If you were stranded on a desert island with just one exercise that you could do for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Forget, for a moment, that if you actually were stranded on an island there would be a million exercises you could do.
Swimming certainly comes to mind. Running on the beach. Climbing palm trees for coconuts. Scaling volcanic mountains, even.
You could swing from vines, dive for crabs, and hike to your heart’s content.
But I’m trying make a point here, so pick just one. One exercise for the remainder of your days.
What’s it going to be?
Hardcore lifters might go for the squat or deadlift. Paleo folks might say swimming or sprinting.
All good choices of course.
But there’s one exercise that trumps them all . . .
Carry shit.
And I’m not talkin’ albatross shit. I’m talkin’ heavy shit.
We have a name for such an exercise. It’s called the Farmer’s Walk.
You’ve heard of it before.
The name conjures up images of hulking strong men, anvils in hand, straining with all their might to carry the heavy dead weight as far as human flesh will allow.
But if you’ve never watched a strongman contest, then maybe it just brings to mind the picture of some thick-necked farmer carrying a bale of hay in each hand as he goes about his daily work – without a thought to the profound load which he’s carrying.
Personal trainers call this functional strength.
I hate that term.
I call it pure fucking badassery.
The ability to carry heavy shit in our hands over distance is primal. Not primal in the ancestral sense (sorry paleo crew), but primal as in elemental. Pure.
Fucking innate.
That’s right. The Farmer’s Walk is fucking innate.
And you can tap into this primordial exercise right this very moment. You don’t need to have iron anvils lying around. You don’t even need dumbbells. Fill a couple buckets with sand and go to town. No buckets? How about milk jugs? Water bottles? Paint cans?
Don’t have anything handy? Nothing at all? Then grab those two fatass cats lying on your couch; grab them by the chubby scruff of their neck and get walking. They’ll get over it.
Using the Farmer’s Walk for Strength
The Farmer’s Walk was practically designed to build strength. Why else do you think that farmer has such a thick neck? And did you get a gander at those forearms?
Training with the Farmer’s walk will get you “yoked.” If you go heavy enough, your shoulders, traps, and neck will grow in proportion to the load you’re carrying. Build up to regular walks with 100 lbs. (per hand) and you’ll be one frightening mofo.
But it’s not just the upper body you’ll build. Heavy Farmer’s Walks require a strong core and sturdy legs. Go heavy enough and you’ll feel these everywhere.
And let’s not forget about the grip strength.
A lifetime of heavy Farmer’s Walk’s will build hands strong enough to crush bricks.
The Stregnth Plan in Brief
- Start light – Use whatever weight is comfortable. 20 or 30 pounds maybe. It should just be starting to feel heavy after a minute or so.
- Progress in weight – With each new week of Farmer’s Walks, add 5 pounds to the dumbbells. The goal is to eventually build to a heavy weight that you can only walk with for about a minute. If you’re a man, 80-100 lbs. is a good solid weight; if you’re a woman half that is pretty damn impressive.
- Progress in time – Now that you’re able to carry some respectable weight for a short period, it’s time to make those walks last a bit longer. Drop the weight by about half of your max, but try and double the time of your walk. Aim for two minutes. It will feel like a lifetime. If you need to drop the weight even further that’s ok. You will slowly build it back up over time, but now using the longer duration.
The Farmer’s Walk is the perfect exercise for building strength. But it’s capable of so much more than just that . . .
Using the Farmer’s Walk to Lose Weight
When trained for distance, the Farmer’s Walk is one of the best conditioning exercises I can think of. Few exercises will bring you to the brink of collapse like a good long Farmer’s Walk. See this post for a real life example of just what I mean (and for an awesome picture of one of the world’s strongest men doing his anvil thang).
Long distance Farmer’s Walks will put just as much strain on your heart and lungs as a good hard sprint. But anybody can go for a sprint. It takes balls to pick up some heavy shit and see how far you can carry it.
The weight lost from long Farmer’s Walks doesn’t come from calorie burn (though you’ll definitely burn some, if that’s what you’re after), it comes from the EPOC effect – Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption. Let’s just call it Afterburn.
The idea is that high intensity training creates an oxygen debt that we continue to make up for in the hours after the exercise. How much this Afterburn actually affects weight loss is highly debated, but I’ve personally seen excellent results from this type of training so I’ll vouch for it.
It all comes down to conditioning. Training for conditioning is training for fat loss – you will rarely see a well-conditioned overweight person (sumo wrestlers and world class strongmen aside).
So how do we use the Farmer’s Walk for conditioning?
The Weight Loss Plan in Brief
- Take it outside – Yes, you can do this indoors going back and forth down the hall (I do it that way during winter), but it’s boring as hell. If you can, do your Farmer’s Walk outside. It’s fun, refreshing, and easy to gauge your distance. And I guarantee you’ll turn some heads.
- Keep it light – We’re not trying to get “yoked” here (though you likely will anyway). Reduce the weight you would normally use by a lot (yeah, I hate specificity). Believe me, after half a mile, even just 30 pounds will feel like a sack of bricks.
- Aim for distance – I shoot for 3 to 6 “laps” back and forth down my (long) driveway. That works out to just over half a mile. It all depends on the weight carried though. Pick a weight then find your distance. As an example: start with 20 lbs. per hand and walk a distance that takes about 5 minutes (walk fast – you’re trying to get conditioned here). You should be able to build up to 10-15 minutes using that weight.
