Should you use a weighted vest to boost fitness?

Weighted vests can enhance workout intensity, but should be used intelligently, starting with 5-10% body weight for safety and effectiveness

Perth: (The Conversation) Exercise training with a weighted vest is gaining renewed attention, as social media and fitness trainers promote it as an effective strategy to enhance fitness and health.

While the concept of adding weight to the body during exercise isn’t new—soldiers have used it for centuries, such as during long hikes with heavy packs—the modern weighted vest offers more comfort and adjustability in terms of weight.

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So, is using a weighted vest beneficial for you? Research provides valuable insights. One of the earliest studies, conducted in 1993, followed 36 older adults who wore weighted vests during weekly exercise classes and at home over 20 weeks. The results showed improvements in bone health, pain management, and physical function.

Since then, numerous studies have examined the effects of exercising with a weighted vest, highlighting a variety of benefits. Wearing a weighted vest increases physiological stress, which means the body works harder, as demonstrated by increased oxygen uptake, heart rate, carbohydrate utilization, and energy expenditure.

The most effective weight to add seems to be around 10% of your body weight. However, research suggests that adding just 5% extra weight does not make the body work significantly harder compared to exercising with body weight alone.

Does more load mean greater injury risk?
A small 2021 study suggested additional weights don’t alter the biomechanics of walking or running. These are important considerations for lower-limb injury risk.

The safety considerations of exercising with weighted vests have also been reported in a biomechanical study of treadmill running with added weight of 1% to 10% of body weight.

While physiological demand (indicated by heart rate) was higher with additional weight and the muscular forces greater, running motion was not negatively affected.

To date no research studies have reported increased injuries due to wearing weighted vests for recreational exercise. However a 2018 clinical study on weight loss in people with obesity found back pain in 25% of those wearing such vests.

Whether this can be translated to recreational use in people who don’t have obesity is difficult to say. As always, if pain or discomfort is experienced then you should reduce the weight or stop vest training.

Better for weight loss or bone health?

While wearing a weighted vest increases the energy expenditure of aerobic and resistance exercise, research to show it leads to greater fat loss or retaining muscle mass is somewhat inconclusive.

One older study investigated treadmill walking for 30 minutes, three times a week in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis. The researchers found greater fat loss and muscle gain in the participants who wore a weighted vest (at 4–8% body weight).

But subsequent research in obese older adults could not show greater fat loss in participants who wore weighted vests for an average of 6.7 hours per day.

There has been considerable interest in the use of weighted vests to improve bone health in older people. One 2003 study reported significant improvements in bone density in a group of older women over 32 weeks of weighted vest walking and strength training compared to a sedentary control group.

But a 2012 study found no difference in bone metabolism between groups of postmenopausal women with osteoporosis walking on a treadmill with or without a weighted vest.

Making progress

As with any exercise, there is a risk of injury if it is not done correctly. But the risk of weighted vest training appears low and can be managed with appropriate exercise progression and technique.

If you are new to training, then the priority should be to simply start exercising and not complicate it with wearing a weighted vest. The use of body weight alone will be sufficient to get you on the path to considerable gains in fitness.

Once you have a good foundation of strength, aerobic fitness and resilience for muscles, joints and bones, using a weighted vest could provide greater loading intensity as well as variation.

It is important to start with a lighter weight (such as 5% bodyweight) and build to no more than 10% body weight for ground impact exercises such as running, jogging or walking.

For resistance training such as squats, push-ups or chin-ups, progression can be achieved by increasing loads and adjusting the number of repetitions for each set to around 10 to 15. So, heavier loads but fewer repetitions, then building up to increase the load over time.

While weighted vests can be used for resistance training, it is probably easier and more convenient to use barbells, dumbbells, kettle bells or weighted bags.

The bottom line

Weighted vest training is just one tool in an absolute plethora of equipment, techniques and systems. Yes, walking or jogging with around 10% extra body weight increases energy expenditure and intensity. But training for a little bit longer or at a higher intensity can achieve similar results.

There may be benefits for bone health in wearing a weighted vest during ground-based exercise such as walking or jogging. But similar or greater stimulus to bone growth can be achieved by resistance training or even the introduction of impact training such as hopping, skipping or bounding.

Exercising with a weighted vest likely won’t increase your injury risk. But it must be approached intelligently considering fitness level, existing and previous injuries, and appropriate progression for intensity and repetition.