The Liver King Ab Workout Question: Can Loaded Carries Build a Blocky Core?
UPLIFT IRON CLUBWhat Makes the Liver King's Abs Look So Blocky?
Look at the Liver King for five seconds and the first thing you notice is not a complicated abdominal exercise. It is the density of the entire midsection. His rectus abdominis looks deeply separated, the sides of his trunk appear unusually substantial, and a thick chest and shoulders exaggerate the contrast. That is why a picture of him hauling kettlebells can make a simple question feel urgent: if you copied the carry, would you get the same six-pack?
The sensible answer begins with anatomy rather than a celebrity workout. The rectus abdominis runs down the front of the torso and helps bend the trunk and manage the relationship between ribs and pelvis. The external and internal obliques wrap the sides and assist with rotation, side bending and resisting those movements. Behind the show muscles, deeper layers contribute to pressure management and stability. All of these structures can be trained, but they are not interchangeable. A drill that challenges you to stay upright under a heavy load is not automatically an ideal growth exercise for the visible rectangles on the front.
There are also two different meanings of a 'thick' waist. One is a muscular torso that can generate and resist force in multiple directions. The other is a particular visual outline: broad obliques, deep abdominal grooves and sharply visible muscle segments. The second depends on how much muscle is present, where body fat is stored, your connective-tissue layout and ordinary differences in anatomy. You cannot rearrange the tendinous intersections that divide your abs into a recognizable pattern. Nor can you select where fat leaves first when dieting.
Individual proportions change the effect. A long rib cage, relatively short-looking waist, broad pelvis, large spinal erectors or prominent obliques can alter the outline even among people with similar strength. An athlete whose abs look squared-off in a photograph might have a different build from yours before either person touches a weight. Angles, lighting, torso rotation and a hard exhale can make those divisions more dramatic still. A single viral frame is an unreliable progress chart.
That does not make the underlying training irrelevant. Carries develop the ability to keep the trunk organized while the legs propel the body and the arms hold weight. Direct abdominal work can develop force in trunk flexion. Larger compound lifts add another layer of bracing demands. Together, these can produce a stronger, more developed midsection. What they cannot promise is a copy of someone else's abdominal architecture.
There is an especially important reality check with this particular physique. Brian Johnson, the man behind the Liver King character, publicly acknowledged using anabolic steroids in 2022 after previously denying it. That disclosure changes the assumptions a viewer should make about the total physique. It does not prove which individual muscle came from which specific training method, and a photograph cannot separate the effects. It does mean his appearance should not be marketed as the predictable reward for following a natural diet, a marching challenge, or any one secret core routine.
Useful takeaway: Pursue stronger, thicker abdominal muscles if that is your goal. Judge progress through repeatable training, performance, waist measurements if useful and consistent photos—not whether your midsection resembles a heavily promoted internet personality. The first can be trained. The second is an unreliable template.
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His Barbarian March Is a Massive Carry, Not an Isolation Ab Session
Johnson's best-known loaded-carry challenge gives us something more concrete than an Instagram close-up. He has described a walking circuit that combines kettlebells in both hands, a heavy backpack, a sled pulled with shoulder straps and additional ankle weights over a mile-long march. In one published description he listed two 70-pound kettlebells, a 70-pound pack, a 120-pound sled load and 20 pounds of ankle weights. Those are his stated challenge loads, not sensible starting targets for the average gym member.
Imagine all the jobs the torso must perform in that setup. With two weights hanging from the hands, your shoulders and upper back support a downward pull while your grip tries not to open. The pack changes the distribution of mass around the trunk, and the sled resists forward movement. Every step generates small shifts in balance. Your midsection stiffens to stop excessive arching, folding and twisting as the legs continue driving. Meanwhile your heart rate and breathing rise, making it harder to maintain the same pressure and posture.
That is genuine core training. It is also leg work, grip work, upper-back work and conditioning. In some versions, those other systems will be the limiting factor long before the rectus abdominis receives the kind of repeated challenging contraction that best fits a muscle-growth plan. Your forearms might fail, your breathing might become ragged, or your gait might deteriorate while your visible abs still have plenty of capacity for controlled trunk flexion. The exercise is not defective; it simply has a different job description.
Consider the mechanics of walking versus standing. A static farmer hold challenges your posture, but walking adds shifting single-leg support and rhythmic forces from each step. In a controlled study of young adults, moving with matched loads produced greater measured activation in several trunk muscles than standing still. That makes sense mechanically, yet it does not mean walking automatically grows every trunk muscle faster. A brief electrode measurement captures electrical activity during a session, not changes in muscle thickness after months of training.
