Heat up your morning with Jen DeCurtins’ 1-minute plank workout

Remember when planking was a fad?

It’s actually a legitimate workout technique intended to strengthen the entire core. So legitimate that Charlotte fitness guru Jen DeCurtins picked it as the focus for her core training book, Ultimate Plank Fitness: 101 Plank Exercises for a Strong Core, Killer Abs…and a Killer Body, which released this spring.

When working with her editor, DeCurtins said, “We decided that planks were just very universally safe. There’s a lot of stigma around sit ups and crunching and, honestly, that targets one specific part of your core. And I think what people really miss out on is that your core is not just your six-pack abs.”

She defines the core as: Your stomach, quads, hamstrings, glutes, low back and hip flexors. The beauty with practicing planks to fire up your core is that there’s no warm-up required.

“You can literally bust out planks in your living room five minutes before you go to work,” DeCurtins said. Or, you can bust them out beach-side.

Conveniently, her book includes a workout section with 10, five-minute workouts.

A short workout like planking fits right into DeCurtins’ personal fitness philosophy. “I just try to move my body every day,” she said. “Moving my body might be an intense CrossFit workout. Moving my body might be yoga. Moving my body might be, ‘I want to take the dogs for a walk and just chill out a little bit.’”

Your turn to get moving.

Want more? DeCurtins hosted an #UltimatePlankChallenge on social media in May. The moves:

Next up: DeCurtins is releasing another book, a complete guide to handstands and inversions, this fall.

This story was originally published July 10, 2015 at 12:00 AM.