The Farmer’s Walk has long been considered an essential compound movement amongst strength and conditioning coaches for its ability to engage the major muscle groups synergistically whilst simultaneously engaging the core to ensure the correct posture and alignment whilst performing the farmer’s carry. In 2014, Winwood, et al., undertook a study at the Sports Performance Research Institute in New Zealand where they looked to perform a kinematic gate analysis of the farmers walk exercise using highly advanced cameras and biomechanical analysis software to track changes in posture and joint angles and overall stress on the body when performing the exercise. The study concluded that strength and conditioning coaches and physical rehabilitation specialists should examine the training practices of strongmen athletes to see how these principles and approaches could be applied in their specific context due to the potential benefits to improve performance, reduce injury risk and/or rehabilitate injuries for individuals in the armed forces, police and emergency services.

The study went on to outline that the farmer’s walk is an exceptional exercise to use during periodization as it challenges the individual’s whole musculoskeletal system in terms of strength, stability, and physiological demands placed on the body. Thus, the exercise not only demands an aspect of physical strength, but it also requires and trains dynamic balance and neuromuscular proprioception, hand[1]grip, core strength, upper-body strength; along with a forceful triple extension of the lower body during the lifting and walking phases which previous research has shown to be the most calorie demanding exercises due to the engagement of muscles across three different joints. Performing such exercises inevitably leads to benefits of the Phosphocreatine (ATP-PC) and anaerobic glycolytic energy systems such as increases in glycolytic skeletal muscle enzyme content and ATP regeneration along with decreases in metabolic acidosis (Struder, 2019)

To Summarise, despite The Farmers Carry originating within strongman training it has fast become a go-to exercise for training programs and a key component within any good periodized training program. Performing multiple sets with Farmers Walk Handles has shown to invoke both strength and hypertrophy through its gruesome combination of isometric contraction whilst trying to hold and maintain the weight at a constant velocity whilst also placing a significant amount of stress on the cardiovascular and musculoskeletal system as they work in tangent to meet the demands of the exercise. All of this results in a major tax which is placed on the body metabolically as the stress-stimuli response works overtime with the right amount of rest your body is then able to burn a significant amount of calories through EPOC (Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption) whilst also develop muscular strength due to the maximal strain the body endured throughout the sets. Hence the farmer’s walk is the ultimate compound Lift as you are engaging your whole body in repetitive lifts which also places a significant amount of stress on the cardiovascular system stimulating a superior level of conditioning to those programs which simply perform stationary non-functional compounds lifts.

Additionally, research has consistently demonstrated that performing loaded carriers such as the farmers walk has shown within the research to not only significantly benefit training programs but to also persist as one of the most efficient training methods to seemingly develop several different components of fitness at the same time as the body looks to meet the demands of the exercise it is forced to work both the cardiovascular and neuromuscular systems synergistically whilst also ensuring that there is sufficient proprioceptive awareness, balance and agility so that you are able to safely carry the load without falling over, and it is for that reason that the farmers walk should be top of everyone’s exercise list when looking to develop functional strength and burn calories!

References

Keogh, J., Kattan, A., Logan, S., Bensley, J., Muller, C., & Powell, L. (2014). A Preliminary Kinematic Gait Analysis of a Strongman Event: The Farmers Walk. Sports, 2(1), 24–33. doi:10.3390/sports2010024

Struder, Jeb F.; McDonald, Arriana M.; Wainwright, Jordan B.; Eberhardt, Joseph B.; Nader, Zeina; DeAnda, Noe; Bachnack, Souhad Z.; Haenitsch, Cody; Cumberledge, Stephen; Newmire, Daniel E.; Boham, Mikaela D.; and Webb, Heather E. (2019) “The Neuromuscular and Muscle Damage Responses to the Farmers Walk: A Pilot Study,” International Journal of Exercise Science: Conference Proceedings: Vol. 2 : Iss. 11 , Article 90.

Available at: https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/ijesab/vol2/iss11/90