Single Arm Farmers Walk

The Single Arm Farmers Walk is one of the most underrated yet most versatile and impactful exercise any fitness enthusiast, personal trainer, or athlete can use.

What is the Single Arm Farmers Walks?

Simply put you walk with one dumbbell, ketltlebell, or farmers walk handle bars and then just walk. It sounds really simple but has so many benefits packed into one simple little exercise.

Single Arm Farmers Walk- benefits

Benefits of the Single Arm Farmers Walks

This one exercise can strengthen your grip, abs, and QL, build your lats, delts, and traps just to name a few. To top this it can be used a nice finisher or conditioning exercise, as you squeeze in the benefits of strengthening your trunk and pretty much everything else.

As personal trainers in NYC, most of our clients and athletes are very short on time. This is why we like to utilize exercises that pack a LOT of bang for your buck. The single arm farmers walk does just that!

It also is great for athletes and personal training clients that are rehabilitating a lower back or upper injury. For me, I herniated my disc and I know that strengthening my trunk via single arm farmers walk has helped me tremendously. IF you have a lower back issue, I’d make sure to consult with your doctor or personal trainer before you implement it. With that said, I don’t see many contraindications with this exercise as long as it’s executed correctly.

What NOT to Do

Programming the Single Arm Farmers Walk

For most of our personal training clients we use this as there ab exercise, finisher, or activation.

Ab Exercise Programming

As stated working as a NYC personal trainer, time is of the essence. With that said we usually have about 4-6min for abs. For use we usually pair the ab/trunk exercises together at the end or within a circuit.

Example 1:

1A: Single Arm Farmers Walk 3×20 yards down and back
2A: Toe touches 3×15
3A: Side Plank 3x20sec

Example 2:

1A: Squat 4×5
2A: Push Ups 4×10
3A: Inverted Rows 4×10
4A: Single Arm Farmers Walk- 3×20 yards zig zag down and back.

Activation

The single arm farmers walk can be used as a warm up tool to “activate” the upper back and the trunk. Keep in mind that if you do this as an activation the weights should be challenging but not fatiguing, you want the body to be primed for the main exercises.

Example:

1A: Farmers walk down and back 3×20 yards *lighter weight
2A: Waiter walks down and back 3×20 yards *lighter weight

Finisher

When using the single arm farmers walk as a finisher you want to challenge the client or athlete. This means they should be going heavy, however it should not be so challenging that they start to compensate by leaning, slouching, or hyper extending.

Example: