The farmer’s carry is fairly straightforward: you’ll walk while holding dumbbells or other weights in your hands. The increased popularity of the sport of strongman — which regularly features the farmer’s carry as an event — has undoubtedly played a role in the exercise’s overall rise in notoriety. But it’s not just about absurdly heavy objects. Even beginners can benefit from picking up weights and taking a stroll. Here’s how to make the most of this powerhouse exercise.
Editor’s Note: The content on BarBend is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. When starting a new training regimen and/or diet, it is always a good idea to consult with a trusted medical professional. We are not a medical resource. The opinions and articles on this site are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. They are not substitutes for consulting a qualified medical professional.
How to Do the Farmer’s Carry
The farmer’s carry might be simple, But its benefits are legion. It enhances grip and core strength, balance and coordination, posture, and overall total body strength. And you’ll get some cardio stimulus in there, to boot.
Equipment Needed: You can use various tools to perform farmer’s carries with — two barbells loaded with weight plates, farmer’s carry handles, dumbbells or kettlebells. Even a trap bar is a suitable carrying implement. Whichever tool you choose, the base mechanics are the same.
- Step 1 — Stand with the weights (in this example, we’re going with dumbbells) at your side. Hinge at your hips to bend over and grab each dumbbell. Lift with your legs to stand up with the weights.
- Step 2 — Walk with the weights in hand. Maintain a steady, upright position and posture. Do not allow the weight to move laterally or favor one side over the other. Use short, fast strides to increase your performance.
Coach’s Tip: To help with grip, use lifting chalk. Chalk will help with contact between your hands and the bar without artificially augmenting your grip strength (by using lifting straps).
Farmer’s Carry Variations and Alternatives
There are many ways to spice up your farmer’s carry, typically involving lifting a new object in a new position. Here are some farmer’s carry alternatives and variations to play with.
Suitcase Carry
Why Do It: Also known as the unilateral farmer’s carry, the suitcase carry is a multiplanar exercise that involves a coordinated effort across your core and hip musculature to maintain posture while performing. The suitcase carry requires a high demand for trunk muscle co-contraction, synchronicity, and balance. (1)
Equipment Needed: You’ll need one dumbbell, kettlebell, barbell with weight plates, OR farmer’s walk handle with weight plates.
- Get a solid grip on your implement of choice. Hinge at the hips with a generous knee bend to pick up the weight. Brace your core and rise to stand tall.
- Adjust your stance to make sure that your shoulders are squared, without hiking up on one side or the other.
- Walk in a straight line while holding the weight. Keep your shoulders level throughout. Repeat on the other side.
Make it Easier: Use a dumbbell to make it easier to balance the weight.
Make it Harder: Use a barbell to make the move much more challenging by upping the balance and grip challenge.
Trap Bar Farmer’s Carry
Why Do It: Due to the fixed nature of the trap bar, you may be able to load up more weight during your carry. The more weight you’re hauling around, the greater the challenge for your stability, grip strength, core, and cardiovascular system.
Equipment Needed: Grab your trap bar and weight plates for this one — and don’t forget the collars.
- Load up a trap bar and step inside. Set up for a trap bar deadlift.
- Perform a trap bar deadlift and come to a full, stable standing position.
- Walk carefully while holding the bar with fully extended arms.
Make it Easier: Practice with an empty trap bar first.
Make it Harder: Add a series of shrugs every 15 steps or so.
Towel Grip Farmer’s Carry
Why Do It: You’ll need to squeeze far harder to sustain your grip on the towels, resulting in bulkier forearms to boot. The downside is that you won’t lift as heavy as holding dumbbells or farmer handles — but the functional grip strength you’ll build can far outweigh that.
Equipment Needed: Grab one or two kettlebells and one or two towels (small enough to not risk dragging while you walk, but big enough to comfortably loop through the handle of the bells.
- Thread a towel through the handle of a kettlebell.
