Do reps that should move fast feel slow, even when they’re light? Does something just feel missing from your training? Do your movements feel stale and uncomfortable? Or do you flat out feel un-athletic? If you answered yes to any of those questions, then I can almost guarantee you don’t do any type of loaded carries, and if you do, you probably aren’t programming them properly.
Loaded carries are the most underutilized movements in today’s strength and conditioning field. The amount of versatility loaded carries can provide a program is parallel to the barbell, really.
The key is knowing how to utilize them to their full effect, and that’s what I’m going to teach you today. First, I’ll go over the top 3 reasons you should be doing loaded carries. Second, I’ll dive into the different types of loaded carries at your disposal. Lastly, I’ll detail how to program loaded carries into your training so you can reap the rewards.
Sound good? Let’s get started.
The Top 3 Reasons You Should Do Loaded Carries
You don’t have all day to train, so you must pick the right tools for the job. Otherwise, you will spend hours working your ass off for minimal gains. And nobody wants that.
To ensure that doesn’t happen to you, you must always ask why before adding or subtracting exercises from your training program.
What does this new modality or movement bring to the table? Is it worth adding if it means I have to take away “fill in exercise of choice”?
Because you can’t have an addition without subtraction, whenever you add something new, you will likely need to take something away. So, here are the top 3 reasons you should add loaded carries to your training if you aren’t already doing them.
Loaded Carry Benefit 1 – Stability
Stability, and I don’t mean single-leg Bosu squats. I mean stabilizing the spine in a safe, fixed position while fighting the inertia of a load and then creating movement. This is a two-pronged approach to teaching true stability in an athlete. In human gait, there is minimal inertia fought and a minimum amount of reflexive stabilization needed. Reflexive stabilization is the inert firing of muscles to stabilize a moving part on the opposite side. In loaded carries, the athletes are forced to stabilize and control the load imposed in order to move.
An athlete who can properly stabilize moving parts will have a greater ability to consciously create pressure. This happens through strengthening the reflexive muscles of the core that are difficult to properly utilize. This can lead to significant increases in intra-abdominal pressure and thickness of the trunk, which can then help prevent certain injuries.
It is not uncommon for athletes to have acute and sometimes debilitating injuries due to a lack of stability throughout ranges of motion. If one can safely translate (walk) through space with load and train the reflexive stabilizers, then this risk of injury dramatically decreases. You can’t consciously control every single muscle in your system, reflexive stabilization saves you more than you give it credit for.
Loaded Carry Benefit 2 – Energy System Development
Energy system development is the big boy. You cannot reach your specific goals if you don’t first have a proper foundation, and part of that foundation is your ability to produce, utilize, and recover ATP. The versatility of loaded carries opens the window to any energy system you wish to develop, allowing for important skill acquisition as well as safely increasing training stress. Slow and deconditioned athletes alike will benefit more than they can imagine from this.
Loaded carries can develop the alactic and aerobic systems simultaneously. This is possible by having an athlete perform very alactic runs, followed by light walking or another low-intensity exercise that will facilitate aerobic recovery for the next set.
If this sounds like voodoo magic, don’t worry because I go into how to properly program, and progress loaded carries later in the article.
Loaded Carry Benefit 3 – GPP (general physical preparedness)
Something important to understand is the gift of GPP you can give to an athlete. Sure it’s great to spend their whole off-season doing sport-specific movements, but that’s what their pre and in-season training should be geared toward. Developing a sizeable generalized work capacity is an opportunity to further improve and refine the sport-specific skill, and the greatest gift we can give to our athletes IS the opportunity to grow.
Types of Loaded Carries
Your first step into how to properly program loaded carries is to define the different types. I break them down into two categories: direct and indirect.
DIRECT Loaded Carries
Directly loaded carries can be further broken down into anterior, posterior, and parallel loads. Anterior loaded carries are any type of carrying movement where the participant stabilizes the load on the anterior portion of the spine and is in direct contact with it. This includes sandbag, keg, hussafelt, conan’s wheel, kettlebell front rack walks, etc.
Posterior loaded carries are any type of carrying movement where the participant is in direct contact with a load on the posterior portion of the spine; this is mainly characterized by the yoke walk.
Finally, parallel loaded carries are where the participant is in direct contact with the object, but the load is parallel to the spine. This includes any hand loaded carry like farmer’s walks, and any overhead walks like a waiter carry.
INDIRECT Loaded Carries
Indirect carries do not necessarily involve the participant actually carrying the object; however, they are still overcoming the inertia of the load. I often refer to these more generally as moving events. This includes prowler pushes, sled drags, and truck pulls, etc.
The key to keeping your adaptations coming is to expose yourself to different types of carries before changing the protocol. Incorporating multiple types of loads and carries will allow an athlete to further their work capacity without increasing difficulty. Outside of strongman carries, utilize kettlebells and buddy carries as well to add variety.
