Does anyone here walk with a weighted vest/backpack?

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stegeem
stegeem Posts: 143 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
What have your experiances been? did it tone your arms/calves/abs/back? What weight do you carry? do you wear weight on the front and back? what have been the outcomes? was it difficult? do you ever change the amount of weight you carry? do you see other people doing it? how long do you go for? do you take the dog on the leash at the same time? do other family members do it with you? has it improved your fitness? has it made you a better runner? are you stronger? is it easier to carry your kids around?

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  • Theoldguy1
    Theoldguy1 Posts: 2,454 Member
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    Lot of questions, here you go:

    Doesn't do anything for arms, strengthens core and legs
    Carry 20 pounds
    I have a weight vest so the weight is distributed evenly front and back
    Outcomes better cardio
    Not especially difficult as worked up time and distance
    I got a new vest for Christmas so will start using that (increased weight capacity)
    Often see other people doing it (not sure what difference that makes)
    Usually go for an hour, about 4 miles
    Don't have a dog
    Sometimes my wife walks with me, she doesn't wear weights
    I would say it improves fitness, it's progressive overload
    Have not ran for a while, assume it would
    Yes, I'm stronger
    My kids are in their 30's and in the 200 pound range so I don't carry them around :)
  • stegeem
    stegeem Posts: 143 Member
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    Theoldguy1 wrote: »
    My kids are in their 30's and in the 200 pound range so I don't carry them around :)

    Lol, that could be a tad heavy!
  • stegeem
    stegeem Posts: 143 Member
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    Also known as "rucking". Apparently you can earn 3x as many calories. Not sure if the heartrate monitor on the fitbit would give you more calories.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,195 Member
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    stegeem wrote: »
    Also known as "rucking". Apparently you can earn 3x as many calories. Not sure if the heartrate monitor on the fitbit would give you more calories.

    Color me skeptical. I think that if you're carrying X amount of extra weight in a backpack or weight vest, you're going to burn about the same number of calories as if your body weighed X pounds more. That isn't going to be anything like 3x as many calories.

    I can believe that a heart rate monitor might claim calorie burn is that much higher, but if so that'd be an example of a conceptual flaw in estimating calories from heart rate: Heart rate can increase dramatically from things that don't actually trigger increased oxygen consumption, like strain or intra-body pressure, among others. It's oxygen consumption that correlates with calorie burn fairly well. Heart rate is only a flawed proxy for oxygen consumption.
  • Theoldguy1
    Theoldguy1 Posts: 2,454 Member
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    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    stegeem wrote: »
    Also known as "rucking". Apparently you can earn 3x as many calories. Not sure if the heartrate monitor on the fitbit would give you more calories.

    Color me skeptical. I think that if you're carrying X amount of extra weight in a backpack or weight vest, you're going to burn about the same number of calories as if your body weighed X pounds more. That isn't going to be anything like 3x as many calories.

    I can believe that a heart rate monitor might claim calorie burn is that much higher, but if so that'd be an example of a conceptual flaw in estimating calories from heart rate: Heart rate can increase dramatically from things that don't actually trigger increased oxygen consumption, like strain or intra-body pressure, among others. It's oxygen consumption that correlates with calorie burn fairly well. Heart rate is only a flawed proxy for oxygen consumption.

    I saw the 3X thing and also questioned. It comes up on the GO RUCK website, imagine that. With that said I know some people that have their products and they are great quality.

    This was on CNN and and more believable IMO

    jrzyqgnba1hk.png

    Complete Article

    https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/16/health/rucking-cardio-strength-workout-wellness/index.html#:~:text=What's more, rucking torches calories,according to the US Army.
  • stegeem
    stegeem Posts: 143 Member
    edited January 5
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    @AnnPT77 @Theoldguy I've seen the 3x amount of calories thing several times over the internet. Some places have said you carry 20%+ of your body weight and you should burn about 30% more calories. It never occurred to me that carrying a backpack would burn more, seems obvious now.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,195 Member
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    stegeem wrote: »
    @AnnPT77 @Theoldguy I've seen the 3x amount of calories thing several times over the internet. Some places have said you carry 20%+ of your body weight and you should burn about 30% more calories. It never occurred to me that carrying a backpack would burn more, seems obvious now.

