Weighted vests are popular nowadays. They’re available in gyms and for home use too and many people see them as a way to make an exercise harder or boost the calorie burn, A weighted vest adds more resistance when you strength train and recruits more muscle fibers. The extra weight may also offer metabolic benefits. Some people wear one when they do exercises like push-ups, pull-ups, squats, and lunges. But is a weighted vest really as effective as advertisers of these vests like to portray?
Here are some things to consider before strapping on a weighted vest before your next strength training workout. Find out what the pros and cons of wearing a weighted vest are and whether they offer real benefits. First, let’s look at the cons.
You May Not Lift as Much or as Hard While Wearing a Weighted Vest
The weights you use when strength training provides the resistance your muscles need to adapt, grow, and become stronger. But if you’re wearing a weighted vest, it’s tough to tell exactly how heavy the weights you’re lifting really are. With a weighted vest strapped, you feel you’re working harder even when you use lighter weights. If you’re doing an exercise like biceps curls where you’re isolating the biceps muscles, you don’t want the extra resistance around your torso. The extra weight of a weight vest may tire you out quicker and distract you from the focus on your biceps.
A weighted vest can also interfere with your ability to strength train. Some people think they’re uncomfortable and feel like the vest gets in their way when they train. Plus, they can be hot. If your core body temperature rises while wearing one, you may not feel like working as hard as you would without the vest. So, they can cramp your style!
Muscle Imbalances
Wearing a weighted vest that covers your torso, if worn properly, distributes the weight evenly across your mid-body and is unlikely to contribute to muscle imbalances when you train. But strapping on a pair of ankle weights when you walk, run, or jump isn’t a smart idea. Why is this a problem? Wearing ankle weights targets your quadriceps more than your hamstrings and can lead to muscle imbalances. Wearing ankle weights can also strain the tendons and ligaments in your ankles.
Increased Risk of High-Impact Injury
If you do dynamic exercises that involve jumping, like jump squats, a weighted vest causes you to land on the floor with greater impact. The same is true when you run since both feet leave the ground and strike the ground with more force. If you do this too often, it’s hard on your joints. Also, if you have osteoporosis, don’t wear a weight vest without consulting with your health care provider. Even if you don’t have osteoporosis, limit the amount of time you spend doing high-impact movements while wearing a weighted vest.
Another disadvantage of wearing a weight vest is it places added force on your back and spine. The bulk of the weight from the vest is on the top of your body, including your shoulders. The weight pushes down on your spine at the discs in between each vertebra. If the weight isn’t perfectly centered and it’s heavier on one side than the other, the uneven stress can cause spine problems, including a ruptured disc. If you wear a weighted vest, it should fit close to your body and be properly centered from front to back and side to side.
When Wearing a Weighted Vest Can Be Useful
While you shouldn’t strap on ankle weights when you walk to avoid muscle imbalances, wearing a weighted vest when you’re walking or running forces your body to work harder. So, it can improve your stamina and endurance more than walking or running without wearing a weighted vest. Walking with a weighted vest on also provides more of a stimulus for bone health. Limit the time you wear it when you’re running though since the greater impact is hard on your joints.
A study in the Journal of Aging and Physical Activity found that postmenopausal women who trained wearing weighted vests experienced reductions in bone turnover, a positive for bone health. They also showed improvements in ankle strength and increases in lean body mass as well as loss of body fat. There was also a control group that didn’t wear a weighted vest.
Another study in older individuals didn’t find greater gains in strength or function when subjects wore weight vests. They also didn’t experience improvements in bone density. Whether or not wearing a weighted vest improves bone density and strength may depend on the weight of the vest. Experts recommend starting with a weighted vest of around 10 pounds and working up to around 15 or 20 pounds.
You can buy adjustable weight vests where you increase the resistance by adding one or two pounds of weight to the pockets to make it more challenging over time, but it’s important to place the weights evenly to ensure the force is equally distributed across your body.
Increased Calorie Burn
One reason people like weight vests is because they burn more calories while wearing one. One study found that subjects burned 14% more calories when they wore a weighted vest while doing activities such as taking a walk. It’s a modest increase but still significant.
The Bottom Line
There are some benefits to wearing a weighted vest in certain situations. With certain strength training exercises, like push-ups, it adds additional resistance when you can’t use weights. Wearing one is also beneficial if you want to burn more calories when you walk. But wearing one during high-impact exercise places more stress on your joints and shouldn’t be something you do often if at all. Also, skip the ankle weights as they can lead to strength imbalances.
References
- Greendale, G. A., Salem, G. J., Young, J. T., Damesyn, M., Marion, M., Wang, M.-Y., & Reuben, D. B. (2000). A Randomized Trial of Weighted Vest Use in Ambulatory Older Adults: Strength, Performance, and Quality of Life Outcomes. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 48(3), 305-311. Retrieved 6 26, 2021, from https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10733058
- Klentrou, P., Slack, J., Roy, B. D., & Ladouceur, M. (2007). Effects of exercise training with weighted vests on bone turnover and isokinetic strength in postmenopausal women. Journal of Aging and Physical Activity, 15(3), 287-299. Retrieved 6 26, 2021, from https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17724395.
- “Wearable weights: How they can help or hurt – Harvard Health.” 15 Feb. 2021, https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/wearable-weights-how-they-can-help-or-hurt.
- harvard.edu. “Wearable weights: How they can help or hurt”