Carrying heavy weight on your back is one of the BEST ways to develop total-body strength.
This is quite often done use a yoke bar setup where the bar is built onto two stands. This is the most common way to do yoke carries.
However, this does require having that bar as well as space to use it.
If you don't have access to a yoke setup like this, you can do In-Rack Yoke Carries.
You're essentially doing the same movement...walking with heavy weight...only you're doing it inside the rack. This allows you to safely perform very heavy carries without needing a yoke bar setup.
Why Are Yoke Carries Good?
This exercise hits just about every major muscle group in your body. It's extremely demanding and effective for building total-body strength.
As well, it develops all the small stabilizing muscles (and connective tissue) that stabilizes the load and your body in space as you shift weight to move forwards and backwards.
It also develops confidence with heavy loads so that when you go back to your regular weights, your body can handle them with ease.
How To Do Yoke Carries in the Rack
The concept is simple...put the bar on your back and walk forwards and backwards inside the rack.
I've got 605 lbs on the bar here.
The blue thing is called a Manta Ray. It's a molded piece of plastic that snaps onto the bar in order to better distribute the weight across your upper back and traps while keeping the bar from rolling down your back.
It's great for partials and carries like this...not as good for full-range squats (still decent but it does set the bar a bit off your back).
Set the rails in the rack to just below the top of your standing position. You want the rails close to the top so when you stand up and set it down, you're not going far. And if you need to drop the weight, you're only coming down a few inches.
Set the bar towards the back of the rack then load your weight.
Don't start as heavy as this...I recommend starting with your current squat 1 rep max.
Stand up.
Now walk forwards. Be very deliberate in your steps. As you get used to carrying heavy loads, you'll develop a feel for how to step, how fast to step and how to shift your weight. It is a skill.
Walk forward until you're almost at the front of the rack.
Stop there, then step backwards.
Come back until you almost contact the back uprights (you might actually contact them if you can't see them...not a big deal).
This phase is great practice for walking out a heavy squat.
Now, keep going...stepping forwards and backwards for as many trip as you can (or want to) do.
I recommend working up to a working weight then doing 3-4 sets with it in order to get enough time under the load. I like to aim for 30-40 seconds of work time here to get good adaptation and loading. That time under load while moving is critical to getting the most out of this one.
Again, start lighter with this one and give your body time to adapt to this type of training. I've been doing heavy carries like this for more than a decade and very heavy partials for almost 30 years.
In-Rack Carries With a Marrs Bar - 1,000 lbs
The Marrs Bar is a really cool piece of training equipment. It's similar to a safety squat bar but you carry the weight more like a backpack. It has the best padding of any bar I've ever found. It's not cheap but it's worth every penny, in my opinion.
Naturally, I decided to see how much I could carry with it....the answer being 1,000 lbs, which is 5 times my bodyweight at the time I did it.
The first step is actually the hardest, not the last step. The first step requires you to go from a two-point base of support to one, get the load moving and keep your balance at the same time. It's actually a lot of technique to perform.
As you can see in the video, I only walked forward. I definitely was not going to try walking backward with that load.
In the carry I did a few weeks before with 905 lbs, I went forward and backward a few times.
This bar is absolutely PERFECT for this type of loaded carry work. I'll be using it for longer distance stuff outside in the near future, using a pair of squat stands set in my driveway to set it on.
Try this "tightrope" method for better and faster Farmers Walk Carries.
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Want more unique and challenging exercises to work your entire body with simple equipment? All you need is just a barbell, dumbbells and a bench. Check out The Best Home Gym Exercises You've Never Heard Of!
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