- If you’re using two bells, thread the towel through the second.
- Grip the towel(s) securely and deadlift the bell(s) into standing.
- Walk with your shoulders even and hold onto the towels until just before failure.
Make it Easier: Use a towel with a lot of grippy texture to make it easier to hold on to.
Make it Harder: Use a softer towel, which will be harder to hold on to and require even more of your grip strength.
Strongman-Style Farmer’s Carry
Why Do It: Newsflash: strongwomen and strongmen are really, really strong. Therefore, you can’t toss a pair of 100-pound dumbbells at them and ask them to take a walk — the event would last forever. Strongman competitions typically use special handles with pegs on the front or top to hold weight plates. These specialized handles can hold tremendous weight, so athletes typically perform heavy carries for shorter distances.
Equipment Needed: You’ll need farmer’s carry handles here, along with weight plates. You can sub with barbells if necessary.
- Load the farmer’s carry handles with your desired amount of weight.
- Stand between the loads and secure a grip on each handle. Deadlift the loads to standing.
- Begin walking. Don’t forget to breathe.
Make it Easier: Practice with the empty bars at first.
Make it Harder: If you have a drop-safe surface available, try to take each set to complete failure. Time your efforts or track your distance to monitor improvement.
Waiter’s Carry
Why Do It: This exercise develops and reinforces shoulder mobility as you sustain an overhead position while holding a reasonably heavy weight. It can bolster your pressing prowess, too, since you’ll be developing a lot more strength and confidence in the overhead position.
Equipment Needed: Grab a weight plate, dumbbell, or kettlebell for this one.
- Take a dumbbell or kettlebell in one hand. Clean it to the front-rack position. Press or push press it overhead. If you’re doing this move with a weight plate, press it overhead with your palm flat underneath it (as though you’re carrying a dinner plate or tray like … well, a waiter).
- Stabilize the weight overhead and brace your core.
- Walk, maintaining the weight overhead and a neutral torso position (not shifting your resting shoulder up or down).
Make it Easier: Using a dumbbell will likely be the easiest implement for most beginners.
Make it Harder: Add a series of single-arm overhead presses every 15 feet or so.
Zercher Carry
Why Do It: You’ll hold a loaded barbell in the crook of your arm and walk forward. Your upper back muscles and core will fire on all cylinders to maintain a rigid posture. Otherwise, as with a front squat, you’ll drop the bar forward. Be prepared for core soreness.
Equipment Needed: Grab a barbell and weight plates, set up in a squat stand or power rack. You can also use a barbell squat pad or a specialized Zercher pad.
- Set up a barbell in a squat rack at about elbow height. Secure a pad around the bar for added comfort if desired. Loop your arms under it so that the bar settles in the crook of your elbows.
- Unrack the bar as you would for a Zercher squat. Carefully back out of the squat rack and — when you have enough clearance to not hit the barbell on the rack — turn.
- Walk as with any carry, being careful to maintain a tall posture and strong core.
Make it Easier: Instead of using a barbell, front-rack a pair of kettlebells and perform your walks in that position. It will similarly fire up your core and upper back without all that pressure on your elbows.
Make it Harder: Add Zercher squats to the end of your sets.
Vertical Trap Bar Farmer’s Carry
[Read More: Overhead Carry Trap Bar Benefits and Their Variations]
Why Do It: By turning the bar, so the shafts face in front and back of you, you’re narrowing your grip and creating much more instability. To ensure the weight stays put, you’ll need to squeeze your shoulder blades together and grip the trap bar tightly. Use about 60 to 65 percent of your typical weight for the trap bar farmer’s carry when using this alternative.
Equipment Needed: Use a trap bar, weight plates, and barbell collars for this.
- Load up the trap bar and step inside the “wrong” way — the weight plates should be in front of you and behind you instead of being at your sides.
- Hinge down to grab the sides of the trap bar instead of the handles as you normally would.
- Deadlift the bar to standing. Stabilize, and walk.
