The Farmer’s Walk is a great lift for athletes and general strength enthusiasts.

It is great for building Grip Strength, and that is something that is important for all sports, as well as many other lifts in the gym.

The Farmer’s Walk also strengthens the upper back and shoulders, and improves the posture in addition to improving your conditioning.

Farmer’s Walk Technique

If you don’t do the Farmer’s Walk correctly, you can hurt yourself, so it is important to know the right techniques.

Someone recently wrote me asking about how to properly execute the turn in the Farmer’s Walk and I finally got the chance to shoot this video this week. While I shot it, I also covered some other basic technique points to consider to maximize your performance while minimizing your risk.

Here’s a list of key points for your Farmer’s Walk training, in case you’d like to print them out:

1. Equipment Set-up: When you add plates, make sure they are tight. Loose plates shift around and can throw your technique off. Tighten them with collars, Pony Clamps, Wrist Wraps, or something else that will keep them tight.

2. Stance: Make sure you take not of how you set up your feet. Have the handles right by the legs and place the feet equidistant from the handles. Stand near the center of the handle, or maybe even slightly forward of center, whichever feels best for you.

3. Grip Position: Depending on how you pull and how strong your grip is, you will either want to grip the handles right in the center or shifted slightly back. It is better to have the handles leaning down in front than down in back. Slightly down in front shifts the emphasis to the first two fingers. Down in back shifts it to the last two (and weakest two) fingers.

4. Chalk: Chalk up well. Chalk the inside of your palm and fingers as well as the thumb and the back of the fingers.

5. Thumb: Wrap your thumb up over your index finger, middle finger, or both, depending on what is comfortable. This contact will secure your grip and it is also why you want to chalk on the back of your fingers. If they are wet, your thumb will slip and that is no good.

6. Heels and Glutes: Push the heels into the ground when you pull the handles up, just like you would a narrow stance deadlift. When you near lockout, fire the glutes instead of the lower back. You’ll last longer this way and be able to do more sets.

7. Short Choppy Steps: Take short choppy steps when walking, especially the first few. This allows you to conserve energy and stay balanced during your stride. Once you pick up momentum, you can take longer strides, but it is almost always easier to maintain control with short choppy steps.

While I had the implements out, I decided to try something I never tried before, a One-Arm Deadlift with the Farmer Handle for a max lift.

Support Grip is one my areas of opportunity at contests, so it was interesting to try it out. Not sure how much my Farmers weigh – Maybe 25 lbs? I ended up getting 4 plates and a 25 per side, left-handed.

I loved the feeling of this lift, but I the knurling is a killer. After the Farmer’s attempts, Grippers felt ridiculous, but I worked them anyway.

My hand skin felt like a ran a cheese grader over my callus lines and fingers, but I kept on going…they felt like trash when I was done with my workout…

Today they felt just tremendous.

All the best with your training,

-Jedd-

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Hungry for MORE on the FARMER’S WALK?
Check out our STRONGMAN TRAINING DVD:

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Ultimate Forearm Training for Baseball | How to Bend Nails | How to Tear Cards | Feats of Grip Strength Explained | How to Build Your Own Equipment | How to Lift Atlas Stones | The Sh*t You’ve Never Seen | Sled Dragging for Athletes | The Road to the Record DVD

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• DVD Review: CRUSH – Total Gripper Domination

Tags: farmers walk, grip strength, grip training, strongman training

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 29th, 2010 at 9:18 pm and is filed under athletic strength training lift odd objects, grip hand forearm training for sports, grip strength, how to improve grip strength, strength training to improve athletic performance, strongman training for athletes, strongman training log stone tire farmer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.