When to Use a Weighted Vest: Strength, Fat Loss, Endurance

There are many ways to increase the level of difficulty during a workout. Clients can change the equipment, load, speed, and stance of any exercise to make it more or less challenging. Variations also allow clients to learn how to perform a variety of exercises to help them achieve their goals.

Weighted vest training can be used in most programs. By using a weighted vest, clients add extra weight to their own body weight. This additional weight needs to be controlled by the client during any movement. Weight vests are similar to ankle weights in that they can be adjusted to be heavier or lighter.

Clients don't need to change their entire fitness routine. They can simply wear a weight vest and continue through the same program. This extra weight will add more of a challenge and increases energy expenditure. Let's look at the benefits and best opportunities to use a weight vest.

What Are Weighted Vests Used For?

As a personal trainer, you have the freedom to design client programs according to their goals and preferences. This involves prescribing exercises that you also have the equipment for.

Weighted vests are just wearable weights used to increase the resistance of a client's own bodyweight. They are mainly used to increase the intensity and metabolic conditioning component of a workout. Most weight vests come in different levels. The more vest weight a client uses, the more resistance they will experience. Implementing a weighted vest workout into a resistance training session optimizes fat loss and muscle growth.

There are many ways to implement this type of training into any exercise regimen:

• Bodyweight exercises

• Walking or running

• Hiking

• Biking

What Are The Benefits of Wearing a Weighted Vest?

Wearing a weighted vest helps build strength, endurance, and cardio. And while these are benefits of regular exercise as well, a weight vest increases the intensity of a workout and leads to these benefits to a greater extent.

Calorie Expenditure

By simply putting on a weighted vest, muscles must work harder. Clients must withstand their own body weight plus the added weight of the vest. In addition to this, they must perform the exercise movement correctly. The required energy output is much greater than usual, which leads to a higher calorie burn and greater fat loss. Weighted vests can help increase a client's heart rate and cause more energy expenditure. This contributes to a high-calorie burn.

Check out this ISSA blog to learn if cardio is really the secret to fat loss.

Strength and Muscle Mass

Weight-bearing exercise breaks down muscle. As the rate of muscle breakdown increases, the rate of muscle protein synthesis must increase also. Muscle growth occurs when the rate of protein synthesis is greater than the rate of muscle breakdown. This cannot occur unless external load is applied to the body. Muscle growth does not occur during the session itself. It happens when clients rest.

Over time, muscles adapt and bone density increases. Weighted vests can provide the same benefit as any weighted equipment. Be sure to check out these tips to improve bone strength.

Fat Loss

As clients build muscle through vest training, their rate of fat burn increases. Clients who are looking to experience weight loss and decrease body fat might benefit from using a vest. The weighted vest adds extra weight to the client and forces them to work harder. In the end, they use more energy. This means the client will burn more calories during a workout than if they didn't use the weighted vest.

Endurance

The weighted vest also helps increase muscular endurance. The extra weight forces the body to compensate and use more energy to control the body. Imagine a client running a 50-yard sprint with a 15-lb. weighted vest. Then having them take off the vest and sprinting another 50 yards. The client's body will naturally feel much lighter and they will perform better for that second sprint. This can be applied to weight lifting also. A client can perform a squat with a weighted vest and then another set without the vest. Clients can add extra sets and reps after using the vest and take advantage of the body feeling lighter.

What Are The Cons of Wearing a Weight Vest?

There is always a risk of injury, no matter the type of training you prescribe. Weight-bearing exercise forces the body to move under stress. If the body's musculoskeletal system lacks the strength to produce force and overcome the stress, then the body will suffer. Technique and form become compromised, putting a client at a higher risk of injury while strength training or resistance training.

Technique

Since most weighted vests go around the torso, they often put a lot of stress on both the front and back of the body. This sometimes changes the way clients move during exercise movements due to strengths, weaknesses, and imbalances. This disrupts form during a workout.

When the body moves improperly with load, the bones, joints, and ligaments experience damage. This could cause joint stress and pain. Gradually build up the body to become used to a certain weight vest overtime. Here are some tips to improve asymmetrical weight shift in clients.

Spine Health

Ensure your client's vest fits their specific body. Improperly fitted vest can cause issues in the spine. Always confirm that clients who use a weight vest have it secured properly around the upper body.

Avoid exercises that cause the vest to move up and down or side to side during exercise. This leads to stress on the back and can compress spinal discs.

The spinal cord provides nerve connections throughout the entire body. Keeping stress off this area is important in keeping the client safe.

Neuromuscular Confusion

The way a client's body moves is built over time, with more or fewer imbalances. The more imbalances a client has, the more inefficient their movement. If a client already has muscle imbalances or uses improper movements, a vest can magnify these issues.

When taking the vest off, the client alleviates load and muscular confusion occurs. Muscle nerves think they need to relearn certain movements. This affects muscle actions and movement patterns. Maintaining proper form can help reduce the risk of injury.

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