How to Program Loaded Carries For Maximal Results
Now that you are aware of the different types of carries we can implement, the next step is to define how to program them. When creating a program, every movement chosen should directly reflect the goal of that program or block. Hence, I have categorized the different ways to program loaded carries based on your and/or your athlete’s goals:
Increase Speed and Alactic Capacity
Using loaded carries to increase speed or expand the ability to fight off metabolic waste (alactic capacity) can be extremely effective in a short period of time. Often times with deconditioned athletes, I choose light loaded carries over sprints. This is because the load imposed that the athlete must overcome acts as a limiting factor for them to “over sprint.” I won’t go into the proper mechanics of sprinting, but squeezing and trying your hardest to go fast certainly isn’t the correct way.
The nice thing about loaded carries for speed is that there really isn’t any running. Although you are going as fast as possible, the gait pattern is still walking. There is no flight phase (i.e., the major difference between running and walking) in loaded carries because it just wouldn’t work. Why? Your reflexive stabilizers are not prime movers, although they can be powerful enough to carry heavy loads, they will never be powerful enough to carry heavy loads without a point of contact on the ground.
This lack of flight phase simplifies the movement and makes it more accessible to more populations. Programming carrying events for speed is simple. Vertically increase volume over a given distance while keeping the speed constant. This means pick a distance to train (40-60ft) and a speed (<10s) to maintain. These two variables should stay relatively the same throughout the block. What you can manipulate to create adaptation is volume and intensity (surprise, surprise).
For most athletes new to carrying events that fit this category, I would recommend accumulating 200-300ft at a given speed with a light load. The overall feel of the protocol should not be higher than a 7/10 RPE. The key to truly improving speed is frequency, being able to do the same session 2-3 times a week will be far more beneficial than just “killing it” one day.
If you’re a more advanced athlete looking to focus on increasing work capacity as opposed to maximal speed, I would recommend not going past 400ft. To further progress, someone who has mastered loaded carries, it is best to manipulate rest time. The reason I limit most carrying sessions to 400ft is that no matter how efficient the pattern, the ground reaction forces associated with carrying events is significantly higher than walking and although this stress can lead to great adaptation, too much stress will soar over the line of diminishing return and potentially lead to pain.
Examples:
- Novice: 5x50ft 60% of max in under 9s. Rest as needed.
- Advanced: 8x40ft 70% of max under 8s with 90s rest.
Facilitate Recovery
Carrying events are wonderful to facilitate recovery because of the high levels of stress imposed and very small amount of total volume needed. This fits better into the active recovery needs of a healthy athlete that hasn’t already built up excessive amounts of stress (the peak of the season or in a high volume strength block wouldn’t be ideal times).
The fact that the participant is fighting inertia to stay “neutral” systemically engages the entire body. This gives it a great bang for your buck. You are able to reap the rewards of loaded carries while facilitating recovery.
Examples:
- Novice: 3x50ft 50% of max under 9s
- Advanced: 4x40ft 50% of max under 8s with 60s rest.
Improve GPP
An incredibly effective, and fun way to increase work capacity is though loaded carries. Since they are loaded versions of walking, they can be taken for long distances. The training variables you need to worry about here are rest time and distance. Load will take a back seat here while volume will play a secondary role. Due to the nature of this training, the total amount of distance covered will be more variable since the load will be so low, but I would not recommend exceeding 600ft.
Increasing work capacity with this protocol can be done in two energy systems: the glycolytic and aerobic. Both can do an incredibly effective job, but there are some notable differences in programming for either energy system. In this scenario, rest time and distance are directly correlated with total volume, while work is inversely correlated with total volume.
The more glycolytic you would like to make your training, the more distance you should cover per set with more rest time and fewer total sets. The opposite would be true for a more aerobic training session
Examples:
- Novice:
- Glycolytic: 3x150ft with 30-40% of max, rest as needed
- Aerobic: 6x50ft with 40% of max with 45s rest
- Advanced:
- Glycolytic: 3x200ft with 30-40% of max, rest as needed
- Aerobic: 10x40ft with 50% of max with 45s rest
Closing Thoughts
When training moving events, I typically program them at the begging of a training session. Next time you squat, try hitting some yoke with one of these protocols and watch how much more powerful your squats feel. Producing high amounts of force over a short period of time will excite the nervous system and prepare you for lifting weights. An added benefit to programming your carries at the beginning of the session is that although it isn’t fatiguing, it is an opportunity for the athlete to efficiently increase work capacity.
Loaded carries will give you a whole new world of development to dive into, which will ultimately lead to an increase in performance. Not everyone will take a 1000lb yoke for a 50ft ride, but I promise everyone has something great to gain from exposure to loaded carries regardless of their goals. Stop being slow, start being explosive. Stop being bored on the treadmill, start running with kegs.
About the Author
Andrew “Andy” Triana is the co-founder of The Performance Vibe and a competitive strongman athlete. He finds his athletic satisfaction in the chase to be a biological super freak and looks to help bridge the gap between intricate performance biology and proper holistic application for his athletes.
Andy is also the author of Glycoloytic Bulls and Alactic All Star in the Rebel Performance Program Shop.
