Weighted vest/belt

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Willsquatforpeanutbutter
Willsquatforpeanutbutter Posts: 13 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Has anyone used a weighted belt or vest walking? Is it beneficial? I walk a lot and have for years and I'm on my feet all day walking at work as well. To do my additional walk at night time or on my treadmill would adding weight help burn calories or help in anyway?

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  • Theoldguy1
    Theoldguy1 Posts: 2,454 Member
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    I walk with a 20 lb weight vest. Will build strength a burn a very few more calories..
  • djaxon1
    djaxon1 Posts: 82 Member
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    I use a 10kg/22lb vest for treadmill walking.
    This calculator reckons 10kg for me ,78kg, gives about 10% extra burn - https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs
    I've read that 15% bodyweihgt was well tolerated by unfit clients .

    And then there's rucking https://www.americangrit.com/2017/04/12/rucking-replace-aerobic-workout/
    Some people go heavy
  • BrianSharpe
    BrianSharpe Posts: 9,249 Member
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    In terms of calories an additional 20lbs will mean an increased expenditure of 6 calories for every mile walked. The real benefit of using a weighted vest is that the additional weight may help with bone density.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,876 Member
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    Willsquatforpeanutbutter wrote: »
    Has anyone used a weighted belt or vest walking? Is it beneficial? I walk a lot and have for years and I'm on my feet all day walking at work as well. To do my additional walk at night time or on my treadmill would adding weight help burn calories or help in anyway?

    Additional calories burned will be nominal at best. I often walk with a weighted pack though, especially starting in early spring to get ready for hiking later in the season. There are reasons to add weight to your walking, but additional energy expenditure wouldn't be chief among them.
  • sgt1372
    sgt1372 Posts: 3,977 Member
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    I have a vest that will carry up to 75# that I use for walking/hiking w/just 25# but dometimes load it w/50#.

    I wear it for strength/endurance training.

    There's no doubt that wearing one will strenghten your core and lower body strength/endurance especially if you wearing one while hiking in very hilly terrain as I do.

    There is a hiking/cal calculator that I use to use that measures the cals expended based on distance, % grade and wt of the load carried and the additional cals that I burned on 3-5 mile hikes at up to 1k ft in elevation was not trival.

    I'll look for the calculator and post a link to it if/when I find it
  • neffyworld
    neffyworld Posts: 89 Member
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    This is going to sound silly, but I wanted to wear one for walking but was paranoid people would think I was wearing a bomb and would attack me. I used to wear ankle weights but I don't think they are very good for you.
  • DancingMoosie
    DancingMoosie Posts: 8,613 Member
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    Why not increase speed and/or incline?
  • sgt1372
    sgt1372 Posts: 3,977 Member
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    Here's the link to the hiking cal ccalculator that I mentioned:

    https://caloriesburnedhq.com/calories-burned-hiking/

    As I recall, the calculation was pretty close to what I got w/MapMyHike w/o carryibg a load but MMH will not adjust for additional wt carried.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    djaxon1 wrote: »
    I use a 10kg/22lb vest for treadmill walking.
    This calculator reckons 10kg for me ,78kg, gives about 10% extra burn - https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs
    I've read that 15% bodyweihgt was well tolerated by unfit clients .

    And then there's rucking https://www.americangrit.com/2017/04/12/rucking-replace-aerobic-workout/
    Some people go heavy

    If you're about 100 kg / 220 pounds, that makes sense. 🙂

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