The Farmers Walk: Programming it for Powerlifters + Meet Update

What’s up everyone. First off, I want to remind all of you that it is that magical time of year again:



It’s time for the TPS/RPS Power Challenge. Yep. It’s coming up on October 8th & 9th right here in beautiful Malden, Mass. We’ve got over 200 lifters scheduled over 2 days and my life will be hell for a while. If you are in town and want to see some great lifting come by Jackson Street Hall in Malden. TeamTPS will be there lifting too. Carlos Moran is looking at his first 2000 pound total in the Raw 198 class, and we have all of our lovely ladies lifting too, including the World’s Strongest Granny, Jane Stabile is using this a qualifier for the Arnold XPC. And….. If you can volunteer, we really need help with the platform crew. If you can spare a few hours Saturday or Sunday to give back to the sport and help us run a great meet, it will all benefit the Malden Emergency Center. We are running the meet to help raise funds for the all-volunteer Emergency Center. C’mon, you know you’ve got a few hours to spare over the weekend. Shoot me an email or leave a comment on this post to contact you.

Now onto The Farmers Walk: Programming it for Powerlifters

If you’ve read my logs before you know I love the Farmers Walk. It has carry over to just about everything and I feel if you are able to do it, you should be doing it regardless of your training goals. It can be programmed for just about anything. Go balls heavy and use it for strength. Go medium, and use if for conditioning. Go light and use it for GPP. It’s up to you.

Now, let’s talk about The Farmers Walk and Programming it for Powerlifters specifically.

I like using the Farmers Walk just about all year with our lifters. We wave it in using a 1 handed option and using both hands from time to time. Let’s go over what the Farmers Walk works:

• Grip Torso (think abs for all you meatheads) Ankle Strength Knee Strength Hip Strength Upper Back Strength Guts Will More

So, what if we add in the one handed version? The one hand Farmers Walk works your torso to a foolishly high degree. It also helps to build muscles that support your spine without adding in harmful shear forces. Years ago I was involved with a study done by Dr. Stuart McGill at Art McDermott’s old gym, 180. We were asked to bring a bunch of the crew up to Artie’s place to be test dummies for Dr. McGill. He had all kinds of bells, whistles and science stuff to test the effect of various exercises and how they relate to torso stability and spine-friendliness. The one hand Farmers Walk and the Farmers Walk came out high on the list. You can run this through the Google machine if you want to read further. Trust me, McGill knows a thing or two about the spine. So, how do we program it? I like to wave in different distances and weights over the course of the training cycle. I also use the two handed and one handed variants depending on other factors such as where we are in the cycle, what our objective is and so forth. For example, if we are in a high intensity wave on the Squat, Bench and Deadlift, I will not program the lift heavy for short trips. That would be far too taxing on the athlete’s ability to recover. I use the really heavy stuff in volume blocks and do not add in a lot of assistance work on the same day. Intensity Block Example: Week 1 Squat 3x3 RPE 9 Deadlift builder 4x4 RPE 8 Farmers Walk (two hands) Length of Turph* x 1, moderate weight/fast x 6 trips Abs *Turph is the name my graphic designer and fellow meathead powerlifter Dave Polito gave to the Turf section (it’s 25 yards) Week 2 Squat 3x2 RPE 9/10 Deadlift builder 4x3 RPE 8 Farmers Walk (two hands) Length of Turph x 1, moderate weight/fast x 8 trips Abs Week 3 Squat 2x1 RPE 9 Deadlift builder 3x3 RPE 7 Farmers Walk (one hands) Length of Turph x 1 hand then switch hands, moderate weight/fast x 4 sets Abs As you can see, if you do this as your Day 1 session and give 100% to your first 2 lifts, you will not have a lot of energy left for much else. I have had a lot of success with this concept. They do the bulk of the lower body accessory work on Day 3 with deadlifts, and a little on Day 4 which is usually rep work for upper body but does include lower. Lower accessory will usually be back raise, GHRs or something like that. Low nervous system and volume are the goals.

What about programming the Farmers Walk in a volume wave?

 



Easy. This is where I will stick to the same style formula but add in more weight and possibly trips. Let’s see: Week 1 Squat 5x6 RPE 7 Deadlift Builder 3x8 RPE 7 Farmers Walk-length of Turph -bawlz heavy, no drops x 4 trips Week 2 Squat 5x5 RPE 8 Deadlift Builder 4x8 RPE 8 Farmers Walk- ½ length of Turph -bawlz heavy, no drops x 5 trips Week 3 Squat 5x6 RPE 7 Deadlift Builder 4x6 RPE 7 Farmers Walk- ½ length of Turph -bawlz heavy, no drops x 3 trips, 10 foot trips AHAP! X 3 trips The one handed variety can also be substituted here. I do not suggest going as heavy as possible on these. When doing the one handed Farmers Walk the goal is to be stable, or as the people who graduated from Official Personal Trainer School say, focus on anti-rotation. I just tell them to be tight, stable and don’t twist. It sounds less dorky. There you have it. A few ideas for programming the Farmers Walk for Powerlifters. Now get out and start getting strong(er).

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