Core, Grip Strength and Cardio: This Farmer’s Walk Workout Covers It All

The many variations of the farmer’s walk can be easily added to your workout plan on upper-body days, lower-body days or days that focus on core, grip strength and cardio. The farmer’s walk is the ultimate complementary exercise, working the arm muscles, shoulders, back, and legs while focusing on your grip, core and balance. Add a hill or flight of stairs to your path and take it to another level.

The farmer’s walk is a full-body, weight-bearing exercise that can be done in several ways. You can carry dumbbells, kettlebells or sandbags in one or both hands, or use a hexagon barbell (trap bar). You can also walk with high knees in place, over a straight distance (50-100 meters), change directions, or maneuver up and down hills or stairs. You also can vary how you carry the weight; with a single-arm carry, you must engage the core differently than holding weight in both hands. Depending on your weight, you will find any options above challenging and effective, such as core, grip and full-body exercises.

We apply the following hanging knee up/farmer’s walk combination after more compressive lifting exercises such as fireman’s carries, deadlifts and squats to decompress and engage the core system again in the workout. Try mixing both overhead and regular farmer’s walks to build in more shoulder stability training with the workout below:

Single-hand farmer's walk/hanging knee up combo workout:

These pictures describe the workout above. They are from Stew Smith’s training program for those over 50, The Ageless Athlete—Fitness Over 50. We do this next to a pull-up bar and mark off 50m as our turn-around point, changing how we carry the dumbbell at that 50-meter mark. If this is too easy, try 20 sets.

To balance the torso and grip muscles, do left-hand single dumbbell or kettlebell holds for the odd sets (Nos. 1, 3, 5, 7, 9) and right-hand holds for the even sets (Nos. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10) of the following 10-set circuit:

Repeat 10 times.

• Hanging knee-ups 10
• Overhead farmer’s walk 50 meters (or march in place for 30 seconds)
• Farmer’s walks 50 meters (or march in place for 30 seconds)
• Rest for 30 seconds (stretch forearms)

When doing the circuit above, you will feel everything working for you. The grip will likely go first, then the core, especially if you select a heavy weight for the carries. Depending on your abilities, weights in the 25- to 50-pound range is usually sufficient for this single-arm workout.

Longevity Dr. Peter Attia uses farmer’s walks as part of his longevity training. He says that we should be able to carry our body weight (using both hands) for a certain distance as we age. His book, “Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity,” thoroughly studies everything we should do to enable our minds and bodies to continue performing optimally for our age each decade.

Add this strength-building exercise to your life, no matter how old you are.

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