Written by Sam Coleman | Co-founder
Fact checked by Kirsten Yovino, CPT Brookbush Institute
FACT CHECKED
How to correctly perform the farmer's walk:
- Select Your Weights: Choose dumbbells or kettlebells that challenge you but allow you to maintain proper form. Typically, a working set will be around 50-75% of your body weight, depending on your level.
- Lift the Weights Off The Ground: Squat down, bending your knees and hinging at the hips. Firmly grip the weights and engage your core. Imagine you are deadlifting the weight up; straighten your legs and hips, keeping your back straight and shoulders slightly pulled back. Avoid rounding your back.
- Starting Position: Stay upright with good strong posture and feet shoulder-width apart.
- Walk: Walk forward in a controlled manner, maintaining steady, measured steps. Keep an upright posture, shoulders back, and head up. Keep your gaze straight ahead.
- Focus on Grip and Posture: Maintain a tight grip and keep your arms straight at your sides, avoiding swinging. Ensure your posture is upright and strong as you walk. Slow and steady wins the race (allows for better results).
- Walk for Distance or Time: Walk for a set distance (e.g., 20-30 meters) or for a specific time (e.g., 30 seconds to a minute), based on your fitness level and goals.
- Set the Weights Down Safely: After completing the walk, stop and carefully squat down to lower the weights to the ground. Do not drop the weight or abruptly put it down. It's not good for the gym and that could cause you to tweak something in your body.
As you can see, the Farmer's Walk is a straightforward exercise. Fundamentally, it's as simple as it sounds: you hold weights by your sides and walk. It's easy to grasp.
However, don't be too hasty! Despite its apparent simplicity, there are common mistakes that people often make. Additionally, there are various modifications (variations) and programming aspects of the Farmer's Walk to consider, which we address below.
Table of Contents:
- Best Equipment To Use
- Common Mistakes To Avoid
- Muscles Worked
- 5 Best Variations of Farmer Carries
- More About The Benefits
- FAQs on Farmer Walks & Programming
Best Equipment for Farmer Walks
- Dumbbells: Easy on your joints because you can grip with a neutral wrist, which makes your shoulders happy. Carrying dumbbells is also going to be your strongest grip. And like the barbell, you can carry the dumbbells by your side, in a racked position (front squat hold), or overhead. Plus, this can all be done unilaterally to strengthen imbalances between sides.
- Kettlebells: Also great for farmers carries. The offset nature of the kettlebell trains the stabilizing muscles of the hips and shoulders more than other weight options. You can hold them similar to dumbbells, or to make things harder, hold the kettlebells bottoms up as it requires even more grip strength to carry the same load. Some kettlebells will have a thicker handle than dumbbells, so grip might be worked more.
- Trap bar: Allows for a more central load distribution relative to your body's center of gravity. This can make the weight feel more balanced and can reduce the strain on your grip compared to dumbbells. In other words, you can likely carry more weight with a trap bar. The only downside is you have to step more carefully since you are limited in range by the trap bar encompassing you. That said, this can be seen as a positive, as you are supposed to move slowly and steadily rather than big steps, which the trap bar promotes by nature of design.
- Barbells: While not typical, barbells can be used to mix things up and for carrying significant loads. You can put it on your back (heavy), overhead (not so heavy), or Zercher style (heavy), in which you'll hold the bar the same way as you would a Zercher squat - demonstration provided below. All in all, a barbell can add new variables to your farmer carries, but it should be saved for more experienced lifters. Double Barbell: There are farmer carry handles that you can attach to barbells, which will allow you to load more weight (and carry two barbells at the same time). You can do it without the handles but you will be limited by your grip without them.
All of the variations work the same muscle groups, but some may target one muscle more than others. This means including various farmer's walk variations into your routine is great for a well rounded program.
3 COMMON MISTAKES TO AVOID WHEN DOING THE FARMER WALK
There are a few common mistakes lifters make when performing the farmer’s carry. Avoid the following:
1. Going Too Heavy:
If you cannot walk at least 20 to 40 yards, your grip is failing, and you are not walking with good posture, the weight is too heavy. Again, start with 25-50% of your body weight in one hand or both, and adjust if needed.
2. Allowing Your Shoulders To Go Out Of Position:
Your shoulders need to be down and back for good posture and better carrying form. Raised or rounded forward shoulders will put the shoulder more at risk for injury and negate the upper body benefits of carries.
3. Not Keeping the Core Engaged:
When you’re walking with your weight, you need to engage your core muscles. If not, you are inviting injury and may find yourself on the floor. Keeping this area activated gives you the stability and support necessary to move well while ensuring you remain balanced. Plus, it protects your lower back. Throw in a few back extension exercises, and you'll increase your chances of avoiding a low back injury.
FARMER'S WALK MUSCLES WORKED
More to the point, what major muscle groups aren't worked in the farmer’s walk? This full body exercise trains almost every muscle in the upper and lower body, but listing them all seems like overkill.
Instead, we're listing the major muscles and muscle groups trained by the farmer’s walk exercise.
