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Fitness

Should You Wear Your Weight Vest Grocery Shopping?

I've had people tell me that wearing a weight vest around all day is beneficial. Is it, really? And if so, how? Scientists take a look and determine whether you should wear one while grocery shopping.

Joshua Wortman

Written by Joshua Wortman Last updated on October 31, 2012

We have all seen that guy who shows up to the gym wearing a weighted vest and proceeds to perform his workout with it on, but what about the guy who wears it at his desk or around the house? It’s not much of a question whether or not the vest makes a workout more challenging, but you may find yourself wondering if there is any added benefit to casually wear it throughout the day. To help answer this, a recent study investigated if wearing a weighted vest during daily activities excluding sporting activities improved neuromuscular performance in young adults.

At the beginning of the study, baseline assessments of all participants were made to determine performance level: countermovement jump (body mass normalized peak power), figure-of-8 running test (running time), and 10-meter running velocity test. These same tests were also done at the end of the study so comparisons could be made.1

Twenty young males participated in the study. Eight of them wore weighted vests 3 days per week for 3 weeks. They wore the vests during the day (excluding sporting activities). The weights of the vests were an average of 5.6% of the body mass of the subject, which ended up being a 4 or 6 kilogram vest. The other 9 participants did not wear the vest, and served as the control group.2

The baseline results in performance were similar, but the analysis of the data indicated that the intervention improved the figure-of-8 running time. On the other hand, normalized peak power and running velocity were unaffected. Ultimately, wearing the weighted vest only resulted in a slight improvement in agility-related performance in young men. Previous studies showed that wearing a weighted vest throughout the day, as well as during training, was an effective way of increasing jump performance.

In conclusion, since the benefit of wearing a weighted vest during the day was slight, wearing the vest only during exercise would probably benefit the most. This particular study proved that wearing a weighted vest throughout the day and not during sporting activities is slightly effective in improving agility only. So if you are looking to increase performance via a weighted vest, it would be best to refrain from wearing it during the day and only suit up when it’s time to train. So basically, don’t be that guy at your desk wearing a weight vest.

Joshua Wortman

About Joshua Wortman

Joshua began lifting in high school, but really doesn’t consider his effective training to have begun until the last few years. Joshua was always very strong for his bodyweight, but he didn’t just want to be strong, he wanted to look strong. At 140 pounds, no matter how strong he was for his age and weight, the size wasn’t there.

During his last year of college, Joshua began research on bodybuilding, and since his graduation, he has taken his bodybuilding to a whole new level. Josh experienced a minor setback in 2009 when he experienced an L5-L6 disc herniation while doing deadlifts. Consequently, his lower body training was very limited for almost a year. Thankfully, he has self-rehabbed his back to pretty much full strength.

Since he graduated from NC State University with his Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering, Joshua has taken his bodybuilding to a whole new level. His knowledge has increased ten fold since when he began, and both his knowledge anpersonal progress have also bred success in the fact he started up Get Right Get Tight Fitness.

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