adductor muscles. It is a difficult move that requires you to hold yourself up in an isometric contraction while focusing on firing the adductor muscles. To make the Copenhagen adductor plank even harder, you could also switch the support system to a suspended one. Whether youre an athlete, a fitness enthusiast, or simply looking to enhance your hand strength, these exercises will help you achieve your goals. Don't let your chest collapse, so keep the top hand on your hip, or extended towards the ceiling. If you want to make the Copenhagen plank more challenging, you can try the following progressions: Take a narrower grip with your hands while doing the Copenhagen plank to increase the intensity. Begin by lying on your right side with your shoulder, elbow, and forearm stacked in a. There is one exercise that you can do with zero equipment at home to strengthen your adductors and help prevent injury. So what are the techniques to master the Copenhagen plank? In team practices, a partner can stand up and hold your leg while youre doing the exercise. All these variations are excellent alternatives to the Copenhagen Plank that you can use to challenge your core and build stability in different ways. You can keep the bottom leg on the ground. By the end of this article, you will clearly understand the vital aspect of the most challenging exercise and learn the essential techniques needed to master the Copenhagen plank.. This variation can be used as a progression for a beginner, or as a regression from the original exercises to focus on improving your form. Drive your right knee forward. But its an under-appreciated exercise, and deserves a spotlight of its own. The first is that it strengthens your frontal plane. Copenhagen Planks - E3 Rehab If you do it right, you should be giving everything you have for seconds. Do you suffer from toe pain? 5.1K views 3 years ago Here I have one of my awesome clients Mitch performing a modified regression of the Copenhagen plank as he's performing it with his knee, shin, foot, and ankle on the. The Copenhagen plank, or Copenhagen adduction exercise, is a side plank variation that targets the muscles of the inner thigh and groin- the adductors. The Copenhagen plank is one of the most challenging plank variations out there, a side plank variation that requires extra glute and hip adductor focus and builds all-around ab and core. The Copenhagen plank is a great way to test the strength of your leg adductors and work on building up those muscles! Due to these groin related injuries, there are a significant number of athletes being taken out of games, missing seasons, or even having to retire early. The Copenhagen Plank is very simple, all you need is a chair or bench. Want to learn more? Weve also included ways to progress and regress the movement to help adapt it to your current fitness level. BJSM. Additional information: Adductor longus and pectineus will also contribute to hip flexion, while adductor magnus (posterior head) also contributes to hip extension. Generally speaking, I think core exercise can be sprinkled in every training session during rest periods from major strength movements. By Ebenezer Samuel, C.S.C.S. A kettlebell or dumbbell work fine, but for just like TGUs I find the kettlebell to work a little bit better. Copenhagen Planks - How to, Muscles Worked and Benefits Short Lever Copenhagen Plank - YouTube 0:00 / 0:21 Short Lever Copenhagen Plank The Active Life 9.6K subscribers Subscribe 8.6K views 2 years ago Active Life has helped more than 10,000. Far and away the most common complaint of this exercise is knee discomfort on the front leg. For even more stability challenges, move off of your forearm and onto your hand. Even your abductors, the muscles on the outsides of your hips, seem to get a little bit of a boost from training this exercise. [1], [2]. The basic idea is to support your upper body on your forearm or hand, while your leg is supported on a bench or another object. Gaze forward and maintain a straight line from head to heels. Once you can hold a given position for about 30 seconds, you can increase the difficulty by moving the point of contact on your leg further down, which lengthens the lever and increases the demands on the adductors. This will improve abdominal and adductor activation. It is an intense exercise that requires a lot of balance and strength to execute correctly. This will increase the resistance on your deep core muscles, making it more challenging to hold the position for longer. To even out that disparity and keep injuries at bay, you can temporarily prioritize Copenhagen planks on your left side, along with other strengthening exercises that target those weaker muscle groups. An individual starts by lying on his or her side with the forearm supported on the floor and the top leg being held by a partner at either the ankle or the knee. The Copenhagen plank trains them in this fashion, and therefore has more transfer towards actual real life than exercises like the adductor machine. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. Strong adductors means stronger abs and vice versa, and both help us shift out of the extended posture that most of us live in. Better yet, combine the two moves during a single set, as Ros demonstrates below. You can make the Copenhagen Plank harder by elevating your feet on a box or bench, lifting one arm off the ground, and using a resistance band around the legs. In our opinion, the best way to progress this movement is to use a suspension trainer (like a TRX system) to rest your upper foot. Just like the abdominal muscles, they often work in everyday life as stabilizers, not necessarily movers. Every time you take a stride, you're essentially on the one leg, she explains. Focus on controlling your movements through the transition from one position to another, all while maintaining perfect form. Once the static version becomes to hard, we can simply introduce some movement and perform the copenhagen plank for reps instead of time. As soon as you go up onto your palm instead of your forearm, you take away some of that stability, so theres a little bit more work that your body has to do to stabilize and not rotate to one side, she explains. In