The Vest Stays the Same

Hey {{first name | reader}},

It’s Tuesday, which means your weekly fitness check-in. Welcome to Week #30.

I was chatting with one of my sisters on the phone when she mentioned that she had invested in a weighted vest. I bought one during the pandemic and wore it on my daily afternoon walk.¹ Once I was able to get back into the gym, I mostly stopped walking outside with it. Now I’m more likely to wear it while doing chores around the house.

I’m also wearing it as I write this. It weighs twenty pounds. Wearing a weighted vest while sitting at a desk has few documented fitness benefits, but it does make me look extremely committed.

When you add weight to your body while moving, the same activity generally requires more effort. Walking at the same speed and over the same terrain will cost more energy with a vest than without one. Depending on the load, pace and incline, your heart rate and oxygen use may rise too.

But the operative phrase is while moving. The vest adds load; it does not sprinkle fitness benefits over everything you happen to do while wearing it. Sitting remains sitting, only heavier.

The extra calorie burn is also likely to be fairly modest at the weights most of us would realistically wear. A widely discussed 2024 study found that heavier vests increased the metabolic cost of walking—but the participants carried 22%, 44% or 66% of their body weight. That is less “pleasant afternoon walk” and more “evacuating a small person from a burning building.”²

My vest has weighed twenty pounds since 2020. In that time, the amount I lift in the weight room has more than doubled. That is because I have gradually increased the weights I lift. The vest stayed the same; the barbells did not.

Over time, my body adapted to the vest, so activities that were initially challenging became easier. This is why progressive overload matters. To continue creating a useful training stimulus, you eventually have to change something: the load, the repetitions, the duration, the speed, the incline or the difficulty of the movement.

A vest also doesn’t train every part of the body equally. During walking, your legs carry the extra load and your trunk helps keep you upright, but the vest is not going to help me lift a heavy suitcase into an overhead bin—or improve my bench-press PR. It can, however, make bodyweight exercises such as squats, step-ups, pushups and pullups substantially harder. It is also much easier to put on a vest for weighted pull-ups than to hang a plate from a chain around my waist or attempt to secure a dumbbell between my crossed feet.³

If you want to incorporate a vest into your training, think of it as a supplement. It can make familiar activities more demanding and provide a convenient way to load some bodyweight exercises. It cannot transform a gentle stroll into a complete fitness program.

Start conservatively—perhaps around 5% of your body weight—and try it for 10 to 15 minutes on a flat, familiar route. That 5% is a practical starting point, not a scientifically ordained number. Increase either the time or the weight gradually, and back off if the vest changes your gait, compromises your posture or causes joint or back pain. I would not make running in it your opening move.

Question: Should I get a weighted vest?

Answer: Maybe. A weighted vest can make an activity you already do more demanding without requiring you to learn anything new. That is a legitimate advantage.

But, like all fitness equipment, it is useful only if it does not end up in the corner collecting dust. Before buying one, ask yourself what you would actually use it for. If the answer is “my regular walks and a few bodyweight exercises,” reasonable. If the answer is “avoiding cardio and strength training while somehow receiving the benefits of both,” the vest is not going to cooperate.

Myth: A weighted vest is a good substitute for strength training.

Reality: A weighted vest makes whatever you’re doing harder, which is genuinely useful. But harder walking is still walking. It does not produce the same range of strength adaptations as progressively loading squats, deadlifts, presses, rows and other resistance exercises.

Think of a vest as an amplifier. It can make an existing activity more demanding. It cannot replace the activities you aren’t doing.

Apples are the only fruit I will willingly eat, and then only certain varieties—and only if they are crunchy and crisp. Even then, I do my best to disguise them as something else.

Here’s my apple crunch recipe:

Place the apple in a bowl with the almonds, coconut, and macadamia nuts. Add the yogurt—just enough yogurt to coat the apple rather than pool in the bottom of the bowl— then mix until the apple is enveloped and almost invisible. Make sure there are enough nuts in every bite to disguise the fact that you are eating fruit.⁴

Stronger by Science takes an appropriately skeptical look at weighted-vest research, including a 2024 paper on the metabolic cost of walking with very heavy loads.

The conclusion is the usual nuanced one: weighted vests are useful tools surrounded by overstated claims. They can add a little difficulty to an existing routine, but the evidence does not suggest that they supercharge walking, melt away fat, or eliminate the need for strength training.

Which is exactly what I’ve been telling you.

Audit Your Vest

If you own a weighted vest, wear it for one activity you already do: a walk, a set of squats or step-ups, or a few pushups or pullups. Notice what actually changes. Does your heart rate rise? Does your posture change? Does the exercise feel meaningfully harder, or are you simply wearing a very expensive sleeveless jacket?

If the activity still feels easy, you have options beyond piling on more weight. Walk faster, add a hill, increase the duration or choose an exercise that makes better use of the load.

If you don’t own a vest, you do not need to buy one for this experiment. Put a few books in a securely fastened backpack and use it for a short walk, squats or step-ups. Start light and make sure the load cannot shift around.

The equipment is optional. The progressive overload is not.

Stay strong,

{{first name | reader}}

P.S. The vest stayed the same. The deadlift doubled. That’s the point.