Last One Standing — Plank | Friends

Quick Intro

Last One Standing is a plank hold for a group with a quiz running over the top. Everyone gets into a plank at the same time. A caller, standing nearby, asks quick questions: easy trivia, simple sums, a capital city. A player who answers wrong, takes too long or lets their plank fall apart is out and can drop to the floor. The last player still holding wins.

The questions are the distraction. Thinking while your shoulders burn is harder than it sounds, and most players find the plank ends sooner than it would in a plain hold. That is the fun of it.

How to hold a good plank, with forearms under the shoulders and a straight line from head to heels, is covered at Plank. This guide covers the game: the questions, the answer time, what counts as losing form and keeping everyone safe.

What You’ll Need

Three or more players, plus one caller. With only two people, one calls and one holds, and they swap.
A floor with room for everyone to plank side by side, an arm’s length apart. Mats help on a hard floor.
A list of questions, written in advance or pulled from a phone.

How to Play

Agree the answer time, the form rules and who calls first.
Players spread out and set up in their planks. The caller starts once everyone is in position.
The caller asks one player a question by name, then moves to the next player in turn.
The player answers out loud within the agreed time, for example five seconds.
A wrong answer, no answer in time or a plank that breaks puts that player out.
Keep going round the group until one player is left. They win.
Rest, choose a new caller and play again.

Asking by name keeps things fair. Everyone gets the same number of questions, and nobody can wait for a quicker player to blurt out the answer first.

Choosing the Questions

The questions should be quick to answer once heard. A good question has one short answer that most people in the group could give on a normal day: “seven times eight”, “the capital of Spain”, “how many legs on a spider”. The difficulty comes from the plank, so the questions themselves stay easy.

Avoid questions that only one player could know, such as details of someone’s job or hometown. Mixing types helps too. A run of sums, then a couple of general knowledge questions, then a spelling, keeps players from settling into one kind of thinking.

What Counts as Out

Agree these before the first round:

A wrong answer. The caller’s list decides. If the answer is close, such as a sensible spelling of a hard word, the caller can accept it.
Too slow. No answer within the agreed time. The caller counts the seconds silently and says “time” when they run out.
Form breaks. Hips sagging toward the floor, hips piking high, a knee touching down or a hand lifting off. A quick adjustment that does not change the shape is fine.

The caller judges form as well as answers. In a big group, players who are out make good extra judges, since they can watch from the side.

A Fair Game for Mixed Groups

A player who can hold a plank for three minutes has an edge here, though the questions shrink it. The handicap in the game is simple: any player can hold from the knees, keeping a straight line from the knees to the head, and play exactly the same quiz. Agree who is doing which before starting, and judge each player’s form against their own version. Training With a Friend has more on adjusting a contest like this.

Staying Safe

Low back first. Anyone who feels discomfort in the lower back drops out at once, whatever the score. A quiz is never a reason to keep holding through it.
Breathe. People tend to hold their breath while thinking. Keep breathing steadily, in and out, even while working out an answer.
Drop gently. When a player is out, they lower their knees to the floor first, then lie down. Collapsing flat is hard on the elbows.
Keep rounds short. If one round passes two minutes, the caller should speed up the questions.

Common Mistakes

Questions that are too hard. The game stalls, and players lose on knowledge instead of focus.
Shouting answers out of turn. Only the named player answers. A shouted answer from someone else does not count, and the caller can put the shouter out.
Ignoring form. Without a form rule, players sag into a rest and the game turns into a pure quiz.
Head dropping while thinking. The neck stays long, eyes on the floor just ahead of the hands.

Fitting It Into a Session

The game works as a core finisher at the end of a group session or as a light break between harder pieces. Two or three rounds, each with a different caller, is plenty. It needs no equipment and suits a park or a living room as well as a gym. For more ideas on where to put games like this, see Building a Partner Session.

Getting Better Over Time

Note how long each round lasted. Over a few weeks, rounds get longer as everyone’s planks get stronger. To make the game harder, shorten the answer time to three seconds or move to slightly harder questions.

Distraction Plank is a one-on-one plank with jokes and faces as the distraction.
Plank Hold Duel is a straight plank-off with no quiz.
Talk-Through Mountain Climbers asks questions during a moving exercise.
Category Call Burpees has players name items in a category between burpees.

FAQ

How many questions does a round usually take?

It depends on the group. Most rounds end within two or three trips round the group, since tired players start making mistakes.

What if two players go out at the same time?

If they are the last two, they share the win, or they play a quick tiebreaker with one question each.

Can the caller play too?

Not in the same round. The caller needs to watch everyone’s form and keep time, so they sit that round out and play the next.

Related to Plank, Distraction Plank and Plank Hold Duel.