Farmer carry: how to do it, and how many

How it should look

Heavy in both hands, ribs stacked over hips, walk tall and keep breathing.

What it needs

Two weights, or one heavy one. Shopping bags count and always have.

With nothing at all

A full bag of shopping in each hand, one lap of the house. This is the one pattern most people already do and have never counted.

The three faults that actually show up

Not an exhaustive list. These are the ones that turn up, in this order, and each is written as the fix rather than as the mistake.

The shoulders creep up

Pull them down and back before you pick the weight up, and keep them there. The weight hangs from the frame, not from the neck.

The steps get short and shuffly

Walk normally. If you cannot, it is too heavy, and a heavy carry you shuffle under trains nothing but tolerance.

The breathing stops

Breathe the whole way. Holding your breath is how a carry becomes a strain.

Easier, and harder

The same movement, scaled. Take the easier version until it is easy, then take the harder one. Neither is a different exercise and neither is a lesser one.

Easier

Lighter, and shorter trips. The posture is the point.

Harder

One side only. The trunk does the work the second weight was doing.

Or swap it for

Lighter weights, shorter trips. One side only, which makes the trunk do the work. Overhead, once a heavy one is comfortable

What an MDRN plan starts you on

Straight out of the plan engine, not out of an article. This is the band before anything moves it: experience sets it, the goal then tilts it, and the block moves it a rung at a time across twelve weeks, so your own plan may read heavier or longer than this.

New to this

2 sets of 10 when it leads the session, 2 sets of 12 when it does not. Stop with 4 in the tank.

Coming back to it

3 sets of 8 when it leads the session, 2 sets of 10 when it does not. Stop with 3 in the tank.

Training already

3 sets of 8 when it leads the session, 3 sets of 10 when it does not. Leave 2 in reserve.

Years of it

4 sets of 5 when it leads the session, 3 sets of 8 when it does not. Leave 1 to 2 in reserve.

The longer version

• The six movements a week of training actually needsPush, pull, hinge, squat, carry, brace. Every useful strength programme is a rearrangement of these six, and you can do all of them in a front room with no equipment.