What muscles does the plank T twist work?

Your obliques turn the trunk. Your abs hold the plank line, your supporting shoulder holds your whole body up on one arm, and the side of your trunk on the floor takes more than the side reaching upward. The reaching arm carries very little.

Is the plank twist better than a normal plank?

It is a different job rather than a better one. A plank holds a single position; this travels between two of them and adds rotation, which a plank does not contain. It also asks a lot more of one shoulder at a time.

Why do my hips drop when I twist?

Because turning and holding your body up compete for the same trunk, and holding up is what gives way. Slow the turn down and finish the rep just before the fall starts. Stopping short with level hips is a real rep; a full T with the hips down is not.

Should my feet be apart or together?

Apart, or with one in front of the other, unless you specifically want the balance to be the hard part. Widening your feet does not change what your trunk is doing and it gives you something to rotate over.

Do plank twists get rid of love handles?

No. Rotating trains the muscles that rotate. What sits over them is decided by other things entirely, and no amount of twisting votes on it.

Should I hold at the top of the twist?

A pause at the top is where you find out whether your hips are still level and your shoulder is still holding you up. The catalog steps ask for a moment there, and it is more informative than adding reps.

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Bodyweight · intermediate · waist

Plank t twist

Also called Plank rotation, T plank, Rotating plank, Plank to side plank, Side plank rotation.

The short answer

The plank T twist starts in a high plank, takes one hand off the floor, and turns your torso until you are balanced on one arm with the other pointing at the ceiling, then returns and repeats on the other side. Your obliques produce the turn. The work, though, lands mostly on the side you are turning away from: the arm on the floor is holding your whole body up and the trunk on that side is holding the position through the rotation. The arm reaching upward is the visible half and the least loaded one.

How to do it

Step oneStart in a high plank position with your hands shoulder-width apart.
Step twoLift one hand off the ground and rotate your torso, opening your chest toward the ceiling.
Step threeExtend the raised arm straight up so your body forms a T shape.
Step fourHold for a moment, then return to the plank and repeat on the other side.
Step fiveContinue alternating sides.

What usually goes wrong

Each starts with what you would notice.

Your hips drop toward the floor as you turn.

WhyRotating and holding your body up are two jobs at once, and the second one loses. Once the hips are down, you have arrived somewhere between a plank and lying on your side, and neither position is being trained.

FixTurn slower and stop the rep at the point where your hips would start falling, even if that is nowhere near a T. The range you can turn through with your hips up is the range you have.

Your arm swings up and over but your ribs and hips stay facing the floor.

WhyThe rotation has been handed to your shoulder. The arm draws the shape of the exercise in the air while your trunk, which is the part meant to be turning, does not move.

FixStart the rep by turning your chest, and let the arm come along behind it. If you point your top hip at the wall beside you first, the arm has nowhere to go except upward.

Your supporting shoulder sinks and your body settles down between your arm and the floor.

WhyBalancing on one hand is a much larger demand on the shoulder blade than a two-handed plank, and it is common for the shoulder to give before the trunk does.

FixPush the floor away with the supporting hand for the whole turn, so your upper back stays broad and your shoulder stays away from your ear. When it stops staying there, end the set at that shoulder rather than at your obliques.

You wobble every time and cannot get near the top of the turn.

WhyYour feet are together, which leaves you turning over a base barely wider than your shoes.

FixMove your feet apart before you start, or set the upper foot ahead of the lower one. Neither changes what your trunk is doing, and both give you something to turn over.

Plank T twist or side plank

The twist ends in a position very close to a side plank, so people treat it as the moving version. It is more useful to see it as a trip between two positions the library already covers separately, each asking a different question.

A front plank holds you against bending backward. A side plank holds you against folding sideways. This exercise repeatedly travels from one to the other, which means the part it adds is the bit in the middle: the turn, and holding a line while turning.

That has a practical consequence. If you cannot hold a side plank steady on its own, the top of every twist is going to be the weakest moment of the rep. Building the static hold first gives the turn somewhere to arrive.

If your goal is a straightforward measure of trunk endurance, the static holds are easier to judge, because they have a visible endpoint. If your goal is trunk work that involves changing position, this is the one that has you doing it.

Plank T twist or Russian twist

Both are rotation, and the difference is what your trunk is doing besides rotating.

Seated, your body is upright and supported, and the rotation is the only job. Here, you are horizontal and holding your whole bodyweight off the floor on two points, and the rotation happens on top of that. It is why a small number of these is tiring in a way a small number of seated twists is not.

The seated version is also the easier one to add load to, since you can hold a plate. This one gets harder by changing your feet, slowing the turn, or elevating your hands, not by picking something up.

Neither is a substitute for the other and there is no reason to choose. If your trunk work is currently all static holds, this is the more useful addition of the two, because it is the one that also asks your shoulder to keep you up.

Which half of you is actually working

The arm going up is what the exercise looks like, and it is close to the least loaded thing in the position. This is worth spelling out because it changes what you pay attention to during a set.

No study has measured this exact exercise. The closest is a set of side bridging exercises measured in 25 people, one of which added rotation, though that one starts from a side plank and turns down rather than starting face down and turning up. The rotating one produced the most activity in 3 of the 4 trunk muscles recorded. More usefully, in nearly every muscle they looked at, activity was significantly higher on the weight bearing side than on the side that was not carrying anything.

Applied here, that puts the demand on the arm on the floor and the side of your trunk above it, both of which are stationary and both of which look like they are just waiting. The reaching arm is the part that moves, gets the attention and does the least.

The supporting shoulder is not a passenger either. A review of 29 studies of shoulder rehabilitation exercises done with the hand fixed against something, all of them in healthy participants, found the one hand plank among the positions where the lower part of the trapezius works well relative to the upper part. Balancing on one hand is a shoulder blade exercise whether you meant it to be or not.

What this does not do is take fat off your waist, and the reach is not what would do it if anything did. Where fat sits is not decided by which muscle you rotate.

What it is for

The plank T twist is a rotational core exercise that targets the obliques by rotating from a plank position into a side plank T shape. It challenges spinal rotation, shoulder stability, and full core strength with each alternating twist.

Questions people ask

What muscles does the plank T twist work?: Your obliques turn the trunk. Your abs hold the plank line, your supporting shoulder holds your whole body up on one arm, and the side of your trunk on the floor takes more than the side reaching upward. The reaching arm carries very little.
Is the plank twist better than a normal plank?: It is a different job rather than a better one. A plank holds a single position; this travels between two of them and adds rotation, which a plank does not contain. It also asks a lot more of one shoulder at a time.
Why do my hips drop when I twist?: Because turning and holding your body up compete for the same trunk, and holding up is what gives way. Slow the turn down and finish the rep just before the fall starts. Stopping short with level hips is a real rep; a full T with the hips down is not.
Should my feet be apart or together?: Apart, or with one in front of the other, unless you specifically want the balance to be the hard part. Widening your feet does not change what your trunk is doing and it gives you something to rotate over.
Do plank twists get rid of love handles?: No. Rotating trains the muscles that rotate. What sits over them is decided by other things entirely, and no amount of twisting votes on it.
Should I hold at the top of the twist?: A pause at the top is where you find out whether your hips are still level and your shoulder is still holding you up. The catalog steps ask for a moment there, and it is more informative than adding reps.