Introduction

No other single exercise has so many benefits as farmers walk do. It will be activating every muscle group in your body. Farmers walk is a functional exercise that helps your body to improve its performance in a very basic manner. Functional training is any movement that helps our body to elevate our performance in your day to day work. For example, Deadlift is a functional exercise that makes you more capable of lifting anything from the ground.

Similarly, benefits of farmers walk include improvement in core strength, more muscle power, stronger delts, bigger traps, fat loss, monstrous gripping strength, and healthier posterior chain.

This article is going to focus on the benefits of farmers walk, if you want to get more details then You can go through the detailed article by clicking here.

How To Perform Farmers Walk?

Before we jump on the benefits of farmers walk, it’s important to learn ‘how to perform farmers walk’. We all have been performing the movement of farmers walk since the day we started walking on our feet. Its guide is very simple yet very effective.

Arrange a pair of heavy dumbbells or kettlebell or anything heavy and put is on the ground.

If you are trying farmers walk for the first time, make sure dumbbell weight is at least 50% of your body weight.

Lift them from the ground and walk for a specified distance. Distance could be anything from 50M to 1000M.

Try your best to maintain correct posture, with a straight back and tight shoulders.

In order to see progressive gains, supplement your dumbbells with additional weights.

Check out this video, which describes how to perform farmers walk-

Before we discuss the benefits of farmers walk, let’s get to know some accessories that can improve your performance while doing farmer’s walk.

Farmers Walk Benefits:

Farmers walk benefits were first discovered by Dan John. Dan John is a former All-American discus thrower, has competed at the highest level of Olympic lifting, strength coach and author of many bestseller books.

Farmers walk benefits were propagated by may lifters for many years but still, there are many people who have never tried this incredible exer cise. Farmers walk is a single exercise that will help you built some serious muscle mass, shed that extra fat, and will help you elevate your performance in any other play. Let’s discuss the benefits of farmers walk.

#1 Forearms

No other exercise can do better than Farmers walk for the development of stronger and bigger forearms. If you are the one who always struggles with your smaller forearms then you should definitely try this wonderful exercise.

Farmers walk to have a great impact on your forearms size and grip strength. Stop doing those wrist curls and focus on lifting more weight with your bare hands.

For those who use ‘lifting straps’ should start thinking about ditching those straps and lift those heavy weights with a bare hand.

#2 Bigger Traps

Farmers walk increases the time under tension for bigger traps. A perfect exercise to add up with your traps training routine. When you perform shrugs, all contraction happens when you squeeze your traps muscle and lift the weight up, but when you release the pressure to get in the bottom position, that time your shrugs remains untrained. Performing farmer’s walk with your shrugs will train your traps even when they are not squeezed and at the bottom position.

#3 Stronger Shoulders and Delts.

Farmers walk and deadlifts are especially beneficial to develop bigger shoulders muscle. In addition to training your traps, farmers walk is proven to be a wonderful exercise to develop stronger shoulders and delts.

For those who are struggling with the presence of additional fat storage on shoulders, delts and upper back should definitely try farmers walk for greater results.

#4 Weight loss

It is definitely one of the greatest sources of weight loss; here are the few reasons behind it.

Compound exercise – as stated earlier, farmers walk are a great compound exercise, it challenges your every major muscle group.

as stated earlier, farmers walk are a great compound exercise, it challenges your every major muscle group. High metabolism- farmers walk is a great exercise to built more muscle, it challenges your whole body to work out which ultimately leads to better metabolism.

#5 More muscles

There aren’t many exercises available which can challenge your whole body. Farmers walk will help you build stronger core, forearms, shoulders, delts, traps, obliques, glutes, hamstrings.

So this means you are challenging your every muscle group to work, which will ultimately lead to better muscle growth.

For those who are like to do a workout at home or who like to do bodyweight exercises only, these farmers walk is a great option to train there every muscle in a single exercise.

#6 Stronger Abs and oblique

Many people tend to perform thousands of crunches in order to get beautiful abs, most of them fail miserably. Crunches could be used to sculpt your abs but they aren’t much effective in abdominal fat burn.

Farmers walk is a perfect solution for those who are struggling to achieve a fat-less abdomen.

Additionally, to getting good looking and stronger abs, farmers walk also puts great emphasis on oblique development. Most of the abs routines never concentrate on stronger oblique but this loaded carries exercise will do wonders to beautiful and stronger obliques as well.

#7 Raw strength

Many old bodybuilders and powerlifters practice their exercises routine in the ‘old school’ way, instead of opting for new fancy gyms.

Farmers walk concentrates majorly on strength and muscle gain, you will be required to practice isolation movements for better muscle conditioning.

#8 Lesser chances of Injuries

Lifting weight in farmers walk is the most common practicing we have been doing since ages. Our ancestors used to carry weight from one place to another place by lifting it with bare hands.

