Planks

I haven't done planks or my core routine in 3 weeks and 3 days. I feel a bit embarrassed, but I'll explain. I also dropped doing regular crunches 2 weeks and 2 days ago. The planks seemed to sap more strength than I was planning to exert for them. Especially on the side flags with your hand on the ground and arm locked. I didn't like how much arm strength it used. As far as the regular planks, they were always such hell to endure and I think may have been a source of back pain from poor form.

I don't want to close the book on planks, but for now they're not for me. I may incorporate them later on. The regular crunches weren't targeting a large enough region of my abs. It's not enough of a compound exercise, which would work multiple muscles and regions. I've been happy with the 10-20 reps per ab exercise. The low rep count allows me to focus on form and make each one count that much more.

I actually don't like four of the ten exercises in Ab Ripper 100/200. The leg lifts, I don't feel in the abs enough, hip rock, I don't think I understand the technique, bicycle crunches, my form's too sloppy, and the whole body crunch is painful on my back. So I'll be swapping these 4 out with new ones shortly. I'll be posting the Ab Ripper X list of exercises and I'll be trying them out for the first time.