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30-Day Plank Challenge for Beginners {Free Printable!}

If you want to try planking to lose weight, this 30-day plank challenge for beginners will help you become stronger and rev up your metabolism! 

Woman with toned muscles and list of 30-day plank challenge.

The plank exercise has been a long time favorite of mine. It tones your entire body while burning fat. Planking is a quick, but so effective, addition to your 30-day weight loss challenge.

The Importance of Planking Exercise for Beginners

If you are just starting your weight loss journey and you already know what a plank is, congratulations! You are already more knowledgeable than I was when I started!

As I have said before, until I began this journey a few years ago, I was not familiar with working out or the different exercises.

Planks were introduced to me through my first Beachbody workout, P90X. I quickly realized how many muscle groups a plank workout uses.

Planks are extremely versatile. By using a variety of plank exercises, planks can be utilized to fit the needs of strengthening beginners or challenging the fittest athletes. This plank challenge is great with my 30-day weight loss challenge specifically designed to help with losing weight after 40.

Starting out with beginner planks, you will steadily strengthen core muscles, which includes some extremely important back muscles for our over-40 bodies.

As women over 40, quite often our core has weakened over time. We realize this from our stomachs getting larger as well as flabby. You can prevent everyday injuries by including this plank challenge for a couple of minutes every day.

Back injuries are common while working around the house if we don’t strengthen core muscles. I learned a few years ago how important having a strong core was for my back.

Without boring you too much on the specifics of core muscles, just know there are a lot of important muscles around your spine that are strengthened with plank exercises like these.

That’s where this plank challenge for beginners comes in. A single exercise that literally will only take a couple of minutes a day, can improve your core muscles, reduce injury, increase metabolism and burn fat.

Woman planking - graphic for Pinterest.

How to Plank for Beginners

In order for the 30-day plank challenge to be effective, it is important to make sure you have the proper plank position.

The picture below illustrates the basic plank with proper form. It is important to keep the form as shown to prevent injury and maximize effectiveness.

Woman doing plank with words to describe proper planking form.

If you aren’t able to do a full plank yet, you may put your knees down and/or your elbows down, keeping the basic principles of elbows under shoulders, core tightened, hips level, head/neck neutral.

How Many Calories Does Planking Burn?

According to Healthline, planking can burn up to 2-5 calories per minute. When considering planking for weight loss, the benefits of toning are actually much more important than the calories being burned during the exercise.

After 40, I realized I had lost so much muscle mass, which is so important for metabolism. Planking can help you increase muscle mass, which in turn allows your body to burn more calories for weight loss.

Combining planking with other strength exercises and a cardio workout will burn even more fat and calories.

30 Day Plank Challenge for Beginners

For this challenge, you can start off with a standard plank as shown above or even a forearm plank, working your way to a standard plank when you feel stronger.

Download your 30 Day Plank Challenge printable below!

Download Your 30 Day Plank Challenge

Start today!

Less than a minute a day to a more toned, healthier body!

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Day 1:  15 seconds

Day 2:  15 seconds

Day 3:  15 seconds

Day 4:  20 seconds

Day 5:  20 seconds

Day 6:  25 seconds

Day 7:  25 seconds

Day 8:  25 seconds

Day 9:  30 seconds

Day 10: 30 seconds

Day 11: 30 seconds

Day 12: 35 seconds

Day 13: 35 seconds

Day 14: 35 seconds

Day 15: 40 seconds

Day 16: 40 seconds

Day 17: 45 seconds

Day 18: 45 seconds

Day 19: 50 seconds

Day 20: 50 seconds

Day 21: 55 seconds

Day 22: 55 seconds

Day 23: 55 seconds

Day 24: 60 seconds

Day 25: 60 seconds

Day 26: 60 seconds

Day 27: 65 seconds

Day 28: 65 seconds

Day 29: 70 seconds

Day 30: As long as you can!

Woman planking and list of 30 day plank fat burning challenge.

This 30 day beginner plank challenge will kickstart your weight loss efforts tenfold while only taking a couple of minutes a day. 

Additional suggested workouts & challenges:

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