Technology has ruined us by making everything simple and easy. But still, we all are used to of lifting any object in farmers walk form.

Our body has developed to lift any object in this form, hence making it more natural to lift a weight.

#9 You can do it every day

It’s always suggested not to perform the same exercise every day. But for those who prefer to workout without the gym aren’t left with many options. When you are doing a workout without a gym, then you are left with a hand full of compound exercises like pushups, pull-ups, and bodyweight squats.

A slight change in the routine can make it possible for you to perform these farmers walk on a daily basis. There can be three different types of the intensity you can opt to perform this exercise on a daily basis.

Day 1: Heavy Day- Lift heavy (bodyweight), short distance (10-20 meters)

Day 2: Medium Day– Lift moderate (2/3 of the body), med distance (40-50 meters)

Day 3: Light Day- Lift light (1/2 of the body), long-distance (100 meters)

Farmers walk muscle worked

Primary muscle involved in Farmers Walk

FAQs about Farmers walk

What muscles does the farmers walk work? Farmers walk is one of the greatest compound exercises that work on your whole body. It will strengthen your Forearms, Arms, Shoulders, Upper Back, Core, and Whole Posterior Chain.

Farmer’s walk engagement with the lower body is little less than the upper body but it will surely help in strengthening and stabilizing Glutes, Quads, and Calves.

Farmers walk is super beneficial for Bigger Traps and Grip strength. How much weight for farmers walk? Farmers walk can help you gain muscular strength and endurance.

If you aim to gain monstrous strength then you should be aiming for lifting heavyweights. Lift heavy (bodyweight) for a short distance (10-20 meters). Some powerlifters train with 200% of their body weight. How often do farmers walk? You should do the heavy lifting only once or twice a week.

Feel free to practice moderate or lightweight farmers’ walk on a regular basis.

Lifters who love to practice farmers walk on 5 days a week can choose to lift lightweight for two days, moderate weight for twice a week, and heavy lifts only once a week. Is Farmers walk good for cardio? Short answer: yes, its better than other boring forms of cardio.

Farmer’s walk workouts burn fat and increase metabolic conditioning because of two reasons:

1- Because of added resistance it will make your heart thumping at a faster rate

2- It helps in building lean muscle mass which improves the resting metabolic rate.

Do you know every pound of muscle mass will improve your metabolic rate with 50 calories? that means gaining 4-5 pounds of muscle mass will shoot up your metabolism by 250-300 calories.

Practice light-weighted farmers’ walk if you want it to utilize as effective cardio. Additionally, use wrist straps to help you walk for a longer duration. Can you do farmers walks on a treadmill? Of course, treadmills work really great for lightweight farmers walk.

Grab 20-kg dumbbells or weight plates in both hands and hop on the treadmill.

Keep the pace very slow (2-3 mph) and always keep a spotter ready to hold the weight once you hit failure.

Want to strengthen your obliques? Grab a weight plate or dumbbell in single-hand and walk for 1-minute each side for 5-sets.

Farmer’s Walk Accessories

Farmers walk is definitely a great way to improve strength and achieve body stability. We are introducing you the accessories that will surely improve your overall performance and body composition.

Note: We are not paid sponsors of any brand, our selection of products is strictly unbiased and mainly based on the performance and personal experience.

Dark Iron Fitness Lifting Belt

You definitely need a lifting belt if you are planning to go heavy in your farmer’s walk. Dark Iron is proving a genuine leather belt that is built to last longer, it will provide the required support to go heavy without being worried about probable injury.

Choose the Powelifting belts instead of buying a weight lifting belts, weight lifting belrs are incapable of supporting torso while heavy farmers walk.

Cobra Grips PRO Weight Lifting Gloves

Forearms have lower endurance in comparison to much bigger back muscle. Your forearms might be restricting you to go heavy on your farmers walk, solution? Use Cobra Grip PRO weight lifting gloves, it will release the stress from forearms and will allow you to go further for bigger and stronger back and traps.

Titan 60″ Farmers Walk Handles

Farmers walk is a versatile exercise that mainly focuses on improving body stability and strength. Farmers walk handles should be your top choice for a home gym, within a few weeks of practice you will be able to experience drastic changes in your overall strength.

Cap Olympic Trap Bar,

Farmer’s walk handles are a bit unstable and might not be very suitable for the lifter with low strength levels. Having a trap bar will allow you to practice deadlifting as well. This can be a great add on to your personal strength.

Fat Gripz

These are the most effective gateway to developing insane forearm strength. Fat gripz are mainly used for bicep curl but it can be used for your farmers walk as well.

Make sure, you practice with low weight, you won’t be able to sustain heavy farmers walk with this fat gripz.



Thanks for reading. Questions welcomed in the comments as always.

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