    The internet is full of wild and wishful calorie burn claims.

    I think the end of the quote from @Theoldguy1 is probably right: ". . . that 180 pound soldier {carrying 35 pounds} is burning calories at the rate of someone who weighs 215 pounds."

    For many of us, that wouldn't be 3x as many calories. For me, an hour at bodyweight and 4mph would be about 256 net calories based on how I estimate walking, while an hour at bodyweight + 35 pounds would be about 311 net calories. That's not anything like 3x as much, though I admit I'm non-big (5'5", let's say 133 pounds). It's like 21% more, not 300% more. I'm not sure I could walk at 4mph with 35 extra pounds anyway, and I'm certain it would trash my already-poor knees, so it's a "no" for me.

    In general, for myself, I'm not a fan of chasing exercises that deliver maximum calorie burn. I'm more about finding things that are so fun that I want to do them (so will do them regularly), or about doing things for some specific benefit (like, say, strength training enough to maintain strength and muscle mass so I can stay independent as long as possible). I'm generally not going to do unpleasant things just for extra calories.

    Other people are free to consider extra calories enough benefit in itself, of course. I'd encourage them to evaluate internet calorie hype carefully, because IME it's mostly B.S.

  • stegeem
    stegeem Posts: 143 Member
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    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    stegeem wrote: »
    @AnnPT77 @Theoldguy I've seen the 3x amount of calories thing several times over the internet. Some places have said you carry 20%+ of your body weight and you should burn about 30% more calories. It never occurred to me that carrying a backpack would burn more, seems obvious now.

    The internet is full of wild and wishful calorie burn claims.

    I think the end of the quote from @Theoldguy1 is probably right: ". . . that 180 pound soldier {carrying 35 pounds} is burning calories at the rate of someone who weighs 215 pounds."

    For many of us, that wouldn't be 3x as many calories. For me, an hour at bodyweight and 4mph would be about 256 net calories based on how I estimate walking, while an hour at bodyweight + 35 pounds would be about 311 net calories. That's not anything like 3x as much, though I admit I'm non-big (5'5", let's say 133 pounds). It's like 21% more, not 300% more. I'm not sure I could walk at 4mph with 35 extra pounds anyway, and I'm certain it would trash my already-poor knees, so it's a "no" for me.

    In general, for myself, I'm not a fan of chasing exercises that deliver maximum calorie burn. I'm more about finding things that are so fun that I want to do them (so will do them regularly), or about doing things for some specific benefit (like, say, strength training enough to maintain strength and muscle mass so I can stay independent as long as possible). I'm generally not going to do unpleasant things just for extra calories.

    Other people are free to consider extra calories enough benefit in itself, of course. I'd encourage them to evaluate internet calorie hype carefully, because IME it's mostly B.S.

    I think it would be fun. For my job, I already carry extra weight for about three hours once a week. I think it's only an extra 5kg or something.
  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,519 Member
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    3x is absurd, but it has to be more than "calories of someone at that bw"?

    e.g. a walking calories calculator says that a 60 pounds heaving version of myself walking 8 miles is 27% calories more than my current self 60 pounds lighter. I know I've done that distance when sightseeing in a foreign city, walking all day. And I remember it was tiring. But I'm thinking damn, imagine if I were wearing an additional 60 pounds all day today. Hard to believe it would only be 27% more calories.

    Google says:

    "obese people have higher absolute muscle strength than lean peers but lower strength per unit body mass."

    Which basically means they're more efficient at moving that weight, meaning someone lighter who is wearing that same total weight would be working harder.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,195 Member
    edited January 6
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    Retroguy2000 wrote: »
    3x is absurd, but it has to be more than "calories of someone at that bw"?

    e.g. a walking calories calculator says that a 60 pounds heaving version of myself walking 8 miles is 27% calories more than my current self 60 pounds lighter. I know I've done that distance when sightseeing in a foreign city, walking all day. And I remember it was tiring. But I'm thinking damn, imagine if I were wearing an additional 60 pounds all day today. Hard to believe it would only be 27% more calories.

