Farmers Walks

carltonleon · 26-08-2019 1:51pm #1

Just wondering what people feel is a good weight for Farmers Walks ?
I know that it is conditional on size, weight etc but just a brief idea.
At the moment, I am 72 KG and have been doing Farmers Walks with a 20KG Kettlebell in 1 hand and a 24 KG in another hand and swapping sides each set. I normally do about 7 walks, each one in between a set of lifts. Today I did about 4 at the 20/24kg but then upped it to 30kg in each had for 3 shorter walks. The gym is a work gym so is really limited in equipment but I get by with it. Just wondering is that weight enough to build muscle or do I need heavier ? Again I know it is subjective but just trying to guage peoples opinions on the Farmers Walk as an exercise and also on my question above.

Thanks Guys

silverharp · 26-08-2019 9:45pm

I remember someone saying that if you could walk a ~hundred meters with them, then they are too light,on the flip side if your form is bad then its too heavy. with my limited experience i would say drop the number to 5 but increase the weight if you can, for example a medium day at ~75% of body weight (total) or heavy at 100% or mix.
Mix it up a bit with one handed variants or throw in some plate pinches if you rate grip strength training. One tip if you are stuck with kettlebells is bring in a couple of bungee chords and you can add weights to buildup between kb sizes.

Mellor · 28-08-2019 1:23pm

There's gonna be a co-relation between distance and weight. So indoors I'd assume you are doing maybe 20-30m.

24kg is pretty light, I'd be surprised if that was a struggle. It should be borderline impossible, but should definitely feel pretty hard.

I'd suggest a starting point of Half bodyweight per hand. For you that's 36kg.
With a goal of bodyweight per hand, or total load somewhere around your max deadlift.

carltonleon · 28-08-2019 11:50pm

Mellor wrote: »

There's gonna be a co-relation between distance and weight. So indoors I'd assume you are doing maybe 20-30m.

24kg is pretty light, I'd be surprised if that was a struggle. It should be borderline impossible, but should definitely feel pretty hard.

I'd suggest a starting point of Half bodyweight per hand. For you that's 36kg.
With a goal of bodyweight per hand, or total load somewhere around your max deadlift.

Thanks for that Mellor... yeah I was thinking 24kg was pretty light but with it being a work gym I am limited. The most that I can get in 2 dumbbells is 30kg each. I could probably get 2 plates up to 35kg but they are biggish so quite awkward to hold 2 in each hand. So I am doing them more frequently during a session to try and counteract that it is a lightish weight but you have given me at least an idea of what I should be aiming for so thanks for that.

Mellor · 29-08-2019 12:33am

It's one of those lifts that progress very fast initially. You'd soon grow out of kettle bells and dumbells.
When I was doing them regularly I had access to proper handles which made a huge difference.

In order to work with limited weight, you could do an overhead variation like a waiter walk, or press walk. 24-30kg would be much tougher like that. You might even need to wind back the first few sets.

There also suitcase carries with a loaded barbell

carltonleon · 29-08-2019 9:01am

Wow, they are great and you just load up on each end, absolutely ideal.
I have tried the waiter walks with 16kg initially just to get the confidence in my form and will look to increase that.
I was even thinking of getting a couple of straps and strapping them around some plates and try to hold them like that but I would say it would not be the most comfortable for walking

silverharp · 29-08-2019 9:48am

I had stumbled over this guy , he was doing a “100 day Challenge” Farmers carry (he is 59), he seemed to have had good results though I wouldnt be prepared to walk around Dublin for an hour carrying kettlebells

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDQ71HPJR5o

Mellor · 29-08-2019 10:47am

"carltonleon wrote: »

I have tried the waiter walks with 16kg initially just to get the confidence in my form and will look to increase that.

Id even wind it back lighter getting started.
Inspired by this thread I did some waiter walks this evening. And 16kg overhead is tougher than a 32kg farmers walk. Which makes sense if you think of one as a walking press and the other a walking deadlift.

carltonleon · 29-08-2019 11:09am

Mellor wrote: »

Id even wind it back lighter getting started.
Inspired by this thread I did some waiter walks this evening. And 16kg overhead is tougher than a 32kg farmers walk. Which makes sense if you think of one as a walking press and the other a walking deadlift.

