How to do a farmer’s walk
- Place a heavy dumbbell or kettlebell beside each foot (or use farmer’s handles).
- Squat or hinge down with a flat back, grip the handles in the middle and stand up tall, as in a deadlift.
- Pull your shoulders back and down, brace your stomach and look straight ahead.
- Walk with short, quick, steady steps, keeping the weights still at your sides.
- At the end of the distance, stop, then set the weights down with the same flat back you picked them up with.
Cues that help
- "Crush the handles": a tight grip keeps the weights from swinging.
- "Walk tall": as if a string pulls the top of your head up.
- "Short steps": quicker, shorter steps keep the weights stable.
- "Shoulders away from your ears": your traps hold the weight without shrugging.
Common mistakes
- Leaning to one side or forward. Stay upright, as if you were standing still.
- Long strides that make the weights swing into your legs.
- Rounding your back to pick the weights up or set them down.
- Starting too heavy. If you can’t hold the weights for 20 metres, go lighter.
Training it for HYROX
The farmers carry in HYROX is 200 metres and comes after a lot of running and other stations, so grip endurance matters as much as strength. Practise carries with the race weight for your division when you are already tired, for example after a run or a set of lunges, and train heavier carries for shorter distances on other days. Setting the weights down briefly and picking them up again is often faster than dropping them because your grip failed.
Sets, distance and weight
- For strength and grip: 3 to 5 carries of 20 to 40 metres, heavy, resting 1 to 2 minutes.
- For conditioning: lighter weights for 60 to 100 metres or more.
- A common target is half your body weight in each hand for 30 metres; strong lifters carry their full body weight split over both hands and more.
Variations and alternatives
- Suitcase carry: a weight in one hand only, so your core has to stop you leaning.
- Trap bar carry: heavier, with the load centred.
- Shrugs: the traps on their own.
- Deadlift: the heavy grip and posture work, without the walk.
Tracking your carries
PushBeyond logs the weight and reps of each set, so log each length you carry as one rep (it doesn’t record distance or time). It charts the history of the exercise, and its muscle map counts the farmer’s walk for your forearms and traps, with your core as a helper.