It is tempting to summarize the workout as 'the abs get hammered.' A better description is that the whole system must stay coordinated while moving a demanding load. Some muscles stabilize; others produce movement; the hands, feet, hips and lungs all participate. The result can improve the kind of strength you feel when picking up awkward equipment, transporting groceries, carrying a heavy bag through a parking lot or maintaining posture during other exercises.
For an ordinary lifter, the productive version is deliberately less theatrical. Begin with two dumbbells or kettlebells you can pick up safely. Stand tall with ribs stacked roughly over the pelvis, walk 20–30 metres or 20–40 seconds, and lower the weights before your posture unravels. Repeat for two or three sets. Add distance or a modest amount of load when you can complete every set cleanly. Do not add a dragging sled, loaded backpack and ankle weights merely to make a social clip look more punishing.
A critical limitation is environmental. A perfectly straight indoor turf lane is not the same as a public sidewalk with uneven pavement and other people. Extreme loaded-march challenges add fall risk and may require more recovery than their payoff justifies. You can train the fundamental pattern without recreating the event. The goal is a repeatable stimulus, not a rite of passage that leaves you unable to train for the rest of the week.
Useful takeaway: The spectacular carry is good evidence that moving heavy objects can tax an entire body. It is not evidence that kettlebell marches alone built the Liver King's distinct abdominal shape. Treat carries as one useful tool rather than the complete answer.
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Farmer's Walk, Suitcase Carry and Plank: Different Kinds of Core Stress
All three exercises can make your midsection work, but they ask different questions of it. The farmer's walk puts a weight on each side. A suitcase carry puts weight on only one side. The plank keeps you on the floor, resisting the pull of gravity through an extended lever. None of them is a universal winner. Their value depends on which trunk function you want to develop and what other training fills the gaps.
Farmer's walk: Start with equal dumbbells at your sides. The body must stay upright while shifting its weight from foot to foot. This is a valuable blend of grip, posture, walking control and load tolerance. Most lifters will feel the traps and forearms immediately; the deep spinal stabilizers also have work to do. Progress by walking slightly farther, carrying slightly more or improving pace without losing control. A set that degenerates into short, frantic steps and shrugged shoulders is not automatically more productive because the dumbbells are enormous.
Suitcase carry: Put one dumbbell in one hand and leave the other hand empty. Now gravity wants to pull the loaded shoulder downward and tilt the trunk. The opposite side must resist that side bend, while your pelvis and rib cage try to remain level. A single weight can create a substantial lateral-stability challenge with less total load than two. Alternate sides for equal work; do not compensate by leaning so far away that you replace one exaggerated position with another. Film a rear view if you are unsure whether the shoulders stay level.
Plank: Brace while the torso is supported on the forearms and toes. The job is to resist lumbar extension and keep ribs and pelvis connected while breathing. It is easy to dismiss planks as beginner work because they use no external weight. Yet a controlled experiment comparing carries, holds and planks found that the plank produced much higher activation in the measured rectus abdominis than the farmer's walk, while the walk emphasized the measured low-back muscles more. Exercise selection is a matter of demands, not spectacle.
That comparison is particularly useful because the study tested 18 healthy young adults, measured surface electrical activity in four trunk muscles and examined acute exercise responses. It was not a year-long trial showing that any one method yields a larger six-pack. High activation can indicate that a muscle is working hard during a task, but growth also depends on sustained loading, recoverable effort, total training exposure and progressive challenge over time. Treat the numbers as clues about how different tasks work, not as a definitive bodybuilding ranking.
There are useful middle options as well. Front-rack carries bring weight higher on the body and change the posture challenge. Offset carries place more load on one side than the other. Bear-hug carries demand upper-back and trunk organization around a large object. These are worthwhile for people who enjoy strongman-style training, but they should be introduced gradually. Awkward load position can be much more demanding than the number printed on the implement suggests.
A practical way to combine movements is to pick one bilateral carry for general loaded movement, one unilateral carry for lateral stability and one anti-extension drill. You do not need all three every workout. Two or three controlled sets of each across the week will usually create more useful practice than one maximal 'test your soul' carry that ruins the next several sessions.
Useful takeaway: Different trunk muscles contribute differently when you resist twisting, bending or arching. Choose carries for moving with load, use unilateral work to challenge balance, and keep an explicit anterior-core exercise if your goal includes abdominal development. The variety is purposeful, not random exercise collecting.
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For Thicker Visible Abs, Train Abdominal Movement as Well as Bracing
If the specific goal is to make the rectus abdominis grow, a loaded carry can complement the program, but it should not swallow the entire program. Those six-pack segments are muscle tissue. Like other skeletal muscles, they can adapt to repeated challenging contractions when training stress, recovery and nutrition are adequate. One straightforward way to provide that challenge is controlled spinal flexion under progressively adjusted resistance.
