Why Farmers’ Walks Boost Longevity | Shebah Carfagna & Nate Wilkins

Farmers’ walks - carrying weight in each hand and moving with steady control - are catching on as a simple, full-body exercise that mirrors real life. In this episode Ageless Workout creators Nate Wilkins and Shebah Carfagna, explain why this straightforward movement does far more than build strength. It boosts grip power - a marker often linked with overall health and longevity - and helps improve posture, core stability, and balance. Switch to a single side carry and you add a strong anti-tilt challenge that wakes up the entire midsection.

From staying ready for travel to handling everyday tasks with confidence, the farmers’ walk reflects the kind of movement that supports aging well. 

This is the latest in our 20-part series, Move for Life. You should consult your healthcare providers before starting or modifying a fitness routine.

You should consult a doctor or qualified fitness professional before beginning a new exercise program, especially if you have an existing health concerns or limited mobility.

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Transcript

Peter Bowes: 0:24

Pick it up and walk. The Farmer's Walk builds grip, power, posture and total body control - movement that matters in everyday life. Hello again. This is the Live Long podcast, the latest in our series Move for Life with Nate Wilkins and Shebah Carfagna, where we focus on what you can do every day to move better and age stronger.

Nate Wilkins: 1:02

I actually did the farmer's walk this morning. It's not a flashy type of thing that you do, right? You can start out really light, right? You can grab kettlebells and I like to grab those, you know, dumbbells. And of course, Shebah doesn't want me to do heavy, but I like to have them as heavy as I can. You start out by picking them up the right way. We always talk about how you bend over and pick them up, and you use both arms and it starts to really take effect in the forearms. So what we're really talking about is this notion of grip strength. And so then you walk around with those weights as far as you can and then walk back, put them down. And by the time you get done, your cardiovascular system has kicked in your shoulders, your your core, everything is engaged. It is a excellent piece of workout for people like you and me and beginners as well.

Peter Bowes: 2:01

And why is it called a farmer's walk?

Nate Wilkins: 2:03

I think farmers actually are picking up things and walking. But what is your take on that? I'd be curious what your take is on that.

Peter Bowes: 2:13

My take is purely that it kind of mimics the kind of heavy lifting that farmers often do. You know, I know quite a lot of farmers who say, I never go to the gym because I get enough exercise on the ranch or on the farm with the lifting bales of straw or bags of food for their cattle or their sheep. They're constantly lifting, putting things down and well, in some cases feel like they don't need any more exercise than that. So I think that's where the name comes from.

Nate Wilkins: 2:41

You know, the other thing I was thinking is so maybe not farmers per se, but if you are traveling and you have bags to two bags and you're carrying two bags on each side, or if you have groceries, if you go to the store and you buy groceries, maybe you're carrying those groceries on two sides. So it mimics those types of motions, I would say.

Peter Bowes: 3:02

And Shebah, tell us what the benefits are for this kind of movement. You're walking with heavy weights. You can do it with just one weight on one side or two weights. What are the benefits in terms of our physical strength?

Shebah Carfagna: 3:15

Well, let me say this and back up just a second. The farmer's walk is not for just gentlemen. The farmer's walk is for ladies as well, because it builds that overall body strength. As you all have pointed out, the grip strength, but also strengthen the extensors and it allows us to pick up the children, the groceries. It's also for training to travel, but that is part of our one of our mainstays and our Train to Travel program. Because if you're a woman and you're moving around with your own suitcase, you have to put it up on the racks. You want to be able to do that with the least amount of assistance as possible. Maneuvering your suitcases I travel very heavy, so it's important for me to do it, but the overall benefit is it puts this extra pressure on the body in a shorter time frame of a lot of weight. So, you know, you pick them up, you carry them and you walk with them and you feel that core stability, it builds core stability. It also keeps your ability to walk forward and move forward. And so you're able to do that I believe it increases agility. It's good for me with the hip replacement because it's more load on for me. But generally speaking for everyone, it builds upper body strength, overall core strength, leg strength, you know, depending on how far you carry them. Or you can. And if you're a beginner, the beautiful thing is everyone can do this exercise, whether you're beginner or an expert, whether you're older or not. In fact, for older adults, I highly recommend it. Maybe not a 50 pound like you and Nate in each hand, but something like 8-10 pounds to mimic walking and work on your posture.

Peter Bowes: 4:50

And as with everything Nate, you start small with you start with the lightweights.

