Comfort carry

Farmers carries and hangs are constants in our gym. Carrying stuff is under-rated. Walk enough distance with a load and it turns into conditioning. Walk with enough load and it is quality grip training for the arms and upper back.

Dumbbells and centre-mass bells are staples for our carry work. But once you hit the 25 kg mark, dumbbells are a sloppy implement. The instability of the object becomes the constraint. And kettlebells and centermass bells have the handles positioned 3-5 inches away from the user with the load pushing into your legs.

Enter micro-farmers carry handles. There are more elaborate setups that allow for two-sided loading. And of course there are trapbars. But I like microhandles for a simple reason: they are more stable and they force each arm to bear the load individually. Not compensations.

What we did better than the industry standard handles (in my opinion)

The 28 mm handles are 1.5 inches away from the user as opposed to 3-4 inches away. This allows for more comfortable retraction of the shoulder blades and more natural-feeling position.
The base weight of our handle is 27.5 kgs. It can be loaded with small plates through 95 kgs and with larger plates all the way through 150 kgs (per arm, never tried it).


The construction is straightforward. It’s a 10 mm clamp bent into an L shape with a hole milled on top for fit a handle. A 50 mm rod was welded onto the clamp and a ring to reinforce things. The handle was a beefy 12 mm thick flat piece bent into a U shape. A 28 mm knurled rod was welded on the open end of the U. There is a diagonal piece for a different idea that didn’t pan out as expected. This handle was meant to be removable. But we welded it to make it for amenable for aggressive use.

And then came the beefy 1.5 inch thick plate. This rectangle weights over 17 kgs. We used a water jet cutter to cut out a 50 mm hole right in the middle. We slotted this plate onto the 50 mm rod and welded it in place.

And it works rather well! You also get a comfortable 20 inch height to pick the weight off from.