Carries are a criminally underrated category of exercise. 

They engage your upper back, forearms, arms and mid section. Basically your entire upper body contracts isometrically as you cover distance. 

You could do them with dumbbells, barbells, trap bars, kettlebells or any implement.

But at our gym, we have one whacky implement that let’s you load up a farmers carry easily. It’s a handle that weighs 27.5 kgs. That’s close to 61 pounds. 

The grip is 28 mm in diameter. There’s a solid grip welded onto a folded plate with a rectangular 17 kg plate welded on to it. And a 50 mm rod projecting out to load plates onto. 

Sandhya has 12.5 kgs loaded on each side. She’s carrying a total of 80 kgs. For 40 feet of distance. 

Compact farmers carry handles do exist. But ours lay down on either side of your elegantly without collapsing onto the floor. You can see Sandhya pick it up and place it down from just above her knee level. 

And most importantly, the handles are held comfortably close to the torso. And the weights stack away. This means no instability like a dumbbell. Or a sloping ball pushing into you like a kettlebell. 

The entry barrier to an exercise like this is minimal. Which is why I love it. And it scales well too. You can make it harder by taken the stairs or a slope instead of flat terrain. Or just use more weight. Even a bag does the job. And there are variants: atlas, zercher, goblet, overhead. It’s endless really. 

But our toy is more fun to carry for sure :D