The muscles worked in a farmers carry are:
Upper body:
- Forearms and Wrist
- Triceps
- Upper and Lower Back
- Abdominals
Lower body:
- Hips
- Glutes
- Hamstrings
- Calves
As you can see, it's a great move to include in a full body workout plan as it works almost every muscle.
5 Best Variations of the Farmer's Carry:
You can switch up the traditional bilateral dumbbell farmer's carry with several different pieces of equipment and form variations.
The best farmer's walk variations are:
- Suitcase Carry (Single Arm Farmer's Walk)
- Trap Bar Farmer Carry
- Overhead Carry
- Overhead Unilateral Carry
- Zercher Carry
We will now look at each one and discuss the differences they make in terms of benefits and muscles worked.
1. Suitcase Carry (Single Arm Walk):
The suitcase carry, or single-arm farmer's carry, has all the same benefits of farmer’s walks, but this variation will fix muscle imbalances between sides. Here you’ll notice the load pulling you to one side - this is called lateral flexion. This farmer's walk variation trains your internal and external obliques to prevent this. All single-arm walk variations throw your body off balance, which ironically ends up improving your balance.
You can use a dumbbell or kettlebell for this exercise, either carrying it by your side, in a racked position, overhead, or bottoms up.
2. Trap Bar Carry:
Trap bar carries have you use more weight than the kettlebell and dumbbell variations. This is because you're using a neutral grip and the load is in line with your center of gravity. Both of these factors allow you to load more weight to improve your muscle and strength-building capabilities.
You’ll use the trap bar for this move (hence, the name), and you can carry it by your side, overhead, suitcase, or as an offset carry, which is when you place more load on one side compared to the other. In general, trap bar exercises are great for adding weight and increasing your loads carried.
If you don't have access to a trap bar, but you do have farmer's walk handles, then the exercise will be very similar, as you can use heavy loads and your grip is in neutral.
Bonus: Do the farmer's walk on your tip toes to work your lower leg muscles.
Want a trap bar? Check out our list of the 9 Best Trap Bars.
3. Overhead Carries:
Regular carry variations like the ones above are great, but walking with a load overhead takes this to another level because of the increased leverage. What does leverage mean? It means the resistance is further away from the working muscles (legs and core), making it one of the hardest walk variations to do. Use barbells, dumbbells, or trap bars here - whichever option you pick, it’s going to be hard! We love including this in our barbell shoulder exercises routine.
Form tip: You must have good shoulder mobility to press and keep the weight overhead. Walk slowly and carefully as overhead carries have a great risk of injury.
4. Overhead Unilateral Carry:
When you combine the benefits of a single-arm carry with going overhead, you have one of the most challenging carries around. The benefits of offset loading include testing your balance and improving shoulder stability, lateral core strength, and mental toughness. Use dumbbells or kettlebells for this variation.
You can make it even more challenging by turning it into a bottom-up overhead kettlebell carry, which is either performed with an arm overhead or in the waiter serving position. The overhead version is the hardest because the kettlebell is farther from your center of gravity, making it harder to balance. Both bottoms-up carry variations will improve your grip strength, posture, and lateral stability.
5. Zercher Carry:
The Zercher carry might rival the overhead carry as the toughest on this list. Holding a barbell in the crooks of your elbows while walking upright with good posture will test your anterior core, biceps, upper back muscles, deltoids, and even your chest strength. The sheer uncomfortableness of this exercise will take your mental toughness to the next level. Plus, multiple muscle groups worked equals serious muscle hypertrophy.
You can use a barbell or sandbag. If you opt for a barbell, set it up in the squat rack at around hip height for easier pick-up and drop-off. For some variation, we suggest the sandbag. Who doesn't love a good sandbag workout?
BENEFITS OF THE FARMER WALK
An immediate, and obvious, benefit of carries is that it's a grip strength exercise, which is great for everything from lifting heavier weights to carrying all of your grocery bags in at once (winning!). But this move’s benefits don’t end there. The exercise provides several other great benefits as well, including:
1. Better Breathing Patterns:
It’s okay to breathe with your chest when you need air quickly, say for example, when you’re getting chased by a wild animal. But for the most part, you need to breathe much deeper than this, using your diaphragm, particularly when you’re working out. Performing carries with weight in your hands makes breathing through your chest challenging, encouraging you to breathe deep into your belly instead. You'll likely see breathing improvements the next time you perform core work, like when you take on the dead bug exercise, for example.
2. Improved Posture:
How many times has your mother told you to stand up straight and stop slouching? This is the same form needed for the farmer’s carry. Shoulders down and chest up are the main cues for performing the carry, and this alone strengthens the muscles needed for good posture. Trust us, you'll appreciate the ability to stand tall.
3. Better Shoulder Stability:
Whenever you grip something, your rotator cuffs are activated. And when you’re carrying heavy weight for distance or time, you put your rotator cuffs and deltoids under high levels of muscular tension for improved shoulder strength and stability. You'll then feel those gains the next time you tackle a dumbbell shoulder workout.
4. Improved Performance:
Almost all pulling exercises require high amounts of grip strength. If your grip gives out before your back or leg muscles do, you are leaving gains on the table. Strengthening your grip allows you to fully exhaust the targeted muscle group for better muscle-building gains.
