An Honest Weight Vest Review

So I got influenced. Not by a famous celebrity, but by my friend. She kept sharing her weighted vest on her walk and I was intrigued. At the same time I was hearing more about the need for weight training for women as we age. And I knew I just wasn’t ready to add that to my schedule. But I realized I was ready to add a weighted vest to my very established walk routine. And so, now 4 months in, here is my complete weight vest review and story.

Weight Vest Review

Ok. A little bit more background on why I wanted the weighted vest. My kiddo just turned 6 and while previous me says that that should have been BEYOND enough time to get back to “gyming” it up 5 days per week like I was pre-pregnancy – I got a pandemic for 2 years, after moving to a new town, and you know what? Life is just a little different with a kiddo (not even just the watching and caring for the kiddo).

I share all this so you know my mental and physical status. Additionally, I have a membership to a gym nearby, but I think my days of going to the gym to do weights and run on a treadmill are in the past – or at least on hold. So where did that leave me as I kept hearing about the importance of bone density for women as we age? Well, I might have been flummoxed had my friend not been sharing her weight vest on Instagram.

Unimportant side note – in my 13 years of blogging, I think that is the first time I’ve ever used the word flummoxed. I’m clearly a new lady! hah.

So, anyway. I walk 3x per week. I have a route. It’s about 45 minutes and I love it. I usually call my mom (or my friend who influenced me about the vest) and it’s a great way to get outside before it gets too hot. While I wasn’t ready to change my workout routine (it’s working for me), I realized that adding a vest to my routine was easy – SO EASY.

My friend had a 20 pound weighted vest, which she felt was probably too much for her first vest. So when I searched online for a vest, I was looking for a 15 pound option…only to have that one sold out on the site I found. I opted for the 12 pound option and figured it would at least be a good intro point.

I’ll skip to the end real quick and tell you that the 12 pound was exactly right for me and I’m so glad they were out of the 15 pound one. And now looking online, I see that many vest are 20 pounds and up to 60 pounds. That sounds brutal, but maybe it’s just not for the kind of workout I’m doing.

Weighted Vest Pros

Ok. So a few things. Because I use a small weight (12 pounds), I wasn’t likely to see drastic results – and I didn’t, but you know what I did notice? That I was hitting my calorie goal on my Fitbit most days (even the ones I wasn’t walking in the vest).

So I certainly burning more calories on days I’m wearing it AND I must be building muscle mass somewhere because I’m hitting calories on my “off days” sooner too (muscle burns more calories than fat all the time). I’m guessing the muscle is in my legs mostly and a bit in my back. This is the one I have.

Do Weighted Vests Hurt?

So, my vest goes on like a jacket and I have it pulled tightly (not painfully) so it stays in place! I thin it’s important to wear it properly. Otherwise, it doesn’t hurt to wear at all. You will notice your workouts being more work (I’m always ready to take off my vest at the end of a workout).

The one thing I did notice was that I had tightness in my neck the first few weeks I was wearing it. It doesn’t take much for my muscles to get tight these days, but I definitely felt it with the weighted vest. It did eventually go away and I did take days off of wearing it at the beginning (listen to your body). And now I don’t get any tightness from wearing the vest.

So that’s the schtick. I love my weighted vest. It’s a great way to amp up my workout without changing my routine. I might eventually work up to a 15 or 20 pound vest, but I’m not going to do that right away. This is the one I have.

This brand of weight vests has more weight options in this range of weight. It has the dual front clasps and gets good reviews online!! They have vests in 5-30 pounds and every 5 pound increment (and a wide variety of colors)

For your long walks, you might like these tinted sunscreen picks!