Farmer’s Carry Sets and Reps
You can choose to incorporate farmer’s carries into your program as a conditioning move, workout finisher, or accessory to more traditional barbell lifts. Or, you might center this lift as one of your main programming ingredients. Either way, you’ll still want to program according to your specific goals.
- For Grip Strength: Using 70 to 75 percent of what you can lift, walk 30 to 40 meters with excellent form. Perform three to four rounds.
- For Endurance: Using 55 to 60 percent of what you can pick up, walk as long as you can until failure. Rest as needed between sets, performing four to five rounds.
- For Conditioning: Load up your equipment with 60 to 65 percent of what you can lift and walk as long as you can to prevent failure. Repeat for three to six rounds, resting as little as possible between sets.
If you’re performing these sets as finishers at the end of a workout, you might want to use a little less weight to compensate for fatigue. But if you’ve programmed a separate conditioning day or are focused mainly on this lift, you might want to go heavier.
Benefits of the Farmer’s Carry
Regardless of the goal or sport, fitness enthusiasts, athletes, and strength and conditioning professionals can benefit from the farmer’s carry. (2) The load, grip width, distance traveled, intensity, frequency, and volume are all variables to individualize to the lifter. Below are a few of the most notable benefits of the farmer’s carry.
Increase Grip Strength
A strong grip has been associated with everything from a better quality of life, lower risk of sarcopenia (muscle loss) and dynapenia (loss of muscle strength and power) in older adulthood, and reduced risk of cardiovascular events. (3) Aside from the benefits of long-term health, athletes with a stronger grip have an advantage across many disciplines, such as grappling, climbing, baseball, powerlifting and strongman, football, and hockey. (4)
[Read More: Grip Strength, Better Posture, and More — Benefits of Farmer’s Walks]
The benefits of a stronger grip extend beyond strength, sport, and athletic performance. A stronger grip translates into other lifts, like the deadlift and snatch. It can also improve strength and muscle-building potential in exercises like dumbbell rows, upright rows, and pull-ups.
Enhance Core Stability and Bracing
A strong core translates to increased strength and performance and the ability to brace better for a more stable spine — leading to the prevention and reduction of low back pain. (5) The farmer’s carry can improve overall core strength, the resistance of spinal rotation, flexion, and extension, improved by the challenge of maintaining a rigid spine throughout the exercise — aiding in injury prevention and force production.
Additionally, bracing the core and controlling breathing during the farmer’s carry can aid in stronger trunk and hip extension, alongside increasing the strength of the internal oblique muscles. (6)
Strengthens Your Glutes
The farmer’s carry helps improve grip strength and the strength of the glutes — a muscle that helps stabilize the torso and pelvis alongside the gluteus maximus. (7)(8)
Considering the carry is a glute exercise, you can expect the benefits to carry over into other big lifts such as the squat and any deadlift variation that you can think of, along with other accessory-based movements like the lunge and split squat.
[Read More: Best Dumbbell Exercises for Muscle Gain, Plus Workouts]
Improve Postural Strength and Control
When carrying heavy loads while walking, postural control is necessary to ensure torso-pelvic coordination and the protection of the spine. The farmer’s carry trains muscles deep within the torso — both anterior and posterior — such as the rectus abdominis, internal and external obliques, and the erector spinae, enhancing postural strength, and control in movements like squats, push presses, and deadlifts. (9)
Versatility
The farmer’s carry — a traditional strongman exercise or event — is categorized as “a non-traditional implement integrated into strength and conditioning practice” currently used to improve performance. Among a survey of 220 strength and conditioning coaches, 88 percent of the coaches reported using strongman implements such as the farmer’s carry. (2)
The non-traditional nature of this exercise allows for the training of multiple energy systems and performance-enhancing adaptations. In simpler words: the Farmer’s carry will get you strong. It will get you lean if that’s something you want. It will improve your cardio.
