Farmer's carry
Picking up something heavy in each hand and walking with it — the most honest exercise there is, and the least interesting to look at.
- Pattern
- Carry
- Equipment
- DumbbellKettlebell
- Space
- Standing room
- Difficulty
- Foundational
- Load
- External load
What it is
Take a heavy dumbbell or kettlebell in each hand. Stand up tall. Walk.
That is the movement. Walk for a distance or a time, set the weights down under control, rest, repeat.
Shoulders down rather than shrugged, ribs down, breathing normally, and a normal walking gait rather than a shuffle. When your posture starts to break or your grip starts to slip, the set is finished.
What it demands
Grip, for the whole duration. Your hands are usually the limiter, which makes this one of the most efficient grip exercises available — it trains the finger flexors under a real load rather than through a gadget.
Trunk endurance. With weight hanging at each side, the whole trunk works to keep you upright and to stop you swaying with each step.
Postural endurance in the upper back and shoulders, holding position against a downward pull.
Almost no skill. It is walking. That is the reason to like it — there is very little to get wrong and almost nobody needs teaching.
What usually goes wrong
Weights too light. The most common failure by far. If you can carry them for several minutes comfortably, the exercise is not happening.
Shrugging. Letting the shoulders ride up towards the ears. Set them down and keep them there.
Leaning back. Counterbalancing the load by extending the lower back rather than by holding position.
Shuffling. Short scraping steps rather than walking. If a normal stride is not available, the weight is too heavy.
Setting them down badly. The end of the set is still a hinge — put them down the way you picked them up, rather than dropping or stooping.
Where it sits
Carrying is a movement pattern in its own right, and it is the one most training programmes miss entirely — which is odd, because carrying heavy things is among the most common physical demands of ordinary life.
It also solves a problem specific to home training: grip is the limiting factor in almost all pulling, and this trains it directly with equipment you already have.
The suitcase carry is the same idea with one weight, which turns it from an endurance exercise into a trunk exercise.