Bill has told me he has been doing planks on and off the past few months.  I’ve never done a plank, or had never done a plank before, but I do need to start doing some other stuff, core stuff, and I was a little interested about these plank things.

I heard that maybe they are good for the rotator cuff and mine is pitiful, so I thought I’d try it.  I’ve done it now, maybe 4 times.  I am very unfamiliar with what it is supposed to be doing or what gives out.  So, I did a little research trying to figure out what muscles it isolates.

Before looking, I really couldn’t figure out what would eventually fail.  After a couple minutes, my upper arms start shaking a little, but I can get that under control.  It seems like my lower back is the next weak point, but it doesn’t feel like it is just going to give, like when you’re doing pull-ups and you get to 13, then the 14th is impossible.

According to wiki, here are the muscle you are isolating.

• Primary muscles: erector spinae, rectus abdominis (abs), and transverse abdominus.^{[citation needed]}
• Secondary muscles (synergists/segmental stabilizers): trapezius (traps), rhomboids, rotator cuff, the anterior, medial, and posterior deltoid muscles (delts), pectorals (pecs), serratus anterior, gluteus maximus (glutes), quadriceps (quads), and gastrocnemius.
  

Yesterday I did a plank for 5 minutes.  I had done it for 3 1/2 minutes the first couple times and stopped because I didn’t want to be really sore the next day.  I haven’t gotten sore at all yet.  I was going to stop at 4 minutes, it seemed like it was enough, but at 5 minutes, it didn’t seem any worse than at 4.  I’m not sure how long I could go, but it seems like a while longer.

According to the internet -The longest time in an abdominal plank position is 4 hours 26 minutes and was achieved by Mao Weidong (China) in Beijing, China on 26 September 2014.

I’m a little surprised that is so short.  It seems like if you could get to the point of doing the plank for an hour, then you could do it indefinitely.  I guess that isn’t the case.

The plank is just another spin on doing exercise.  I saw another article on the internet listing 5 exercises that are a waste of your time.  Of course, included on this list, sit-ups and push-ups.  I very much doubt that doing these are a “waste of your time”.

Any exercise, virtually every exercise in today’s society, isn’t a waste of time.  Hopefully it helps a rotator cuff, so I don’t have to pull out the Campbell soup cans or 2 lb weights.

These are the muscles it uses.

I’ve done this before. It is very unrewarding.

I got a message a couple weeks ago from Eric Marcotte, current US Pro Road Champion, expressing his frustration with not being able to prove that he is riding clean.

He sent me a link to a NBC SPorts article that says he was the most tested athlete, here in the US, of all athletes.  He had 12 drug tests in the third quarter, 4 more than Michael Phelps, the swimmer.

He wanted to know what he could do if the testing isn’t proof he is not doping.  He has a good question, but there isn’t an answer he wants to hear.

I replied to him –

Eric-There is nothing you can do to “prove” that you are racing bicycles clean. This whole situation is just a by-product of the times. And it not only in cycling. You do have to understand that the testing is total bullshit. Lance probably is most to blame for this. He was tested somewhere between 300-500 times and, in theory, was never positive. None of the guys that testified to USADA ever had a positive test, other than Levi, when he was an amateur and Tyler, of course. If I were you I wouldn’t worry about it at all. People on the internet are making accusations about me all the time and I don’t think a thing about it. I know I”m not taking drugs, so why would it bother me. I suggest you just keep doing what you’re doing and let the guys making the accusations just do their thing. It ain’t gonna change.

That was pretty short, but pretty accurate.  There isn’t a way to prove that you’re racing clean.  At least, not that I know of.  All of us, nearly any bike racer that has any results, gets accused of doping.  It’s not anybody’s fault, but we are in a sport that opened that Pandora’s Box.   Our sport opened, or at least exposed ourselves to this by trying to eradicate doping.  We had good intentions,  but in reality, we showed the world that most of the ways we try to police  doping hasn’t really worked.

I personally think that only draconian sanctions will make a dent into the problem.  I don’t think a 4 year ban, that WADA recently enacted, is enough.  It was a good move, but not enough.  Just making it impossible to compete isn’t enough to stop it.  There has to be huge monetary fines.  Because, in reality, most the guys doping, on a professional level, are doing it for the money.  Then the trickle down effect happened, and it spreads to other segments of the sport.

The fines in cycling need to be levied to the riders personally, and the teams.  That way, the teams will pay much closer attention to who they initially hire.

But all this, doesn’t really help guys like Eric much.  Our sport is polluted, still, and it isn’t going to change over night.  He is going to have to try to just to dismiss his frustration and go about his life and career.   Hopefully, the rest will only get better for all of us.

Here are a couple photos from Eric’s Garmin before the World Road Championships a few months ago.  Pretty crazy.  He was obviously ready to race.

Check out the power here. That is average for 6 and 1/2 hours.

And the speed on this ride. This is training. He said he rode 4 1/2 alone, 40 minutes with a group, then motor paced the rest. Whatever, it’s still nearly 25 mph for 150 miles.

My ride yesterday. At the end, my Garmin said I had a 266 watt average. I am not in shape, but there is no way, in any shape, I could ride 6 + hours training, with a 285 watt average.