    Google says:

    "obese people have higher absolute muscle strength than lean peers but lower strength per unit body mass."

    Which basically means they're more efficient at moving that weight, meaning someone lighter who is wearing that same total weight would be working harder.

    I have my doubts that there's a meaningful difference. Being more "efficient" doesn't change the work (in the physics definition of work). Work requires calories.

    If someone is in the process of losing weight, or has recently lost weight, would they lose that "efficiency" proportionate to their weight loss (no matter what interventions they may use to avoid losing muscle mass)? Doubtful.

    FWIW, I also don't think that obese people having more absolute strength but lower strength per unit body mass would necessarily mean they're more efficient. It could mean they're just less well adapted, i.e., less fit because they move their mass around less than a thin person (for whom movement is easier) moves their smaller mass around. Metaphorically, they're doing fewer reps with higher weight by moving a larger mass but doing it substantially less often.

    (There's decent research suggesting that on average obese people move less than healthy-weight people. IMU, that's theorized to contribute to the probability of regain after loss, because the lower movement - lower NEAT - is either a well-established habit, or possibly even genetically mediated. Individuals may differ from that average, of course.)

    But we digress, into a somewhat pedantic argument . . . apologies, OP. :)
  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,519 Member
    edited January 6
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    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    I have my doubts that there's a meaningful difference. Being more "efficient" doesn't change the work (in the physics definition of work). Work requires calories.
    Say we had an accomplished track athlete of the same weight as myself (probably not... but let's go with it anyway), and we were both tasked with running a few laps of a track at a decent pace for an average runner. It would be a breeze for them. It would be hell for me. Same calories? The better the body adapts to doing something, the easier it is to do.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,195 Member
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    Retroguy2000 wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    I have my doubts that there's a meaningful difference. Being more "efficient" doesn't change the work (in the physics definition of work). Work requires calories.
    Say we had an accomplished track athlete of the same weight as myself (probably not... but let's go with it anyway), and we were both tasked with running a few laps of a track at a decent pace for an average runner. It would be a breeze for them. It would be hell for me. Same calories? The better the body adapts to doing something, the easier it is to do.

    That's still conflating fitness with calorie burn. It feels easier for the highly trained person because they're more fit, not because they're more efficient - at least not primarily because of efficiency. Most HRM will estimate lower calories for them, because their heart pumps more blood/oxygen volume per beat, so their heart rate is lower. They're still doing the same amount of work (same course, pace, body size).

    Elite endurance athletes burn ungodly amounts of calories, have to eat ridiculous amounts of food while training. If they burned lots fewer calories through efficiency, that wouldn't be true.

    There's a reason why research-based exercise calorie estimating methods don't generally treat fitness level as a variable. That's because it isn't particularly important for most activities. For example, one of the most well-accepted ways to estimate exercise calories pretty accurately is the (3.6 times average watts times hours) formula for cycling, workable because individual humans' cycling efficiency (amateur to expert) is in quite a narrow band.

    I've been rowing (among other things) quite a lot for 23 years. Trust me, I've gotten more efficient (skilled) and much fitter. There's zero sign that I'm burning a shrinking number of calories, other than the difference weight loss made (also not a huge factor, for rowing in particular).
  • earlybirdlady
    earlybirdlady Posts: 56 Member
    edited January 6
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    stegeem wrote: »
    What have your experiances been? did it tone your arms/calves/abs/back? What weight do you carry? do you wear weight on the front and back? what have been the outcomes? was it difficult? do you ever change the amount of weight you carry? do you see other people doing it? how long do you go for? do you take the dog on the leash at the same time? do other family members do it with you? has it improved your fitness? has it made you a better runner? are you stronger? is it easier to carry your kids around?

    I used to ruck while pushing two kids in a double stroller up and down hills and I was in the best shape of my life. Honestly I didn’t even measure weight, I started with a brick or two, added another brick, added a weight, etc. Would definitely recommend doing with a friend or family member and/or dog!

    Anybody have some stroller-sized kids I can borrow so I can resurrect this awesome workout??

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