Adjustable Weighted Vest

In the picture to your left, you can see a guy wearing a MiR adjustable weighted vest. This is just one of the brands offering weight vests, and these fitness products have become increasingly popular with men and women who are looking for that extra edge in their workouts.

In this article, I’ll go over some of the pros and cons of using a weighted vest, give some workout tips for using them and mention some of the tops brands who offer such vests and have good customer reviews.

But before I do, let’s just go over, briefly, what a weighted vest is.

As you can see, this is a vest that you strap around your body, leaving the arms and shoulders free to allow optimal freedom of motion and convenience when you’re working out. The vest has pockets around it into which you can place packets or small weights (often filled with tightly packed sand). Each vest has a maximum weight that you can place into it, from 20 pounds all the way to a 140 lbs and more. Naturally, the heavier the vest is, the harder it is to do your workouts, resulting in a greater muscular stimulation and calorie burn rate.

Each vest is different in the material it’s made off, the way it fits your body, the maximum weight it carries, and in the weight of each packet. Often, the vests with higher maximums have bigger packets, say 4 lbs each, while the smaller vests, those with a 20 or 40 lbs maximum have 1 lb packs.

Adjustable Weighted Vests Workouts

Weighted vests can be used in a variety of ways and exercises. You can use them for cardio workouts, such as walking, running, hiking, and there are even vests for swimming. Weight vests can be used to create powerful interval training workouts as simply putting them on during one interval and taking them off in another will create a massive difference in intensity.

These vests can also be used in a variety of strength exercises such as push-ups, pull-ups, chin-ups, lunges, squats, parallel bar dips, and so on. A lot of bodyweight exercises can be made much harder simply by packing on more weight. And, as your own body’s mass may take a long time to change, a vest allows you to train your body in a range of intensities and can help you create a more powerful workout experience.

Tips for using Weight Vests

You need to pay attention to some things when you’re using these weighted vests:

1. Don’t be hasty – Don’t pack on too much weight too soon. While it’s tempting to put on 60 lbs on you and go for a run, this does put an extra load on your joints, tendons, and muscles. Build your stamina and strength gradually. You’ll get there soon enough.

2. Make sure you keep proper form – There’s no use to place more weight on you if you can’t perform the exercise correctly. Form comes first, weight after.

3. If you feel any pain or discomfort, reduce the weight or take off the vest completely.

Top Brands of Weighted Vests

As I said, there are a number of brands for weighted vests. Some of the top ones include MiR, V-Max, Xvests, and ZFO. MiR, V-Max, and ZFO appear to be the more affordable brands who all have excellent reviews. One issue with V-Max is that I wasn’t able to find any vests on Amazon, while the other brands offer excellent deals there. You can find a wide variety of vests in different weight ranges here: Weighted Vests on Amazon

In Conclusion

A weighted vest is a good way to increase the intensity of a workout, build more muscle and burn fat faster. However, you should realize that adding more and more weight is not always the best course of action to take. Make sure that you’re actually able to perform your exercises, be they cardio or strength, properly before rushing to strap extra pounds to your body.