Perfect, I will take your advice and knock it back on the waiter walk to get started and look to increase from there.. Thanks again

Reps4jesus · 30-08-2019 8:56am

Mellor wrote: »

Id even wind it back lighter getting started.
Inspired by this thread I did some waiter walks this evening. And 16kg overhead is tougher than a 32kg farmers walk. Which makes sense if you think of one as a walking press and the other a walking deadlift.

Big fan of waiters carries but find them very difficult. If using straps i can farmers carry 180kg for 30 meter stretches, but really struggle with anything above 15kg on waiters so i generally try do them for longer distances. I really should do them more often

Mellor · 30-08-2019 9:54am

Reps4jesus wrote: »

Big fan of waiters carries but find them very difficult. If using straps i can farmers carry 180kg for 30 meter stretches, but really struggle with anything above 15kg on waiters so i generally try do them for longer distances. I really should do them more often

Farmers carry is a derivative of your deadlift.
Waiter carry is a derivative of your press.

So Those numbers aren't crazy tbh. I'd expect farmers to be 3-5 times waiters.

silverharp · 30-08-2019 11:30am

I mainly do hex bar dead lift , they are basically the same for me using farmer handles. If your gym has a hex bar that's another way of doing the farmer carry

carltonleon · 30-08-2019 9:44pm

Reps4jesus wrote: »

Big fan of waiters carries but find them very difficult. If using straps i can farmers carry 180kg for 30 meter stretches, but really struggle with anything above 15kg on waiters so i generally try do them for longer distances. I really should do them more often

180kg!!! 😳😳.... Holy **** !!!!

carltonleon · 30-08-2019 9:50pm

Maybe I am doing waiter walks with incorrect form or something but I found 16kg to be ok and not a massive struggle... how far are you talking about walking? Perhaps I am not doing them far enough

Mellor · 31-08-2019 4:46am

carltonleon wrote: »

Maybe I am doing waiter walks with incorrect form or something but I found 16kg to be ok and not a massive struggle... how far are you talking about walking? Perhaps I am not doing them far enough

16kg per hand, press overhead and walk the length of the gym and back.
I did 10,12,16 to get shoulders warmed up. I’ll aim for 20kg and so on.

carltonleon · 01-09-2019 10:46pm

Ah ok, I thought that for waiters walks, that you did each hand separately, (ie) 16kg in right hand , finish walk and then change to left hand. That’s what I did, so should I have had a weight in each? I thought (possibly incorrectly) that with a weight in just one hand that your core had to work harder to stabilise you as you are being pulled one side with the weight.

Mellor · 01-09-2019 11:22pm

carltonleon wrote: »

Ah ok, I thought that for waiters walks, that you did each hand separately, (ie) 16kg in right hand , finish walk and then change to left hand. That’s what I did, so should I have had a weight in each? I thought (possibly incorrectly) that with a weight in just one hand that your core had to work harder to stabilise you as you are being pulled one side with the weight.

I think strictly speaking Waiter walk is one hand, and two hands would be a press walk. And yes, with one hand core would work harder but shoulders have it easier as you can compensate left to right.

carltonleon · 02-09-2019 9:08am

Mellor wrote: »

I think strictly speaking Waiter walk is one hand, and two hands would be a press walk. And yes, with one hand core would work harder but shoulders have it easier as you can compensate left to right.

So basically do both for maximum benefits

Mellor · 02-09-2019 9:53am

carltonleon wrote: »

So basically do both for maximum benefits

Probably not necessary to do both together. Once you approach max effort with either version you’ll be working hard everywhere. Better off spending the time on a completely different muscle/exercise.

Although, alternating every week/workout could be good. I’ll give the one arm version go tomorrow

carltonleon · 02-09-2019 11:18am

Mellor wrote: »

Probably not necessary to do both together. Once you approach max effort with either version you’ll be working hard everywhere. Better off spending the time on a completely different muscle/exercise.

Although, alternating every week/workout could be good. I’ll give the one arm version go tomorrow

Good advice Mellor and makes sense, Thanks for all the advice in this thread, it has helped me get a better understanding of the exercise and it's variants....

Mellor · 14-09-2019 10:33am

How are you going with the loaded carries now?
I’ve been playing with them a bit. Mostly press (double)!carries to minimise time. But i’ve also been using waiter (single) carries to bridge the gap to next level.

Eg:
Today I did 20kg double carry. Then 24kg single
Next week I’ll do 24kg double, and a 28kg single etc

Might need to increase the gap between them to 8kg as they get heavier though.

Farmers Walks

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