- Progress in weight – Once you can reasonably handle such a long distance with your current weight, up it by 5 pounds per hand. It doesn’t sound like much, but you will feel the difference. You can expect your distance to drop by half at the start. So build it back up. Then increase the weight again. Get the idea?
Now Get Walking
The Farmer’s walk is simply one of the best and most versatile exercises you can perform. Period. But don’t fuck around – train it hard and train it often. Three times a week minimum.
Make it hurt.
You’ll find that strength and fat loss are just a natural byproduct of the most awesome exercise ever.
And badassery will become you.
Cheers
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I wouldn’t have thought, but it sounds epic! Just had to watch some of the world championships, and they look pretty tough!
You’ve inspired me to do this myself. In fact I’ve already sorted a plan. There’s a field next to me, so I think starting with a lap of that and 10kg (22lbs) should be good. Normally I’d look a bit odd in that field, but getting up at 5.30 has its benefits, it’s dark and nobody’s around!
Thank you, Trevor!
Awesome! I’m glad to hear it Nick! Early A.M. is THE time to do an outdoor farmer’s walk as far as I’m concerned — the brisk air will fire you up and keep you going farther even when you feel like quitting. 22 lbs. is an excellent starting weight — you’re in for some fun. Good luck. Be sure to drop back by and give an update how the first run went. I’m keen to hear your experience.
Cheers!
Well that was just fantastic! I got going at 6 am, it was a bit muddy but that’s all good. I got half way around the field and the burn kicked in, but I did get all the way round. It was like that new workout feeling, where you’ve never had that kind of burn before, I’ll definitely be doing it again, and again, and again!
Thanks Trevor!
That’s hardcore doing farmer’s walks in the mud. I like it. I’m glad to hear you enjoyed it this morning. As you build up in weight over the coming weeks you’ll definitely see significant changes taking place. Your forearms will be the first to start growing (you’ll be ripping phone books in half in no time), then likely your shoulders and traps. Farmer’s walks do a surprisingly good job at giving you “capped” shoulders since they place a constant stress on your medial delt.
There are a million variations of farmer’s walks as well. Farmer’s walks up hill or up and down stairs is a REAL killer if you want to hit legs and conditioning even harder. Add a weight vest for even more difficulty. There is just so much you can do with them.
Cheers!
I read a book awhile ago about this city girl who always dreamed of having her own farm. So she did just that (And I think it was in Vermont!). She bought an old farmhouse and started growing her own farm and had animals (eventually starting her own CSA program). She commented that when she lived in NY City she had a gym membership but she didn’t need it on the farm because she was working her ass off, literally, for 12 hours a day. She said she grew muscles she never knew she had!
I’ve never farmed myself, but I live near many farms and I’ve seen them farmers out busting their ass from dawn ’till dusk. So it doesn’t suprise me that she grew all sorts of new funky muscle. It’s just a byproduct of living a life of heavy physical labor. Farmers are strong, it’s just a fact. That’s why they have such an awesome and brutal exercise named after them.
Cheers!
“Carry shit!” I love it! I grew up on a cult/farm. I carried my share of shit, too much weight for my size at the time. You’re right, carrying shit will definitely strengthen you. Do you think it’s best for cardio, too? Or perhaps something else?
A long distance farmer’s walk is excellent for cardio. Not in the slow steady-state mold of jogging, but in the same manner as an all out sprint. I’ve done farmer’s walks until I collapsed and nearly passed out. I’ve pushed through pain thresholds I didn’t even know existed while doing farmer’s walks. Few things in life will get your heart pumping and your breathing heavy as will grabbing some iron in each hand and carrying it until all you see is white.
Cardio indeed.
I’m guessing you already knew that though — from your time spent carrying your “share of shit” on the cult farm. Hard times, I know, but I bet you’ve strength to show for it.
Strength and cardio are not mutually exclusive. Often, they can both be trained effectively at the same time.
Cheers!
Cheers!
I just like the word badassery. I’m stealing it.
Spread the word my friend!
There is some truth in that, as using dumbbells and barbells is just a replacement for having toi carry heavy objects and doing manual work.
The afterburn effect, however, is rather small according to the research I read.
Hi evilcyber, you’re right. According to some of the research the Afterburn effect is not as significant as once purported. That’s why I mentioned that it’s influence was a highly debated topic. As with all research, the results depend upon the quality of the experiments and the biases of the researchers.
In truth, I put little stock into much of the exercise/diet research literature. Humans are far too dynamic to be completely defined through such reductionist trials. Experience is the only thing I trust completely. And my experience with High-Intensity Interval Training and similar training methods (such as farmer’s walks) has been extremely posititve.
I do not believe the entire effects of the Afterburn can be measured simply through oxygen debt and post-exercise calorie burn. I believe the benefits come down to how such exercises affect our hormone profile and conditioning, and the compounding positive training cylcle improvements they bring to future workouts.
Experience tells me this works. So that’s good enough for me.
Thanks for stopping by and adding to the discussion evilcyber.
Cheers!
Well put.
I (145lbs) offload with 30lbs in one hand and 15 in the other. When 1 hand gets fatigued I switch hands and keep up the walk. I live near trails and walk about 2 miles. This training has been great for my handball game!
I like that plan John!
That’s a great way to really work the core and the grip. 2 miles is an insane amount of distance for the Farmer’s Walk, but with the way you mix it up going from light to heavy I can see how it’s actually possible. I’ve never thought of trying it like that before . . . and I thought that I’d done it all when it comes to Farmer’s Walks.
You’ve got me totally psyched to try this now! Thanks for the great idea John!
Cheers!