The cable crunch is the uncomplicated example. Kneel facing a high cable, hold the rope near the temples, and gently curl the rib cage toward the pelvis. Keep the hips relatively quiet rather than throwing the whole torso backward and forward. Move through a range you can control without yanking the rope with the arms. If your shoulders do all the movement and the weight stack slams around, reduce the load. The point is to make the abdominal muscles produce the motion rather than disguising a hip hinge as a monster crunch.
Try two or three sets of eight to fifteen controlled repetitions. Stop with roughly one to three technically clean reps still available, depending on experience. Once all sets reach the upper end of the range with consistent form, increase the stack by the smallest convenient increment. Record the setup: cable height, kneeling distance, grip and range all affect whether a higher number reflects real progress. Resist the temptation to turn every rep into an exaggerated spinal bend, especially if that movement is painful for you.
An ab wheel or rollout is a different kind of challenge. Here the abdomen resists extension as the arms travel away from the body. Begin kneeling, shorten the reach and keep the trunk organized. Progress by reaching farther before adding exotic variations. Rollouts are easy to perform badly when the hips collapse and the lower back takes over, so a small tidy range beats a heroic face-first dive. A body saw, dead bug with careful breathing or modified plank can develop the same basic control at more accessible levels.
Leg raises and reverse crunches are useful when you can make the pelvis roll rather than merely swing the thighs. Hanging from a bar may make grip the limiting factor, which is fine for general training but not ideal when isolation of the abdomen is the priority. A supported reverse crunch can let you concentrate on posterior pelvic tilt and progressive control. Add tempo, repetitions or a carefully selected external load before choosing harder-looking moves with poorer execution.
Studies of resistance-based crunch variations show that abdominal muscles can be challenged strongly by appropriately loaded movement, but short-term muscle-thickness increases immediately after a workout should not be confused with months of hypertrophy. Swelling and changes in fluid can influence an acute measurement. The stronger evidence for an individual comes from sustainable training progression and longer-term changes measured under similar conditions. Do not assume a burning sensation, an EMG spike or next-day soreness guarantees growth.
Leanness affects how those adaptations look. A thicker abdominal wall may still be hidden beneath fat, and a very lean athlete may show visible divisions without unusually strong abs. Conversely, chasing a sharply defined midsection at any cost can undermine recovery, mood and performance. If you are eating for muscle gain, prioritize adequate protein and sufficient energy; if dieting, favor a sustainable deficit rather than trying to copy a photo shoot.
Useful takeaway: Keep your carries, but give the abdominal muscles at least a couple of focused weekly sets of challenging flexion and anti-extension work. A bigger number on a farmer's-walk implement is not a substitute for every other kind of progression.
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Why the Liver King Physique Is Not a Fair Natural Benchmark
The central problem with borrowing a celebrity's abdominal workout is deciding what counts as proof. A visibly muscular person performs a dramatic exercise. Viewers assume that exercise produced the body. The connection feels persuasive because both appear in the same video. But a camera captures the finished appearance and the chosen activity; it does not reveal the complete training history, diet, medical background, genetic starting point or recovery environment.
The Liver King example makes this distinction unusually clear. Brian Johnson became famous partly by presenting a heavily muscled physique as the outcome of a supposedly ancestral lifestyle. In December 2022 he acknowledged that he had used anabolic steroids after previously denying doing so. This is a public admission, not speculation based on the width of his shoulders or visibility of his abs. It does not erase work he put into training, nor does it make every loaded carry fake. It does invalidate the simple narrative that raw organs and extreme outdoor workouts fully explain his look.
Anabolic drugs can alter muscle-building conditions and carry real health risks. They are not a sensible or necessary shortcut for somebody who wants stronger abdominals, and a public figure's choices are not instructions for a reader. Equally, there is no responsible way to take a photograph of his abdomen and calculate what percentage of its size came from training, pharmacology, genetics or lower body fat. Acknowledge the known fact, leave the unmeasurable parts unmeasured, and keep the fitness analysis grounded.
Another trap is the selective nature of online training footage. If a personality shows a one-mile maximal carry, that tells us a dramatic event happened or was attempted. It does not establish that the same person built muscle by performing exactly that workout with a frequency and recovery schedule an ordinary lifter should copy. The most marketable clip may be a weekly stunt, a special challenge or an edited segment rather than the entirety of the program. A polished image makes the routine look coherent even when important context is missing.
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Fitness storytelling also confuses two different outcomes: getting stronger and looking leaner. Heavy loading can help preserve or build muscle, but it does not determine where fat disappears. Deep abdominal grooves are easier to see when the overlying fat layer is thinner, while a broad torso can reflect more muscular obliques and spinal erectors. Two people can complete the same farmer's walk with identical weights and still look dramatically different. Their physiques reflect far more variables than the final carry distance.
