Friday, September 23, 2011

Carrying Things

To follow up on my last blog about Basic Human Movement, I thought I'd talk more about carrying things today. Carries could be anything from doing farmers walks, suitcase carries, to pulling a weighted sled to pushing a car down the street. Carries are you moving your body under a load of some type.


Is carrying things a basic human movement? Yes. You were made to carry things. You have two feet for walking and two hands for holding. We are multi-taskers, we can do a whole host of things that other animals simply can't do. 


Can carrying things improve your performance? Absolutely. When you carry or push or pull a load around from one spot to the other, you are causing your core muscles to engage. Carrying builds tremendous core strength. You know what else carrying builds? Tremendous conditioning. Carrying things around stresses your body and it takes a lot of work. When you perform carries, you are not only working your core muscles, you are working your cardiovascular system as well. Performing a farmers walk across a football field may leave you feeling like you've been doing wind sprints. 

Carries can really improve your performance simply because they improve you. To reiterate my last blog, if you are not doing carries, maybe you should.

Today's Play Session:
Farmers walks with 32k bells and a 40 lb X-vest = about 180 lbs x 160 yards
Farmers walks with 32k bells = about 140 lbs x 160 yards
Over Head carry with 24k bell x 80 yards each arm x 2 trips
Run x 10 minutes

It was short and sweet and it felt GREAT!

Have a good weekend!

Tim

4 comments:

Chuck said...

i love carries and agree with everything you said on here. they are very under rated and under utilized exercises. rack kb carries are tremendous for GPP.

Unknown said...

Chuck,

You are right. Rack carries will get anyone in shape!

Chuck said...

@tim

yes, obviously i feel it in arms but lower back, lats, upper back and abs get hit too. go as heavy as you can stand. also, a half farmers half rack really hits some cross body stuff you are always talking about. people look at me like i'm nuts when i do this stuff but you are right, it works. i feel it really helps when you do standing loaded stuff like deads, squats, and presses.

Unknown said...

Chuck,

Great stuff. Also, If people are staring, you're doing it right!