Relación Serotonina-canabinoides-alimentación

The farmer's walk is a terrific movement for advanced men - and if your grip is strong enough to handle a heavy poundage, the exercise will become an excellent total body movement. It really works you from head to toe when you use heavy weights. How do you do the exercise? It's simple. You just pick up two HEAVY dumbbells, one in each hand, and WALK with them. Go as far or as long as possible. Some men have developed the ability to handle 100 pound dumbbells and walk for several hundred yards with them - or walk for up to four minutes if they time the movement instead of going for distance.

My training partners and I use a pair of 180 pound steel I-beams with heavy iron handles welded onto them - a pair of “toys” designed by Dr. Ken Leistner and given by him to Kim Wood, who later gave them to me. Walking with these monsters is no easy task! Here is a contemporaneous account of the first time we decided to “go for broke” with the “steel suitcases.”

* * * * * * February 26,1995 Hail to the Dinosaurs:

We had a great workout yesterday. Ted had been to a wild bachelor's party the night before - there were 40 guys, two hookers, a fistfight that sent one guy to the hospital and untold quantities of booze ... Ted drank only 1/4 as much as the rest of the guys and still threw up four times ... he got to train his grip by pulling one drunk guy off of another one ... they had gotten into a fight (probably over the hookers) and the big one had the little one locked into some kind of death grip strangle hold, and Ted saved the little guy's life by loosening the death grip finger by finger ... all in all, one wild party ... God, I am glad I am too OLD for that sort of “fun”!

Anyhow. Ted was hung over and hurting and got 375 in the trap bar dead lift, then missed 406 miserably – as in, couldn't even budge the bar. He looked pretty blue. Sam and Spenser (my golden retrievers) watched carefully for signs of his demise. We have a standing deal that they get to bury anyone who dies in THE DUNGEON ....

“Do you want to do anything else?” I asked.

I turned to Bruce and whispered “How would you like to take the steel suitcases for a walk?” “Cool,” he answered.

Ted saw us pick up the steel suitcases (one each) and start up the stairs with them. “Where are you going?” he asked. He looked really pale.

“Outside. Come on.”

We lugged the monstrous 180 pound I-beams up the stairs, across the yard and through the back gate, then put them down. They stood defiantly on our west sidewalk.

“Now what?” asked Ted.

“We pick them up and carry them for as far as possible. Both at the same time, of course. You go first.”

Ted turned blue. He knew he was in for it. Bruce calmly chalked his hands, waiting patiently for HIS turn, Sam and Spenser sat by the gate, grinning in anticipation.

Ted deadlifted the things and took a staggering step forward - then another - then his eyes bulged out of his head, his lips curled in a scream of pain that stuck in his throat, and he lurched forward one – two – three – five - ten more steps until the suitcases crashed to the ground and he stood there gasping and wheezing, his fingers clenched and immobile like the granite claws of a grinning gargoyle. He had managed 15 or 20 feet.

“What a workout.” he gasped.

Sam and Spenser grinned and cheered. The sounds of pain, torture and agony are music to their ears. Spenser was already digging a hole to bury Ted. Bruce walked over, set himself, picked the monsters up (the suitcases, not Sam and Spenser) and took off down the sidewalk. He strode purposefully but deliberately until he reached the north end of our property, carefully turned, reversed direction, and made it back to where Ted had deposited the suitcases. He lowered them to the ground and crashed to his knees.

“That's incredible,” he gasped. “Fun, isn't it?” I asked.

“It's – so - incredible ... when you finally put them down - it's like this huge weight is suddenly taken off of your back ... you feel like you could fly....”

The poor guy was hallucinating, which was hardly surprising. After all, he had carried the things 90 or 100 feet.

Ted lay moaning in the grass. Bruce was still down on one knee. Sam and Spenser licked their chops. The neighbors hid inside their houses and drew the blinds.

I chalked up, tightened my belt, got set and pulled the monsters off the ground - then walked off with them. The load was incredible - pressing down like a ton – my arms were screaming, my traps and upper back were in agony, my heart was going a mile a minute, my fingers were numb, my thumbs felt like they were being flayed, my hips arid low back were shouting in protest and my legs and feet were operating entirely on their own, with no conscious link to my brain.

Somehow I made it to the far property line to the south - about 100 feet. I was ready to die. I put the suitcases down. Instantly there was a “lighter than air” feeling - the same rush that Bruce had gaspingly described.

“Dig a hole for dad,” said Sam. Spenser started digging.

“I'm gonna be sick,” moaned Ted. “Do your next set first,” I told him.

He picked them up and stumbled down the sidewalk. Twenty – thirty – forty - he probably made fifty feet this time, then collapsed in a heap.

Bruce went next. He made 120 or 130 feet.

Then I went again. I managed the whole length of the property line. How far? Who knows. We paced it off later - it was around 150 feet.

Sam and Spenser continued to grin.

All told, we each lugged the things as far as possible 5 times. I managed the entire property line on each of my last four carries, Bruce managed just a bit less and Ted managed 50 feet or so each of his final four tries.

“What do those work?” asked Ted. “Everything,” I answered.

“They trigger the GROW OR DIE response.” said Brace. “You either grow bigger and stronger or you die, one or the other. The suitcases don't care which it is.”

* * * * * *

A month or two later we did something even crazier. We took the steel suitcases for a half mile walk. Ted took them first, and carried the monsters as far as possible. Then Bruce took them as far as he could go. Then I followed suit. We alternated back and fourth until we had carried the things back and fourth along the sidewalk on the side of my house - a distance we had paced and computed to equal at least 880 yards (half a mile) if we walked it 20 times. By the time we were done, Bruce and Ted had cut their hands to ribbons and mine were about one lift away from breaking open. We were covered in sweat and had trouble even standing up. It took around an hour before any of us felt like moving. Our workouts for the next week or so were slow and sluggish - but then we all made BIG jumps on various movements. The incredible training session worked us so hard that it took around 10 days to fully recover, but once we did, we came back stronger than ever.

NOW A WORD OF CAUTION! (Pay attention). Walking with steel suitcases is DANGEROUS. So is walking with heavy dumbbells. A much safer alternative - and one that works just as well - is to make two heavy sandbags, attach heavy rope or heavy straps for “handles” and use those for the farmer's walk. If you drop a 200 pound dumbbell or a 180 pound steel suitcase on your foot, you are in SERIOUS trouble. Drop a 200 pound sandbag on your foot and you'll be sore, but you won't be maimed. Sore is part of life, maimed is a problem. Give the sandbags serious consideration.