addition to strengthening the adductors, the Copenhagen plank also contains the elements of a normal side plank, meaning it has a side effect of strengthening a variety of core muscles, including your obliques. Squeeze your legs together and maintain this position for a few seconds before releasing them back to the starting position. Check out .css-16acfp5{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.125rem;text-decoration-color:#d2232e;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:inherit;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-16acfp5:hover{color:#000;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;background-color:yellow;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}our entire Form Check series. Place your top leg onto a bench or raised surface. J Sci Med Sport. A Copenhagen plank is a side plank variation that involves resting your top leg on a bench or raised surface. Lift your lower leg off the floor so it hangs under the bench, unsupported. But if youre ache-free, continue mixing the Copenhagen plank into your routine particularly if youre a runner, she adds. Simply put, no other exercises have been shown to be as beneficial for targeting the groin region as the Copenhagen adduction exercises. An interesting study that Physio-Network highlights in this article showed that groin injuries increased by 17 times when adductor strength was less than 80% of abductor strength. If youre an athlete, then, theyre a crucial part of most sports. You should always seek medical advice from a health/fitness professional before starting any new fitness program. To get even more bang for your buck when it comes to strength training, turn to the Copenhagen plank, a side plank's leveled-up cousin that tests your core and lower-body strength. To hold the correct position and avoid losing your balance, tense your whole body along with the adductors. Return the hips to the floor under control. You can make the exercise easier by resting the bottom leg on the floor, or positioning yourself closer to the bench. This will increase shoulder and core strength and improve coordination and balance. Serner A, et al. This movement is an advanced exercise that also works your entire body. The adductor strengthening programme prevents groin problems among male football players: a cluster-randomised controlled trial. Vegetarian Diet To Build Muscle: Basics & 15 Foods to Eat Every Day, Intermittent Fasting 20/4: What You Should Know Before Starting, Put yourself in a side plank position perpendicular to a bench, With your bottom arm fully extended, place the top leg on the bench, using the internal part of your foot to support the hold. Enter the Copenhagen Plank. After holding the tuck planche, you must be excited to move towards the advanced tuck. Its essential to be aware of common mistakes when doing the Copenhagen Plank exercise: Make sure to squeeze your legs together correctly when doing the Copenhagen Plank. How to Perform and Progress the Copenhagen Plank The basic idea is to support your upper body on your forearm or hand, while your leg is supported on a bench or another object. Oh look, a neat little table of contents. As your adductors get stronger, slowly move more of your calf off the bench until just your foot is resting on it (the classic Copenhagen plank), she suggests. No, you place one leg (your top leg) on a bench. So you need to keep your workout progress with more advanced dip progressions. Always pick a difficulty level that you can maintain perfect form throughout. Some of these muscles also have secondary actions, including hip flexion (adductor brevis and gracilis), internal rotation (adductor longus, adductor brevis, and pectineus), and extension (anterior head of adductor magnus). Welltech. If your form is otherwise great, but you still have knee pain, thats a sign something might be off, and I would refer you to a physical therapist, athletic trainer, or other pain specialist. .css-13y9o4w{display:block;font-family:GraphikBold,GraphikBold-fallback,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-weight:bold;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-13y9o4w:hover{color:link-hover;}}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-13y9o4w{font-size:1.05rem;line-height:1.2;margin-bottom:0.25rem;}}@media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-13y9o4w{font-size:1.28598rem;line-height:1.2;}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.css-13y9o4w{font-size:1.39461rem;line-height:1.2;margin-bottom:0.5rem;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-13y9o4w{font-size:1.23488rem;line-height:1.3;}}8-Minute Ab Workouts Won't Build a Six-Pack, The Suitcase Carry Is an Underrated Core Exercise, 5 Exercises to Strengthen Your Lower Back, This Shoulder Press Move Will Crush Your Core, Too, This Will Give Your Core a Superhero Challenge, 3 Exercises to Train Your Abs Instead of Crunches, This Intense Hanging Ab Move Will Crush Your Core, Sculpt Your Core With Half-Iso Hanging Leg Raises, The 3-Way Knees to Elbow Upgrades Your Leg Raise, 3 Obliques Exercises to Replace the Side Bend. As well as hip adduction, Copenhagen planks will also help develop overall core strength by engaging the abdominals and obliques. Copenhagen Planks (How To, Muscles Worked, Benefits) This is called active rest.. The Copenhagen plank, also known as the Copenhagen adduction exercise, is a side plank variation that focuses on the adductor muscles of the inner thigh and groin. Once you have mastered the basic form of the Copenhagen Plank, you can progress to more advanced variations. Make sure to progress from the more accessible variations to the more challenging ones as you get stronger. Remember to breathe normally throughout the exercise. 1. Clam shells, for example, along with lots of glute exercises, will help strengthen these outer hip muscles which is undoubtedly important. For another fantastic ab exercise, check out the landmine rollout. Furthermore, it was also shown to elicit the highest activation of the external oblique and rectus abdominis. Haroy J, et al. Required fields are marked *. Planks arent that easy to add weight to.
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