Among the 88 percent of coaches who use this move, they ranked anaerobic and metabolic conditioning, explosive strength and power, and muscle endurance as the three main physiological reasons why they used strongman implements in their athlete’s training. (2)
[Read More: Best Fat Burners, With Expert Advice from an RD]
Functional Strength
Another reason for using the farmer’s carry in your training — especially if you’re not a strongman athlete — is to transfer gym-based gains into more functional strength. (Carrying grocery bags in each hand is functionally a farmer’s carry.)
If that wasn’t enough, strength and conditioning professionals tout the other beneficial uses strongman-based training has had for their athletes, including improving functional strength, creating competition, enhancing stability, elevating metabolic conditioning, increasing enjoyment in training with a “fun” stimulus, grip strength, mental toughness, and more.
Muscles Worked by the Famer’s Carry
The farmer’s carry is a full-body exercise. This exercise challenges muscles across the upper body from start to finish — such as the arms, shoulders, upper back, and core. It also places large amounts of tension on the muscles of the lower body — such as the glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings, and calves. Needless to say, this is a bang-for-your-buck exercise.
Glutes
The glutes are key players in hip stability and strength during walking, jumping, sprinting, and strength training. The farmer’s carry helps strengthen the gluteus medius — a muscle that helps stabilize the torso and pelvis alongside the gluteus maximus — and can help alleviate lower back pain and make everyday movements, such as standing, walking, and climbing the stairs, that much easier. (7)(8)
Adductors
The muscles of the inner thigh — known as the adductors — help serve as essential stabilizers of the pelvis and help maintain the balance of the pelvis during the pattern of movement for locomotion, also known as gait. (10) The adductors are heavily engaged during the farmer’s carry, specifically during the walking phase (essentially the entire movement).
Hamstrings
The hamstrings attach to the pelvis and run posteriorly down the leg. These critical muscles contribute greatly to your gait cycle, playing a prominent role in hip extension, knee flexion, and extension while also playing an essential role in knee stability.
Although you are not dynamically flexing and extending at the hip during the farmer’s carry it does not mean the hamstrings are not working hard every step of the way. (11)
Calves
The calf muscles — most notably the gastrocnemius and soleus — plantarflex (toes pointed down) the foot and ankle. Functionally, the calf muscle assists in knee flexion and is an essential muscle in stabilizing the knee during loaded carries, like the farmer’s carry. (12)(13)
Quadriceps
The quadriceps — made up of rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, vastus medialis, and vastus intermedius — play an important role in flexing and stabilizing the hip while also playing a central role in extending the knee. (14) During the farmer’s carry, the quadriceps work double-time to help stabilize the hips while also extending the knee during the carrying stage.
Trapezius
The trapezius — commonly referred to as traps — is a large muscle spanning the better part of your upper and mid-back. This large muscle plays a vital role in stabilizing the scapula (shoulder blades) as it is the main muscle producing tension in the upper back while holding the weight in your hands. Each of the three divisions of the traps is hard at work during the farmer’s carry to help maintain tension and stability in the back. (15)
Latissimus Dorsi
The latissimus dorsi — commonly referred to as the lats — is most commonly known for its role in moving the arm toward and around the back of the body. During the farmer’s carry, the lats play a slightly different role, most notably stabilizing the pelvis and interacting with the abdominal muscles in everything from respiration, maintaining shoulder positioning to protecting the spine. (16)
Core
The core — most notably muscles of the abdominals, erector spinae, quadratus lumborum, and others — help stabilize the spine and pelvis during loaded movements, such as the farmer’s carry. The farmer’s carry fits the criteria of being a more advanced core-based functional exercise — it requires acceleration, deceleration, and dynamic stabilization. (17)
Arms and Shoulders
In addition to grip, the arms and shoulders are heavily challenged during the farmer’s carry — especially the forearms. A lesser-known function of the biceps and triceps is shoulder stability. As the long head of each muscle — the biceps and triceps — attaches to the scapula, aiding in humeral displacement. (18)(19)
Additionally, when significant loads are lifted and held, a large amount of strain is placed on the shoulder joint. Muscles like the deltoids help maintain stability around the shoulder’s ball-and-socket joint — or maybe more appropriately described as a ball-and-saucer joint, as it is more shallow than the hip joint. (20)
Common Farmer’s Carry Mistakes
Picking something up, carrying it, and putting it down somewhere else is simple, right? Well, sort of. It’s still quite possible to make mistakes during your lift. Be sure you’re not falling prey to these common flaws in farmer’s carry training.
