faq | Tone and Tighten

Why Your Back Hurts When You Plank and How To Fix It

April 20, 2020

Planks are a great way to work your stomach muscles, but if done incorrectly they might hurt your back. These are three common reasons why your back hurts when you plank and what you can do to fix it!

“That hurts my lower back.”

“It kind of feels like pinching right here.”

“How come that one hurts my back?”

Planks are one of my favorite exercises to increase abdominal strength. As far as core exercises go, it’s difficult to find one single exercise that works as many muscles as efficiently as planks do.

But what happens when planks hurt? One complaint that I hear regularly from my patients (as well as readers of Tone and Tighten) is that they feel a “pinch” in their lower back while doing planks.

Today I wanted to share with you the top three reasons why you may be experiencing back pain while planking and what you can do to correct this problem. I even shot a video to explain it to you a little more effectively!

Calling all mamas!

Before you start planking . . . make sure you are doing the CORRECT CORE WORKOUTS.

Introducing my all-new Mommy Tummy Fix program!

We all know that in order to tone the the CORE that we need to do some exercise, but tightening that tummy pooch? Yep – that requires more than just crunches and planks.

That’s where this program comes in.

A six-phase workout plan designed specifically to flatten your stomach and help you to heal up diastasis recti. This is the same progression I use with my postpartum patients in my physical therapy clinic to get science-based, proven results you can’t help but notice.

Six phases of workouts to ensure your continued progression
Large color photos and clear instruction regarding performance, sets, and reps of each exercise to ensure proper performance
The exact same workout plan my wife used for her amazing results

The best exercises in a simple-to-follow progression to tone and strengthen your abs correctly and ensure maximum success. Progressive workout routines = progressive results.

Check it out HERE!

The three most common reasons why your back hurts when you plank are

Pelvis is tilted too far forward (arched back)
Hips are too low to the ground (rounded back)
Hips are too high (pike plank)

Read or watch the video below to see what each of these means!

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Why Can’t I Lose Weight?

March 19, 2016

Weekly highlights, new giveaways, and BONUS workouts!
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4 Reasons Why Your Last Attempt To Lose Weight Failed
And What You Should Have Done Instead!

Tell me if this sounds familiar…

You decide it’s time to make a change and get in shape. You start eating right and exercising regularly and are all gung-ho to see some progress. After one or two weeks you start slipping a cookie or two. After 2-3 weeks you start missing a workout here and there. After 4 weeks you’ve fallen back into eating bowls of ice cream while sitting on your couch and after 6 weeks you start thinking that it’s time to make a change and get in shape.

This “fitness cycle” is one that all too many of us are all too familiar with. But why does it happen? Why do so many of our health and fitness plans fail after such a short period of time? Today I wanted to share with you 4 of the main reasons why your last fitness plan failed and what specific actions you can take to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Keep reading for more!…

Which is more important – diet or exercise?

August 22, 2015

Which one of these statements do you think is true?

“I can eat pretty much whatever I want because I work out for an hour every day.”

“I don’t need to work out if I just watch what I eat.”

Ah – the age old “diet vs exercise” questions: Is it more important to eat clean or to get in daily calorie-burning workouts? Is one better than the other? And or course – where should my focus be? Have you ever had any of those questions?

There has actually been a ton of research done to answer them and today on Tone-and-Tighten.com I wanted to clear them up for you. You’ll have a better understanding of the relationship between diet and exercise and be able to come up with the formula that will ultimately work the best for you! Here we go:

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10 Tips To Eat Clean

July 11, 2015

Workouts, recipes, motivation, tips, and advice all right to your inbox! Subscribe to Tone-and-Tighten.com using the red bar up at the top of the page.

We all know that your diet (NOT dieting… your diet. You know – what you eat) and exercise are the vital components of your overall fitness. You can have the best workout plan in the world, but without proper diet/nutrition it won’t make a bit of difference. Clean eating is vital to your overall success, but do we really know how to do it? What does it mean to “eat clean” and what’s the best way to easily implement it into our lives? Today I wanted to share with you 10 simple tips you can incorporate to start eating better and start noticing even more results! Let’s do this:…

How To Eat Less Food – Healthy Eating Challenge

May 2, 2015

Workouts, recipes, motivation, tips, and advice all right to your inbox! Subscribe to Tone-and-Tighten.com using the black bar up at the top of the page.

Fitness is made in the kitchen

We’ve all been there before – you just completed a killer workout. You sweated, you pushed, you pulled, you ran, and you’re feeling completely awesome as only the workout of the month can leave you feeling. Afterwards you are feeling ravenous because of this amazing shred you just went through and conclude that a reward is in order for all your hard work. You decide a few tortilla chips can’t be all that bad, so you have a few. Then you have a few more with cheese on them. Then you have a few more with cheese, salsa, guacamole, and beef in the form of “nachos grande” and chase it down with a half a bowl of ice cream. Before you know it, you’ve nullified all the hard work you put in earlier plus deposited a few hundred calories in the reserve tank.

DANGIT! This is the always just the worst! Unfortunately it’s also a situation that we find ourselves in often. I don’t care how active you are; if you do not watch your diet and pay consistent attention to what you’re eating you simply are not going to see results. It’s for these reasons that today I wanted to share with you 10 simple tips to actually help you eat less food throughout the day and share them with you in the form of a week-long “Healthy Eating Challenge”. Read all ten tips and pick 5 to follow religiously this week. I’m in. Are you with me?…