I don't know about you, but I hate cardio. I despise it
with a passion. But I do care about silly things like general
health, improved nutrient partitioning, and getting my body-fat
percentage into single digits. So I know I have to do some type of
general conditioning work. I just can't bring myself to do it
the way most gym rats would, by planting my ass on a stationary
bike or plodding along on a treadmill.
TMUSCLE readers know there are lots of better ways to do energy-systems work, no matter if you're doing it for
fat loss, general conditioning, or because you have too much time
on your hands. I'd like to add one more to your
arsenal.
For the past few months, I've been using a simple, but by
no means easy, conditioning system with some of my clients and in
my own training. We actually look forward to our cardio sessions
now, which I assure you was not the case before.
All you do is pick up something heavy and carry it as fast as
you can for 100 steps or 60 seconds, whichever is easier for you to
calculate.
That's it.
No trends, no tricks, no machines with televisions attached.
This is cardio for real men and women, with real benefits,
including these:
Core strength
In a recent study published in the Journal of Strength and
Conditioning Research, Stuart McGill and colleagues at the
University of Waterloo in Canada looked at how hard a variety of
middle-body muscles work during Strongman events.
The ones that involved carries — farmer's walk, super
yoke walk, suitcase carries, and keg walks — required
substantial core activation. The authors suggest that traditional
lifting programs could be improved with the addition of carrying
exercises.
When lugging heavy objects, your core is immediately called into
action to stabilize your entire body. Your obliques, rectus
abdominis, and spinal erectors brace to protect your spine. Your
quadratus lumborum and gluteus medius go into action to keep you
from wobbling from side to side. Hip flexors (like the psoas and
rectus femoris) and hip extensors (gluteus medius and hamstrings)
work hard to provide locomotion.
Vary the position of the weight you're carrying (the
routine I included below uses six different variations), and
you'll hit your core muscles in new and completely functional
ways. Beat that, floor crunches!
Bodybuilders want muscular forearms for symmetry. Powerlifters
and strength athletes need grip strength for performance.
Carries give you a chance to train your forearms heavy and
often. See how your forearms feel after carrying a trap bar loaded
with 315 pounds for 100 steps, and then tell me how much you miss
doing wrist curls.
After a few weeks with these exercises, you'll wonder why
you ever felt the need to use lifting straps on deadlifts, rows,
and pull-ups. And you'll never again complain about how your
forearm muscles refuse to grow.
McGill's study found that the lats were substantially
worked in the farmer's walk and suitcase carry. And, although
he didn't measure the activation of the traps and other
shoulder stabilizers, we can guess that they have to work hard on
some of these exercises, particularly the overhead carry.
The workout that follows should take you between 20 and 25
minutes to complete, depending on whether you time your carries or
count steps, and how many times you have to set the weight down in
the middle of an exercise. That's a pretty serious challenge
to your anaerobic energy systems. You'll be huffing, puffing,
and perspiring enough to qualify your workout space as a federally
protected wetland.
It doesn't matter if you're at a gym, your house, or
your local state prison. As long as you have something to carry and
room to walk, you can do this workout. I've loaded an old
backpack with every book I could cram into it, and carried it up
and down my driveway to get my cardio in. You can use dumbbells,
barbells, weight plates, kettlebells, sandbags, wheelbarrows,
stones, kegs, furniture, dead bodies, fat chicks, children, or
pets. The more unstable the load is, the tougher your workout
becomes.
This is the hardest benefit to quantify, but it might be the
most valuable to someone with an injury that prevents him from
going heavy on basic exercises like bench presses or squats. If you
can hold and carry a weight without aggravating the injury, you can
maintain or even improve your grip strength and overall
conditioning while counting down the days until you can get back
into your favorite lifts.
The Program
As I mentioned earlier, you can either count the number of steps
you take on each carry (the magic number is 100 per set), or time
your set, with the goal of reaching 60 seconds. Timing is a little
trickier, since you need a timer (Gymboss is a good one; TMUSCLE
reviewed it here,
a friend with a stopwatch, or a clear line of sight to a clock with
a second hand. You also have to keep track of your downtime; if you
need to put the weight down before 60 seconds is up, that time
doesn't count. You need 60 seconds of carrying to complete the
set.