Going Too Light
It might not seem like a problem to go too light, and there are often advantages to taking it more accessible. But you may be leaving a lot of gains on the floor if you’re consistently not challenging yourself with heavy enough weight. This is a move where you want to try and push yourself weight-wise, so if you’re not approaching failure toward the end of your distance or time goal, you might not be training heavy enough.
Stride Length
To start, you’ll likely want to use short, fast strides. And if you compete and lifting extreme weights, you might stick to that. But you might be in the middle ground between beginner and elite competitive athlete and want to use this move to build strength and conditioning. In that case, try to focus on matching your stride length to your experience level.
Trying to take regular-sized steps as a beginner might throw you off balance. But the more advanced you become, maintaining an average stride length while increasing the stride rate is the most beneficial to maximal output and overall performance. (21)
Poor Upper Back Positioning
Many lifters may try to compensate for fatigue by shrugging their shoulders high. And while that’s good when you’re trying to perform shrugs, you want to try to keep your shoulders back and down during farmer’s carries to maximize your upper back activation.
This way, you’ll train yourself to keep your lats packed and engaged adequately during the entire movement. It will also help prevent you from resting the weights on your sides.
Carry Out Your Goals
The farmer’s carry is a functional exercise that increases strength in your upper and lower body while bolstering your aerobic capacity. It’s easy to learn, easy to do, and there are many variations one can try for sport specificity and training goals.
FAQs
Still got questions about this powerhouse of a move? That’s cool. We’ve still got answers.
Yes, absolutely. Beginners can certainly perform farmer’s carries and other loaded carry variations. You may want to start out using the trap bar, as it requires less in terms of balance and coordination — which is usually lacking in beginners. Due to the straightforward nature of this exercise, beginners should be able to pick it right up.
The farmer’s carry works multiple muscle groups across the upper and lower body. Some of the major muscle groups include:
– Glutes
– Adductors
– Hamstrings
– Calves
– Traps
– Lats
– Core
– Arms and Shoulders
The farmer’s carry requires a symmetrical load held in both hands while performing the exercise. The suitcase carry adds a unique, asymmetrical challenge to the body by only requiring the person to carry the load in one hand — creating a high demand for trunk muscle co-contraction and synchronicity, and balance.
The use of lifting straps or grips comes with its own list of pros and cons.
Pros:
– You can lift heavier loads for a longer period of time;
– You can worry less about grip strength being the limiting factor;
– You can be worry-free in knowing you are not going to make a mess in your gym with powdered chalk.
Cons:
– You limit your ability to maximally improve your grip strength;
– You can not use them in competition if you are a strongman or athlete;
– They add a level of setup time before starting the exercise, due to the need to wrap the strap around the bar.
Liquid chalk can be a great alternative to lifting straps or its powdered counterpart — without creating a big mess. Chalk will help with contact between your hands and the bar without artificially augmenting your grip strength (lifting straps).
References
- Holmstrup ME, Kelley MA, Calhoun KR, Kiess CL. Fat-Free Mass and the Balance Error Scoring System Predict an Appropriate Maximal Load in the Unilateral Farmer’s Walk. Sports (Basel). 2018 Dec 8;6(4):166.
- Winwood, P. W., Cronin, J. B., Keogh, J. W., Dudson, M. K., & Gill, N. D. (2014). How coaches use strongman implements in strength and conditioning practice. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 9(5), 1107-1125.