This is also an excellent functional exercise that will boost your aerobic capacity. It truly will improve performance in everyday life. This makes it great for your health and fitness goals and a must for your workout routine.
5. Better Balance:
Every step of any farmer’s carry variation is basically a single-leg stance. Every time you take a foot off the ground with load, your abdominal muscles and hip stabilizer muscles are working overtime to keep you balanced.
6. Extends Your Life:
If you ever find yourself dangling from a cliff, your grip strength will save your bacon. A study examined the health of 140,000 people over four years with a variety of health outcomes, including looking at grip strength. Interestingly, grip strength was linked to mortality with every 10-pound decrease in grip strength associated with a 17% risk increase in death1.
Need further convincing? Research found that a gradual decrease in grip strength is associated with an uptick in the risk of having a heart attack and stroke. Your grip strength is a better indicator of your risk of developing cardiovascular diseases, more than systolic blood pressure is1. Not to mention, carrying loads in this manner will boost your cardiovascular health! Sounds like reason enough to include it in your next upper body dumbbell workout.
7. Improves Your Quality Of Life:
When grip strength decreases, there is an eightfold increase in the risk of developing a muscular disability if you are an older adult. Plus, decreases in grip strength have been associated with adverse weight gain among women and mortality among men2. This is why functional training is so important.
There is a reason it's called the "farmer's" walk. It'll make you strong!
FARMERS WALK FAQs:
Still have some lingering questions regarding this exercise? Well, good news! We’ve got answers.
Is the Farmer's walk good for weight loss?
Think of farmer’s walks as the cherry on top of an ice cream sundae. If you’re performing main compound lifts, in a calorie deficit, and getting enough protein, farmer’s walks are great for weight loss. This is a full-body move that gets your heart rate up and will have you burning calories long after you’ve finished training.
Does the farmer’s walk build muscle?
The short answer is yes. The long answer is the farmer’s walk provides a high level of muscular tension in the forearms, upper back, and shoulders, so you can build muscle everywhere. Plus, strengthening your grip will assist you with all exercises grip related, helping you to do more reps with the same weight or lift more load.
Often, your grip gets fried before your targeted muscle does, and strengthening your grip will prevent this from happening. This is a full-body move that will build muscle mass everywhere when incorporated into a hypertrophy program.
What is a good distance or time for a farmer's walk set?
This is entirely dependent on your goals. If your goal is to build absolute strength, then heavier weight, shorter distances, longer rest between sets, and a few more working sets is good. Twenty yards with 90% of your body weight and above for three to four sets will build strength.
If your goal is fat loss, then muscle endurance is what you're targeting. Aim for longer distances, start with lighter weights, shorter rest periods, and fewer sets. Using a load of 50-80% of your body weight for 40-100 yards for two to three sets will have you gasping for air. Finally, for muscle hypertrophy, using a load between 80-100% of your body weight for 40-60 yards for three sets will set the table for more muscle.
Note: These are general recommendations and can be adjusted to your goals.
How much weight for farmers walk?
Generally, the shorter you walk, the heavier the weight, and the longer you walk the lighter the weight. But, this all depends on your goals as discussed above. When you’re starting with the bilateral dumbbell carry, you should be able to handle 25-50% of your body weight in each hand and walk between 20-40 yards. If you cannot walk 20 yards, it is too heavy and if you walk more than 40 yards without your grip failing, it is too light.
And if you're training for muscle endurance, you're going to be walking for longer, which means you'll likely need even lighter weights than our 25-50% recommendation. The same goes for if you include this move in a high intensity interval training program - because of the intensity of your routine, you likely won't be able to carry super heavy weights. And that's okay! Select the weight that pushes you while enabling you to complete the program's suggested sets and reps.
The loaded carries variation you use, your goal, experience level, and tool you use will determine load. Here you’ll experiment a little to find a load that will challenge you to reach your specific goals.
How often should I do farmers’ walks?
You can do them every day, but this would mean recovery would be an issue. To improve and recover well between training, two to three times a week is a good place to start. And avoid performing the move on back-to-back days.
Farmer Walks: The Exercise Move Everyone Should Be Doing
Farmer’s walks look simple, but as we’ve covered, they’re anything but easy. If you are willing to stand the discomfort, performing carries is a functional exercise that has the ability to improve muscle strength, save your life, reduce your risk of heart disease, improve your posture and shoulder stability, and improve your gym performance.
Oh, and as an added bonus, your newfound strong grip will prevent you from ever having to struggle through opening a pickle jar or carrying grocery bags again.
So many benefits from such a basic strength training exercise mean this move deserves a spot in your workout split.
References:
- Leong, Darryl P, et al. “Prognostic Value of Grip Strength: Findings from the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) Study.” The Lancet, vol. 386, no. 9990, July 2015, pp. 266–273, 10.1016/s0140-6736(14)62000-6.
- Perna, Frank M., et al. “Muscular Grip Strength Estimates of the U.S. Population from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2011–2012.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, vol. 30, no. 3, Mar. 2016, pp. 867–874, 10.1519/jsc.0000000000001104.
Sam Coleman
Author