Counting steps might be marginally easier, but takes a lot of
concentration to remember where you are when you're in the
high double digits and the blood has vacated your
brain.
Do all six carries once (for 100 steps or 60 seconds) without
resting in between exercises. Rest 90 seconds, and repeat twice,
for a total of three circuits. As I said, this should take between
20 and 25 minutes.
If you don't want to perform the full workout, you can pick
any three exercises and do them in any order. Go for 90 seconds or
200 steps per carry, and don't rest between circuits. Try for
three circuits, with a goal of completing the workout in 14
minutes. You'll probably need more time than that the first
couple of workouts, so 14 minutes is more of a target than an
absolute number you should expect to hit right away.
One last tip: Avoid long, slow strides. You want to move as
quickly as you can; the shorter and faster your steps, the greater
the benefits.
For starters, try using 60 to 70% of your one-rep max in the
trap bar deadlift. Don't shrug your shoulders as you carry the
weight. You want your lats to work on this one, rather than your
upper traps. No trap bar? You can use dumbbells, kettlebells, or a
couple of matching suitcases loaded with equal amounts of heavy
things. Or, if you're training at home or at a construction
site, you can use a wheelbarrow, as long as you keep your arms as
straight as possible. You won't be able to stay completely
upright, so you'll need to lean forward slightly. Focus your
eyes on a target roughly 10 feet ahead of you, and align the rest
of your body with your head and neck.
It's easiest to use a standard 45-pound plate. Guys with
long arms can try holding two plates. No plates? Try a sandbag or a
friendly passerby. The only rule: Lay your hands flat on the object
or on each other; no fair interlocking fingers or holding onto your
own wrists; that takes work away from your chest and shoulders.
Hold a heavy object in one hand for half the time or number or
steps. Then switch to the other hand. Stay as tall as possible to
avoid leaning toward the side with the weight. That would negate
the work your core needs to do, and might be hazardous to your
lower-back health. You can use a dumbbell, barbell, kettlebell, or
an actual suitcase. This is a hellacious challenge to your
obliques, quadratus lumborum, and medial glutes.
Let the weight hang down in front of you, holding it with
both hands and straight arms; don't pull the weight higher
with your arm and shoulder muscles when you get tired. As with the
bear hug carry, you can't interlock your fingers. This will
hit your forearm extensors, along with your posterior core muscles,
which have to work to keep you upright.
Carry two dumbbells of different sizes — shoot for a
15-pound difference — and switch halfway through the walk. As
with the suitcase carry, you want to stay upright so you can hit
your core and shoulder stabilizers with an usual challenge.
Hold a weight plate, pair of dumbbells, barbell, sandbag, or
anything else overhead with both hands. Keep your elbows locked and
forearms straight so you work your core and shoulder
stabilizers.
Carrying On
I'm only scratching the surface here when I describe the
versatility of carries. You can use heavier weights and shorter
sets to develop strength. You can use lighter weights and longer
durations to improve endurance. You can use any implement that can
be lifted and carried, and improvise any carrying position, or
combination of positions.
You can create an entire workout around them, or use them in
conjunction with sled drags, Prowler pushes, or any other type of
conditioning work you like to do.
Although there aren't any absolutes, I would say these
rules apply most of the time:
• Keep an upright body position, no matter if the weight is
in front of you, overhead, or unbalanced to one side or the other.
• Keep your arms straight on almost all the carries (the
obvious exception being the bear hug), and don't shrug your
shoulders.
• If you need to set the weight down, do so with control;
sudden movements with heavy objects lead to serious
injuries.
• As with any other type of training, the goal is
measurable improvement. So log your performance every time you do
the workout, aiming to see lower numbers from session to
session.
Carry on, ladies and gentlemen.
The
trap-bar carry doesn't require a trap bar. You can also use dumbbells,
kettlebells, or anything else that comes in pairs of equal weight.
The bear hug carry can also work with a sandbag or inebriated date.
The
suitcase carry is perfect for the travelin' man. The better your core
strength, the less nerdy you'll look when you have to lug a real
suitcase through an airport.
The
heavier and clumsier the object you carry sumo-style, the greater your
focus needs to be to protect the boys from being crushed.
You can use any two weighted objects for the staggered farmer's walk.
Anything you can hold up in the air with straight arms will work for the overhead carry.
© 1998 — 2009 Testosterone, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
