Why Farmers Walks?
Farmer’s walks will make your life easier; improve running speed; strengthen ankles; address structural/muscular imbalances; strengthen every muscle from head to toe; impart an athletic advantage unrivalled by any conventional training stimulus; aid in rehabilitation; burns body fat; and just generally makes you alpha A.F…
They make life easier:
The functionality of Farmer’s Walks cannot be overstated: if you compete in strongman, the Farmer’s Walk is essential to your training. If you are not a competitor in any sport, the Farmer’s Walk is still about as functional as it gets and should be performed by pretty much everyone. By functional, I’m not talking about swiss ball crunches or squats on a bosu ball - that’s considered “functional” for reasons I have yet to comprehend - I’m talking about an exercise that we all do every single day. Any time you carry a weight you are performing a Farmer’s Walk to some extent - carrying shopping, bags, kids, etc - they’re all loaded carries that will all get significantly easier when you train heavy Farmer’s Walks…
Improved running speed:
Your Vastus Medialis Oblique [VMO - a teardrop shaped muscle just above and slightly to the side of the knee] plays a vital role during the stance phase when running - which is the time spent on the ground during each stride [ground contact] - the stronger your VMO, the shorter your stance phase, which means the switch between eccentric and concentric contractions is reduced. Loosely translated, the Farmer’s Walk [along with sled work] is particularly good at strengthening the VMO which means faster running times and greater knee stability.
Farmer’s walks will make your life easier; improve running speed; strengthen ankles; address structural/muscular imbalances; strengthen every muscle from head to toe; impart an athletic advantage unrivalled by any conventional training stimulus; aid in rehabilitation; burns body fat; and just generally makes you alpha A.F…
They make life easier:
The functionality of Farmer’s Walks cannot be overstated: if you compete in strongman, the Farmer’s Walk is essential to your training. If you are not a competitor in any sport, the Farmer’s Walk is still about as functional as it gets and should be performed by pretty much everyone. By functional, I’m not talking about swiss ball crunches or squats on a bosu ball - that’s considered “functional” for reasons I have yet to comprehend - I’m talking about an exercise that we all do every single day. Any time you carry a weight you are performing a Farmer’s Walk to some extent - carrying shopping, bags, kids, etc - they’re all loaded carries that will all get significantly easier when you train heavy Farmer’s Walks…
Improved running speed:
Your Vastus Medialis Oblique [VMO - a teardrop shaped muscle just above and slightly to the side of the knee] plays a vital role during the stance phase when running - which is the time spent on the ground during each stride [ground contact] - the stronger your VMO, the shorter your stance phase, which means the switch between eccentric and concentric contractions is reduced. Loosely translated, the Farmer’s Walk [along with sled work] is particularly good at strengthening the VMO which means faster running times and greater knee stability.
Strengthen ankles:
Things like bosu balls and wobble boards do not provide the normal firing patterns found during movement in life or sport. The Farmer’s Walk effectively strengthens the ankles because it’s a load bearing, dynamic exercise that DOES duplicate the normal firing patterns in life and sport.
Addresses structural/muscular imbalances:
Because it is a unilateral exercise, the Farmer’s Walk is an excellent tool for sorting out muscular imbalances. Many people favour one side over the other - boxers will be either orthodox or southpaw, Olympic Lifters will have a preferred lead foot for the split jerk, footballers will favour their left or right foot, and some people are just f***ing goofy… Because many sports actually require one side of the body to be dominant over the other, it is easy to understand how muscle imbalances can occur. What’s great about Farmer’s Walks is that progress on this movement will be limited to the weaker side, which will force it to catch up with the stronger/more developed side.
The weight can also be loaded in favour of one side. This is useful for spine rebalancing, and in cases where the obliques or spinal erectors show an imbalance in strength and development - a case common in throwers and olympic lifters that, if left unchecked, will become a limiting factor when performing other tasks - deadlifts and squats, for example. This limiting factor can quite easily result in an injury further down the line…
Strengthen every muscle from head to toe:
It begins with a deadlift...
I love the deadlift, and I believe that when taught correctly it should be an essential movement for the vast majority of the population. It is an excellent posterior chain exercise, an important assistance exercise for the squat and the clean, and should be utilized regardless of whether your fitness goals are to rev up your metabolism, increase head to toe strength, up your lean body mass, decrease body fat, rehabilitate your back, correct posture, improve athletic performance or simply to keep your functional dependence as a senior… So Farmer’s Walks have all that plus a couple of other cool points:
The Farmer’s Walk is an excellent way to produce hypertrophy because it creates high levels of muscular tension and allows an athlete to maintain that tension for a prolonged period of time. This movement works the entire body and has been shown to stimulate a high hormonal response for muscular growth.
The Farmer’s Walk is the pinnacle of grip training, but it’s not just your forearms that take a pounding; your biceps and triceps will have to work hard to stabilize the elbow and shoulder whilst the muscles of the back, chest and shoulders work together in a continuous contraction to keep your shoulders stable and in the correct position. The Farmer’s Walk trains the upper body phenomenally well…
The “core” is hit ridiculously hard during a heavy Farmer’s Walk, and the back and abdomen must work in sync to support your torso and the additional weight. Research demonstrates that Farmer’s Walks and other loaded carries are great exercises for training the abdominal wall, external obliques and quadratus lumborum to create stability in the trunk. Training the midsection through loaded carries results in an efficient and braced trunk, allowing for greater stiffness and fewer energy leaks and injuries for athletes of all kinds, performing any and all lifts and tasks. Unilaterally loaded carries such as suitcase carries are an excellent way to train the midsection for athletes that change directions quickly, and for a positively delightful ‘core’ workout, try Farmer’s Walk start-stops. Initiate the walk either forwards or backwards, then stop suddenly. You will be forced to decelerate the apparatus and your core will hate you for it. Start-stops will teach the athlete to brace against heavy, shifting loads - rugby players and the like will find this of enormous benefit.
Because the Farmer’s Walk requires you to actually walk, the quadriceps, hamstrings, gluteus medius, gluteus minimus, and calf muscles are used extensively. A hill climb (not too steep) will target the glutes and calf muscles, shifting the emphasis from the quadriceps, which take the bulk of the load on the flats.
The Farmer’s Walk trains your body in a way that's useful beyond the gym. You can't underestimate the importance of grip strength and the ability to lift and carry heavy objects for health or in everyday life. The Farmer’s Walk is one of the most functional exercises in existence.
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Aid in rehabilitation:
For the very same reasons that the Farmer’s Walk can be used to strengthen ankles and address structural/muscular imbalances, it can be used to aid in rehabilitation. Remedial loads in bare feet on soft surfaces will force the firing of the lower leg stabilizers - handy for those who spend a lot of time in boots - builders, ice hockey players, etc. Strengthening the VMO can reduce the incidence of jumper’s knee in certain sports - volleyball, basketball, as well as improve running times, etc. And as mentioned earlier - rebalancing the spine in throwers, etc. *Use caution when in bare feet - unexpected drops are inevitable. *Use common sense with loading parameters. *Use common sense with footwear. Burns body fat: For those of you more interested in fat loss, the Farmers Walk is an excellent finisher. Literally every muscle in your body - even [especially] the ones in your face - must work to either stabilize, or move the weight efficiently. The more muscle groups you work, the greater the metabolic effect, the more calories you burn. Or you know, whatever - you can go walk on a treadmill or something… “Sit the f*** down and have a beer” ~ Coach Collins Copyright 2017 |
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