Some readers worry that side-loaded exercises will make their waist 'too blocky.' For most recreational lifters, that fear is wildly ahead of the evidence. A few sets of suitcase carries will not produce an overnight transformation. Meaningful muscular adaptation tends to be gradual. If maximizing the appearance of a narrow waist matters to you, you can still train lateral stability without chasing enormous hypertrophy-oriented volume for the obliques. If you compete in a sport where trunk strength matters, performance may deserve a higher priority than a purely cosmetic silhouette.
A more useful standard for progress is reproducibility. Can you hold better posture during a 30-second carry today than a month ago? Can you complete more clean cable crunch reps with the same resistance? Can you resist rotation better without a painful, awkward compensatory position? Is the program compatible with your recovery, other lifts and actual life? These observations do not sell a mystical transformation, but they make real training decisions possible.
Useful takeaway: Admire the commitment it takes to carry heavy objects if you want, but separate the spectacle from the explanation. The Liver King's admitted drug use and unusual presentation make him a poor baseline for predicting your natural abdominal appearance. You can still extract a sensible carry exercise without buying the entire mythology.
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A Two-Day Loaded-Carry and Abs Plan You Can Actually Recover From
Here is the practical middle ground: train the whole trunk, include direct abdominal work, and resist the urge to turn every set into a viral survival contest. This is a two-day accessory plan to add around your existing resistance training, not a separate full-body routine to stack on top of six exhausting sessions. Leave at least a day between the two core sessions when possible. Start with modest loads, particularly if loaded carries are new to you.
Day A — Strength and controlled flexion. After your main lifts, complete a farmer's walk for three sets of 20–30 metres, resting 60–120 seconds. Pick a load you can carry with steady breathing and level shoulders. Next, do cable crunches for three sets of 8–15 controlled reps, allowing a short pause in the contracted position. Finish with a dead bug for two sets of 6–10 slow repetitions per side. The dead bug is not a competition for the largest leg swing; exhale, keep the ribs controlled and move only as far as your torso can stay organized.
Day B — Lateral stability and anti-extension. Carry a single dumbbell at your side for three rounds of 20–30 metres on each arm, switching hands after you safely set the weight down. Rest before repeating. Then complete two or three sets of 6–12 controlled reverse crunches, moving your pelvis rather than kicking your legs into the air. Finish with two sets of 20–40 seconds of a good plank or a short-range kneeling ab-wheel rollout for 5–8 repetitions. Use the simpler option that lets you keep the movement crisp.
Increase demands one variable at a time. If all three farmer's-walk sets are clean, extend the distance a few metres before jumping to dramatically heavier weights. If the corridor is short, increase carrying time while keeping turns deliberate. For cable crunches, first improve the range and consistency, then build the reps within your chosen range, then add a small plate to the stack. For reverse crunches, emphasize control before chasing more speed. Progress is not a contest to accumulate the greatest possible soreness.
Use a small log with three things: exercise and load, achieved reps or distance, and an honest note about posture. 'Three clean carries with ribs stacked' is useful. 'My core was destroyed' tells you little. In the early weeks, some of the change may be learning how to brace and walk effectively rather than building visible new muscle. That is still meaningful progress. After four to six weeks, reassess whether you are improving and whether the work is crowding out squats, hinges or other priorities.
For beginners, one carry variation and one direct ab exercise twice weekly may be enough. For experienced lifters, the two-day plan can complement heavy compound lifting, provided the total workload stays manageable. If your grip is exhausted from deadlifts or pull-ups, move carries to another session or cut the weight. If your lower back feels repeatedly beaten up, distinguish normal muscular effort from pain and reconsider the load, duration and placement. People with relevant injuries or persistent symptoms should get an individualized assessment rather than forcing a prescribed carry.
Nutrition and recovery are less glamorous but not optional. Adequate protein and calories support building muscle, regular sleep supports repeatable performance, and a sustainable approach to body composition helps you see changes without making training miserable. You cannot spot-reduce abdominal fat by walking farther with kettlebells. Equally, an aggressive calorie deficit may make it harder to progress the training intended to grow the muscle beneath.
The test is straightforward after a couple of months: are your carries more controlled, are your ab movements stronger, and can you keep training consistently? If yes, the plan is working even if your abdomen does not look like an influencer's. Do not confuse refusing to imitate a stunt with avoiding hard work. It often takes more discipline to repeat a sensible program for twelve weeks than to destroy yourself with one glamorous challenge.
The bottom line: Loaded carries absolutely deserve a place in core training. They improve your ability to organize the trunk while moving weight. But a blocky six-pack is not a guaranteed carry adaptation. Pair bilateral and unilateral carries with progressive abdominal exercises, respect differences in anatomy and body composition, and set your expectations by your own progress.
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