- Bohannon, R. W. (2019). Grip strength: an indispensable biomarker for older adults. Clinical interventions in aging, 1681-1691.
- Cronin J, Lawton T, Harris N, Kilding A, McMaster DT. A Brief Review of Handgrip Strength and Sport Performance. J Strength Cond Res. 2017 Nov;31(11):3187-3217.
- Kumar T, Kumar S, Nezamuddin M, Sharma VP. Efficacy of core muscle strengthening exercise in chronic low back pain patients. J Back Musculoskelet Rehabil. 2015;28(4):699-707.
- Tayashiki K, Maeo S, Usui S, Miyamoto N, Kanehisa H. Effect of abdominal bracing training on strength and power of trunk and lower limb muscles. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2016 Sep;116(9):1703-13.
- Jeong UC, Sim JH, Kim CY, Hwang-Bo G, Nam CW. The effects of gluteus muscle strengthening exercise and lumbar stabilization exercise on lumbar muscle strength and balance in chronic low back pain patients. J Phys Ther Sci. 2015 Dec;27(12):3813-6.
- Stastny P, Lehnert M, Zaatar A, Svoboda Z, Xaverova Z, Pietraszewski P. The Gluteus Medius Vs. Thigh Muscles Strength Ratio and Their Relation to Electromyography Amplitude During a Farmer’s Walk Exercise. J Hum Kinet. 2015 Apr 7;45:157-65.
- Winwood, P. W., Cronin, J. B., Brown, S. R., & Keogh, J. W. (2014). A biomechanical analysis of the farmers walk, and comparison with the deadlift and unloaded walk. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 9(5), 1127-1143.
- Jeno SH, Launico MV, Schindler GS. Anatomy, Bony Pelvis and Lower Limb: Thigh Adductor Magnus Muscle. [Updated 2023 Oct 24]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2024 Jan-.
- Rodgers CD, Raja A. Anatomy, Bony Pelvis and Lower Limb, Hamstring Muscle. 2023 Apr 1. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2024 Jan–.
- Binstead JT, Munjal A, Varacallo M. Anatomy, Bony Pelvis and Lower Limb: Calf. [Updated 2023 May 23]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2024 Jan-.
- Alshami AM, Alhassany HA. Girth, strength, and flexibility of the calf muscle in patients with knee osteoarthritis: A case-control study. J Taibah Univ Med Sci. 2020 May 1;15(3):197-202.
- Bordoni B, Varacallo M. Anatomy, Bony Pelvis and Lower Limb: Thigh Quadriceps Muscle. [Updated 2023 May 8]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2024 Jan-.
- Ourieff J, Scheckel B, Agarwal A. Anatomy, Back, Trapezius. [Updated 2023 Mar 11]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2024 Jan-.
- Jeno SH, Varacallo M. Anatomy, Back, Latissimus Dorsi. [Updated 2023 Mar 5]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2024 Jan-.
- Akuthota V, Ferreiro A, Moore T, Fredericson M. Core stability exercise principles. Curr Sports Med Rep. 2008 Feb;7(1):39-44.
- Tiwana MS, Sinkler MA, Bordoni B. Anatomy, Shoulder and Upper Limb, Triceps Muscle. [Updated 2023 Aug 28]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2024 Jan-.
- Tiwana MS, Charlick M, Varacallo M. Anatomy, Shoulder and Upper Limb, Biceps Muscle. [Updated 2024 Jan 30]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2024 Jan-.
- Forro SD, Munjal A, Lowe JB. Anatomy, Shoulder and Upper Limb, Arm Structure and Function. 2023 Jul 25. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2024 Jan–.
- Hindle BR, Lorimer A, Winwood P, Keogh JWL. The Biomechanics and Applications of Strongman Exercises: a Systematic Review. Sports Med Open. 2019 Dec 9;5(1):49.
