Maybe you’re looking for a new workout challenge or perhaps you simply want additional equipment for your home gym. Have you ever considered weighted vests for workouts?
We love how weighted vests can boost your exercise routine and give you a new approach to getting fit. After all, switching up your workout intensity is one of the best ways to keep your at-home workout fun and focused. It’s time to explore what weighted vests can do for you.
WHAT IS A WEIGHTED VEST?
A weighted vest is a vest with weights attached. Most weighted vests are weight-adjustable, meaning you can add or remove weight as required, but some come pre-built for a specific weight category.
Weighted vests also come in a vast array of styles from minimalist racerback to padded mesh panels and flex-fabric designs. Depending on the style, they might cover a certain percentage of your back, chest, core, and shoulders. Some vests use small sandbags as the weights, while others use steel bars or other heavy, removable pieces.
If you’re looking for optimal variety with this gear, we recommend choosing weight-adjustable weighted vests. With these, you can add or remove weights in different increments to challenge your muscles with each workout and ensure they never reach the point of no-burn.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF WEIGHTED VESTS?
If you’re wondering why you should use a weighted vest, you’re about to find out. We think these vests offer an amazing boost while remaining portable, versatile, and user-friendly.
Let’s check out all the ways these vests take your home workouts to new heights.
GREATER STRENGTH AND ENDURANCE
When you strap on a weighted vest, you immediately cart around more weight. More weight means more effort on your part. Using more energy to move through your routine requires more strength to move your limbs and more endurance to keep them moving.
Building up strength with a weighted vest lets your muscles handle more weight at that moment, and building up endurance lets them perform under strain for longer. After you remove the vest, your muscles keep firing at a higher level and help you push through other routines.
GREATER BONE STRENGTH AND DENSITY
Weighted vests in conjunction with weight-bearing exercises help increase your bone strength and density. As living tissue, bone responds to the forces you place on it.
Added weight increases the strength of your bones because it encourages your osteoblast cells — the cells in your bone marrow — to build new bone. It also makes your bones adapt and grow denser to account for the extra weight.
INCREASED RESISTANCE
When your muscles feel strained for longer periods of time, they work harder from start to finish. Like with resistance bands that put constant tension on your muscles, weighted vests add more force to them as they stretch, flex, and grow taut.
Greater resistance tests your muscles and forces them to work harder. We recommend adding weights to your vest incrementally so you can find your level, then up the challenge.
BETTER POSTURE AND BALANCE
Did you know that weighted vests can help you sit up straighter? Wearing a weighted vest while sitting at your desk won’t do you any good. However, wearing one while exercising will train your muscles so you naturally sit straighter later on.
By distributing the weight across your shoulders and back, weighted vests engage your core muscles and help strengthen them as you work through different bodyweight exercises.
These vests also help you develop better balance since the extra weight requires your body to provide a natural counterweight. In other words, the proprioceptors in your muscles and tendons fire up and work to keep you balanced, strengthening your center of gravity.
IMPROVED WEIGHT LOSS
Working out while carrying extra weight means your body will use up more energy. Burning more energy means using more calories, which can lead to increased weight loss when coupled with an appropriate diet and fitness routine.
When you wear a weighted vest, you burn more calories while exercising and can work faster toward your weight loss goals.
ENHANCED CARDIO BENEFITS
Added weight forces your lungs and heart to work harder to move oxygenated blood to your firing muscles. Exercising also strengthens your lungs and heart since these organs are working hard under healthy strain. As your body pumps more oxygenated blood to your body, you increase your physical performance and your maximum oxygen intake (VO2 max).
VARIABLE WORKOUT INTENSITY
Want to start low-key and build intensity into a nice slow burn? What about a warm-up followed by a high-intensity workout?
When you exercise wearing a weighted vest, you can switch up your routine and intensity. Push-ups with a weighted vest feel different than those without, as do jumping jacks or squats. So, you can vary the intensity and keep your routines from sliding into the ho-hum realm.
WAYS TO GET IN A WEIGHTED VEST WORKOUT
What is a sure-fire way to increase your fitness? Start doing exercises with weighted vest gear. Bodyweight workouts like dips, lunges, pull-ups, push-ups, inverted rows, and split squats are ideal for reaping the benefits of a weighted vest. All of them use your body weight as a base, so they become harder and more muscle-taxing when you add more weight.
However, upper-body isolation exercises like a barbell bench press, biceps curl, overhead extension, seal row, or face pull don’t engage your body weight. While they’re excellent for upper body conditioning, they don’t tax your muscles more when you wear a weight vest.
INCORPORATE EVERYDAY CHORES
There are even more ways to enjoy the benefits of weighted vest workouts. Wear one when you head out on a hike or jog, or strap one on when you do household chores that require compound movements.
Consider these chores:
- Gardening
- Cleaning floors
- Walking up and down stairs
- Vacuuming
- Raking leaves
- Mowing the lawn
- Washing the car
All of them require a variety of bending, lifting, and lunging movements that become more intense and effective with wearable weights.
WRAP-UP AND NEXT STEPS
To build strength, endurance, and form, consider adding a weighted vest to your workout gear arsenal. Our Xtreme Monkey 55 lbs Adjustable Vest and 25 lbs Adjustable Vest both come with adjustable straps and incremental bar weights that let you tailor your routine for optimal success.
At G&G Fitness, we work hard to help you train hard. We’re happy to demonstrate how to use our products and can offer workout suggestions as well. Contact us to learn more!
For more tips on achieving your fitness goals, we recommend these articles: Resolutions Got You Down?, Get Fit in the Gym, Lose Weight in the Kitchen, 5 Tips to Stop Treadmill Static, How to Set Your New Year Fitness Goals, It's Not About Getting Skinny.
If you’re ready to take the next steps in your fitness journey, contact the experts at G&G Fitness Equipment today, use the chat feature on the bottom right of this window to connect live with a G&G expert, or stop into a G&G Fitness Equipment showroom and let us show you why we are the best specialty fitness equipment retailer in the northeast.
