And out on your “Recovery Core” compression belt, right? 
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I’m no expert and I think this may be true for folks who are already fit and have a strong core rather than someone who is developing their core.
While getting ready for work this morning, I did the “challenge”.
Plank: 3 minutes (I got bored and stopped)
Push ups: 35 without stopping
Pull ups: 6 without stopping
I’m currently doing 2 core workouts a week in conjunction with my low volume plan.
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i wonder what his FTP is
side note, i like the idea of varying up the exercise
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I need to start doing some core strengthening, when do you folks normally fit this in around your TrainerRoad workouts? Off days? After a workout?
I try to do it twice a week, usually before bed. I can do it while watching tv with my wife.
Routine is usually 3+ min plank
20 pushups
20 of the one leg squats coach chad demonstrated. Each leg.
1min side plank, 1 min other side plank
Repeat from the pushups down 2 more times.
Never tried a max, but get bored after 2 minutes. So started doing it with a plate on my back. Worked my way up to a 45 plate and 3x1:15 as a max. Now I always plank with a 45 plate, but usually somewhere between 0:45 and 1 min. Not sure if the plank with the plate is more beneficial than regular plank but feels harder.
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I never did planks as long as I could, but when I do my core workout routine, I do 3 x 1:10, and I have plenty of strength to spare (not least because I’d also do side planks and various other core exercises). I didn’t do them longer, because I needed to finish my workout within a given time budget and had other exercises to go through.
IMHO doing planks until it hurts is not really conducive if you also want to do other exercises. Plus, I find that exercises which engage many muscle groups and require coordination give me much more bang for the buck. My “favorites” are pistol squats: as one of my knees is week (I have had two surgeries on my right knee), they require a good amount of balance and core strength to do properly.
I do this routine with TRX. My prior routine was static front planks, side planks, gorilla leg lifts, stir the pot and pallof presses. About the same time commitment. The TRX routine is about 1 bazillion orders of magnitude harder. Rough estimate…
Training the core definitely helped me with holding aero position and also lifting weights.
Cheers,
Mark
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Houdini probably thought he had great core strength, too. Until he found out he didn’t.
Any update @Nate_Pearson?
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It’ll be up by end of week 
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Awesome, I’ve neglected my S&C sessions over the last month and was looking to restart my programme next week so will be awesome to have some benchmarks.
I did a random core workout a couple months back when I was nursing a run injury and decided to see how long I could hold plank for and really surprised myself holding it for 3 minutes twice within the workout, especially since I don’t really do any core work these days and I feel like I have a weak core (maybe just the “back” of my core is weak?). I’m terrible at pushups though! 
I do weights in the gym twice a week - always start with core work. It gets changes around but always involves two exercises one for ‘front core’ the other for lateral. Recent routine was planking with feet on a pod as was feeling strong but then changed to dead bugs and got some DOMs. Had previously done dead bugs but I guess where I am going is that only doing one thing all the time even if you are building it up may not be as effective as changing it about. So yeah plank but don’t forget your sides so perhaps change to side planks (lateral) and then do dead bugs (front) for a while then change it around and do other exercises. Farmers walks, Ball roll outs, Russian twists etc so that over time you recruit all muscle fibres and none are allowed to settle into a routine.
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Speaking of Sagan, some of the core stuff he can do in the gym is mind blowing for a cyclist:
I never go for max, but for the past two years I’ve tried to do side planks on each side and front plank of two minutes each with some other basic core workouts and I’ve seen a huge difference in my comfort and stability on the bike, especially after numerous hours on the bike. Core work FTW… now just need to work in some strength work, problem is I’m not going to go to a gym so need to buy a bag and some basic weights for my pain cave…
One simple way to amp up planks and make them “better” for cycling is to introduce unstable surfaces. I’ve started doing my planks with my feet on a Swiss Ball and I put my hands on an upside down bosu. This way both my hands and feet are on unstable surfaces, so this makes me have to stabilize in all planes.
Try the above, it makes planks a killer core workout.
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I get bored after 1.5 minutes, so I started doing it with a plate on my back. Worked my way up to a 45lb plate and anywhere between 3 sets of 45s to 1:15. Any science around more weight vs longer duration of planks?
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Planks are good stuff, doing them on your forearms vs. hands like the top of the push-up makes them a bit more of a challenge. I prefer to practice Dr. Stu McGill’s big three, google it. If it’s function vs. fashion these are the shit.