Nate Wilkins: 4:55

I would agree with you starting light and then building up a heavy heavier as you go. Somewhere at about 20 to 30s is what the recommendation is. The other thing, Peter, is that this this thing about grip strength or farmers walk, multiple studies show that that grip strength is a reliable biomarker for overall health and life expectancy. So what we're saying is that grip strength equals longevity.

Shebah Carfagna: 5:26

One of the things you can do for grip strength is that old fashioned gripper. Remember that old fashioned gripper they used to use in the gym? Doing that over and over again. If you cannot do a farmer's walk increases the flexibility in your wrist, your arms, and you need that to do activities of daily living. So you can see by my grip strength, my extensor muscle is sticking out here. Even though I'm an older woman. You need that to be able to do ADLs. That's an old school kind of piece of equipment. Just because they used it a long time ago and science has come a long way, doesn't mean it's not a beneficial piece of equipment.

Peter Bowes: 6:01

Now, just coming back to the farmer's walk. It's also beneficial, isn't it, if we're working on our balance and especially if we're just using one weight. So there's a weight down our left hand side, but you're still trying to keep that straight posture, right?

Shebah Carfagna: 6:16

It's actually a balance and core strength. So by having that extra weight on one side challenges the body to be upright. So we do a lot of bilateral training anyway. That's a very good point that can strengthen your body and your posture by carrying one again, it can be done with it for a more mature person with 10 pounds on one side, and then you can lean forward from that and go into an arabesque position where you lift up the back leg. So there's many different options of exercises and progressions you can do from the farmer's walk with one side at a time.

Nate Wilkins: 6:50

In research that we found, it talks about forcing stabilization alignment. So you get the work in again in your hips, in your traps, in your glutes, your shoulders, your forearms. It is like an overall program when you talk about farmer's walk with this grip thing. So another way that perhaps you can measure grip is maybe you're holding on to a bar overhead and seeing how long you can hold or, you know, even with squeezing something really tight and seeing how long you could hold on with the squeeze a towel or something like that. I mean, I haven't read any more scientific ways of doing that, but these are the ways that I've been trying to do it, because I understand that my grip, you know, is important. Opening up a bottle or something.

Shebah Carfagna: 7:40

That flexibility in your hands, you can do it with a squeezy ball, you know, even even to, you know, strong athletes like you two would benefit from a squeezy ball. A tennis ball which is not as flexible. And you try to squeeze that increases your grip strength, that movement through the fingers. Because as we get older, our hands get stiff, our fingers, you know, kind of get bent over. But you really want to keep this flexibility so you can grip. So you can go to the gym.

Peter Bowes: 8:09

And we've talked about doing farmer's walks with the kettlebell. Of course you don't need to use a kettlebell. Not everyone has access to them. You can improvise can't you?

Nate Wilkins: 8:18

You can use household items. As an example, right? I mean, just pick up something and hold on to it really tight and walk around with it. You know, we talk about weights and kettlebells and what have you, but, you know, just picking up stuff from the grocery store, same detergent as.

Shebah Carfagna: 8:33

The detergent is a wonderful example. And so in pinch situations where we've had to improvise at the last minute, we have used bottles of detergent, bleach, you know, now they make those big liquid detergents and you're actually imitating a farmer's walk when you pull it off the shelf and walk and put it in the cart. So again, kettlebells are great, weights are great. Anything that you can physically pick up is good.

Peter Bowes: 8:58

And once again, and this has become a common theme of these discussions we've been having these past few weeks. This form of exercise is really just mimicking what we do in everyday life, and the reason we're doing it is to survive in everyday life.

Shebah Carfagna: 9:13

Is that not the truth? That is absolutely the truth. To prepare ourselves for what's ahead tomorrow.

Nate Wilkins: 9:19

So what we say if you want to, if you want to age strong, if you want to age with balance and your age, well then you load it up, you pick it up and you walk around with it. That's kind of how we see this whole thing with farmers walking and carrying heavy items.

Peter Bowes: 9:35

So the farmer's walk improves posture, grip and endurance, keeping you strong, steady and capable. Simple movement and powerful results. The Live Long podcast is a Healthspan Media production. I'm Peter Bowes, you can contact me through our website livelongpodcast.com, where you'll also find show notes for this episode.

DISCLAIMER: 9:56

This podcast is for informational, educational and entertainment purposes only. We do not offer medical advice. If you have health concerns of any kind or you are considering adopting a new diet or exercise regime, you should first consult your doctor.