Carries are overrated

We have all heard Dan John’s now famous 5 Basic Human Movements: “Push, Pull, Hinge, Squat, Carry”. All too often, coaches, athletes, and clinicians (especially clinicians) over-complicate training. This concept of sticking to the basic human movements is as refreshing as it is helpful, no matter whether you are training for life or sport. It keeps us tethered to what is important, basic human movements.

One modification several coaches have made is adding the lunge to this iconic list. I could not agree with this more. Lunging, in my opinion, is actually more fundamental to survival and longevity than squatting…but that is a topic for another time. What is surprising to me is that, after all these years, carries continue to remain on the list. Do I love carries? Yes. Do I program carries into my training on a consistent basis? Yes; but would I consider them essential to training? No.

If you do consider carries essential, does that imply that all athletes, in all sports, should be doing them on a consistent basis? Surely not. If we are being honest, carries would likely be the first movement cut off the list…unless you happen to be training for a ruck, strongman, or some activity in which carrying is primary to the task. Even the most dogmatic coach to this concept would grant that there are many scenarios in which carries would be omitted from an athlete’s training: sprinting, golf, distance running, cycling, all come to mind.

There are several typical arguments for why carries deserve to be on this list.

Carrying is “functional” for life.

In life, we have to carry things, therefore, we should train to carry things on a regular basis. On the surface, this one is tough to argue with. Yes, we have to carry things every day, but are they consistently heavy or for consistently long durations such that we need to train them on the regular? Not likely, especially if you are training athletes for something other than life and longevity.

I do agree that carries are “functional” in that they incorporate the entire body into the movement and just train good‘ol farmer strength, but their utility is completely dependent on the task for which one is training. If you are training for life, one could justify keeping carries in your training on a consistent basis. If you are training for a specific sport, however, carries would be early on the chopping block.

Improves grip strength.

This is a funny one, but it is popular enough that it needs to be addressed. Lately there has been a lot of talk in the longevity/hacking community about the correlation between grip strength and longevity. The claim is this: the stronger grip you have, the longer you live, therefore, one should train grip…you know…to live longer. Drawing this conclusion is a fundamental misunderstanding of the data. Having strong grip strength is not positively correlated to longevity because strong grip directly impacts one’s longevity; it is important because having naturally strong grip indicates (is correlated with) being strong overall. Grip is a proxy measurement for general strength. Training your grip specifically, for the sake of improving your longevity, will not get you the results you seek.

Admittedly, carries do train both grip and overall strength but not as efficiently as the other fundamental movement. If you want to improve your longevity through strength training, stick to pushing, pulling, hinging, lunging, and squatting.

Core activation

Perhaps the loudest argument for why carries should be on the list of fundamental human movements is because it trains the core. Do carries train the core? Certainly. Technically every exercise, or movement for that matter, be it in the weight room or in life, “trains” the core. The question is, do carries train the core to activate with the proper pattern. “

Many coaches and clinicians believe that there is no “right” way to activate the core and that general movement is all you need. “If you dose the exercise correctly, the athlete will activate their core with the proper strategy.” I have heard this many times. As a former athlete, a former strength coach, and a clinician of over 15 years, I could not disagree with this statement more. Yes, there are a myriad of core activation strategies, but they are not all equally effective. For me, the vast majority of the movement dysfunction and pain experienced by people (athletes and general population) is the result of a poor, compensatory stabilizing strategy. How one activates their core is critical to the mission, no matter whether you are training for life, performance, or to just get out of pain.

Stating that carries train your core is true, but they are not the best way to train a proper stabilizing strategy. Truthfully, depending on the type of carry you are using, applying a proper stabilizing strategy can be quite difficult.

Instead of using the carries as a fundamental human movement because it “trains the core”, we should be utilizing exercises that better accomplish the mission. To this end, I propose replacing caries with “Brace” as a fundamental movement (more of a skill really). Contrary to popular belief, bracing properly is rather challenging, especially in sports. Repetitive movement, poor coaching, vanity, movement dysfunction, pain are just a few reasons why bracing properly is more difficult than many coaches make it sound. We must, therefore, train this as a skill. Improving our ability to brace properly in all movements and activities will have tremendous impacts on pain, performance and quality of life.

More on how one properly activates the core at a later time!

Never stop pushing!

Dr. Richard Ulm, DNS-SC