What Are the Benefits of a Weight Vest?

A weight vest is a vest, similar to a bullet-proof vest in appearance, that wraps the entire torso and is filled with weights. It is meant to allow some flexibility while still providing resistance and, most importantly, more weight to carry in a workout, which makes the workout more strenuous.

Overall Benefits

• In almost any workout, a weight vest will increase the intensity of the workout. This means that it will make you expend more energy to do the same amount of work you are used to doing in your workout. Hence, you will burn more calories with the weight vest while doing the exact same workout as without the vest.

Benefits to Osteoporosis

• It has been shown in clinical trials that the use of a weight vest can positively impact people with osteoporosis. Because the weight vest increases the intensity of a workout, people suffering from or prone to osteoporosis can do a very low intensity workout with the vest and get more benefit to bone density.

Long Term Benefits

• Because most weight vests have removable weights, people can increase the intensity of their workout as their strength improves simply by adding more weight. This is beneficial because it does not necessitate the learning of newer, more complex workouts to increase intensity.

Uses of a Weight Vest

• Because of how little a weight vest restricts movement, it can be applied to most exercises. It has been shown to increase the intensity of cardiovascular, aerobic, anaerobic, and core exercises, as well as many more. It is also beneficial simply to wear the vest when walking or otherwise not working out, because you will burn more calories with it on.

Safety

• Weight vests have never been shown to be dangerous in any way as long as they are used correctly. Because of their shape, the weight put in the vest is supported by the entire skeleton of the user's torso, which eliminates dangers caused by an imbalance of weighting or other harmful stresses to the user's bones.