Are Planks Safe During Pregnancy?

You've probably heard that they're "not safe".

You've probably ALSO heard that they are perfectly safe.

Welcome to the wonderful world of the internet, black-and-white guidelines, dichotomous thinking, total lack of nuance and contradicting opinions…

In this blog post, I'm going to ATTEMPT to discuss this topic as neutrally and objectively as I can, looking at it from a few different angles.

First of all, check out this video that I made on planks on Instagram:

You can also watch this YouTube video that illustrates the problem with planks and some alternatives

I want you to consider a few things:

1. WHAT ARE YOUR TUMMY MUSCLES DOING?

While you might be ABLE to do a plank, your tummy muscles might be bulging or sagging down - there's a lot of weight AND demand on them in a plank, and during pregnancy, they are already under significant strain already as they track their way over the belly.

This video shows you what bulging during pregnancy looks like:

And at the beginning of this video, you can see what the abdominal muscles might be doing in a plank