How to Make Portable Farmer's Walk Handles

Farmers walk is one of my favorite strength building workouts, but they're most effective with proper handles instead of just heavy dumbbells.

The thicker handle puts less pressure on the bones in your fingers, which matters a lot when you hit 100+ lbs per hand.

Also, the handle doesn't try to rotate out of your hand like a dumbbell would, so you can really put the focus on carrying bigger weight.

Step 1: Gather Your Pieces.

All this project required was:

Two 12" long, 1.5" inside diameter galvanized steel pipes.
Aka 12" x 1.5" nipple.

Four "clothing line hooks"
Each one is rated to 150lbs working load.
3/8" thick and 8" long.

And a 3/8" drill bit, plus a power drill.

Step 2: Put Everything Together!

Drill a hole through each end of each pipe, the same diameter as your clothing line hooks, I put the center of each hole at about 1" from the threading.

I put epoxy onto the threads of the clothing line hooks where the nuts were going to sit, just to reassure myself that the nuts wouldn't migrate during use.

Put the clothing line hooks through the pipe with one nut on each side of the pipe, and tighten them with pliers or a wrench. And you're set! That's it.

To use: Put a barbell, or preferably an EZ curl bar into the hooks. This setup basically gives you a portable suitcase-style handle for a barbell, which is perfect for farmers walk. Load up your plates onto the barbell, put on some clips, and hook your handles on. Easy stuff.

I'll get a picture up on here shortly of the handles in use, just to demonstrate the final idea.