Mark Ottobre breaks down the single-arm farmer's carry for core stability. Point your fingers hard to the floor, keep your hips square, and brace your belly button while walking with the load. A dedicated farmer-walk implement works better than dumbbells or kettlebells because it challenges your stability more.
This is a single arm farmer's carry, and you can do this two ways. And this is usually done as a stability exercise or stability work to help brace up your core and QL. So when you're doing it, hack that I always use that I get clients to point to the floor as hard as they can before beginning. So point, point, point, grab it like you would a deadlift. Now, you're not just going to release this arm as you pick. So people do this all the time, and they wonder why it's not working. So you want your hips— imagine this, a line through my hips.. I want my hips to be square the whole time. Then I'm again, I'm pointing to the floor. And I'm carrying, I don't want any shift. That's the whole idea. So as I walk, I want to maintain this position. I don't want to be here. I also don't want to do this to offset either. Because as I do this to offset, what that means is that I'm not using and engaging the right muscles. So I'm getting everything braced up, I'm bracing, and I'm walking, bracing, and I'm walking because I want this inside to be all flexed up and stable. That's the whole point. Now, if you don't have an implement like this, this is a harder way to do it because it moves and there's more momentum that you need to control and there's elements of stability. What most folks will be using at their gym— I don't recommend a dumbbell when you're doing these. The least preferable option is a kettlebell. I do prefer the Farmer Walk implement because of the fact that it does move, which then further engages stability component to it. But for this one, using a kettlebell, you're picking it up. And again, same deal, right? You don't want any movement whatsoever. You want to keep your hips, everything up nice and tall, aligned, belly button in, braced as you move. So that way the QL, all the lateral muscles, muscles have to stabilize and force that stabilization. And it all works as one. This is your single arm farmer's carry done for stability.
