Weight Vests

(PJ) #1

Hi everyone.

So, many many years ago when I was a couple hundred pounds larger, I really wanted to find a weight vest, so that the simple motion I did daily could get just the tiniest bit more workout. Couldn’t find one to fit me.

After I’d lost about 100#, I got the idea of adding weight as I lost weight. Sadly I still could not find any weight vest to fit me.

FFWD to end of last year, I was another 50# down and I found a poncho-style weight vest on amazon that is just front and back that connect via long velcro straps. I decided to try it out once I got another 50# down, which I am now (~350), I’d wear it.

So yesterday was my first day.

It does fit --er, barely, but ok. I ordered some 3" black velcro that I can sew to this so the straps are a little longer for me especially over the shoulders.

Big boobs do not help as it forces me to adjust its positioning so the straps are right above/below them which is not necessarily the best position I’d choose for comfort, but ok.

The vest itself weighs 4.4# sez my scale, I thought from holding it that it was a bit more. I only put 6# in it, so it would be about 10.4# and that’s all.

I wore it from 1pm to midnight yesterday, and I did a variety of things in it – went to the hardware store, later went to the grocery store, went to my daughter’s house, worked on the (seemingly endless) home project ‘cube wall’ of my gym and going through a gazillion supplement-type-things I’ve been accruing, did some dishes, did some cooking, fed the neighbor’s chickens, and so on.

It must be kicking up endorphins as I felt rather bad ass ‘stalking/hiking’ through the stores despite that I was weary. REALLY weary by night.

Still kinda weary this morning. Put it on but am far more sedentary today which I expected, and my daily events are scheduled that this is the norm. So far aside from being frakkin uncomfortable and bulky, it’s really only affecting me when I have to get up to get ice for my water or pee.

Although I have a sports bra-top at bottom underneath, and the a medium length t-shirt over that, and then the bulky vest over that, I still throw another super big t-shirt over the top of the vest. Which looks bizarre because OBVIOUSLY there is something huge all under your shirt. :rofl:

But it looks like some cross between SWAT team and suicide bomber and I don’t want to freak out the locals in stores. :slight_smile: (I’m in Oklahoma. One is actually likely to get shot by half a dozen locals if someone DID think you might be a suicide bomber. ;-))

I’ll be using the vest on my VibePlate (WBV) probably starting tomorrow, and wearing it for my ‘rounds’ of my tiny living room gym – farmer carries that are also step-ups onto and off the plate. Hoping to walk to the store a block away with it, when I’m slightly less weary, I figure it will take some time to adapt.

This is the vest I got:

So I’m just wondering, does anybody else use a weight vest? Have any experience, ideas or advice about it? Note how light the weight is. My increase of that will probably be verrrrry slow.

PJ

(K-9 Handler/Trainer, PSD/EP Specialist, Veteran) #2

I own 7… of varying makes sizes colors and mission function. To be honest though, they aren’t weight vests but actual armor plate carriers (which is actually what they started out as) that I’ve been training and serving in for years. All of them have the front rear and side armor plates, and so none of mine are light… unless I remove my SAPI’s ESAPI’s or AR500’s. With my entire loadout, (full mags, equipment, IFAK’s, water bladder, Assorted KIT) sans ruck, it is a good 30 to 40 lbs… albeit very mobile and mission-ready.
Believe me, you won’t look like a suicide bomber. And if you’re worried about it, just get velcro patches made with your name on it, and maybe a crossfit patch: most nowadays are aware of “The Murph”.
I know my situation is different… but here, when we have Silkie runs… Vet Suicide Awareness runs… any kind of event where we wear our vests and rucks, people are quite aware.
I attended one near Tulsa a few years ago as well :slight_smile:
Our fellow female warriors did have to get used to it while they served; the discomfort ranked way less than the threats… so they wore it happily, albeit begrudgingly at first.
It’s one of those things where you just have to embrace the suck… and keep on truckin.
Eventually you’ll be totally operator. :slight_smile:

(K-9 Handler/Trainer, PSD/EP Specialist, Veteran) #3

Alternately, you could also use a full Camelbak, or a ruck/backpack to begin with; it may also make you stand out less starting that way.

(PJ) #4

Wow, 7! But I guess that makes sense given your job. :slight_smile:

Thanks for the feedback.

I’m ok with the looks, I suppose, with the t-shirt now it’s mostly just kind of funny, because it looks like, YOU ARE SO OBVIOUSLY HIDING SOMETHING GIGANTIC UNDER YOUR SHIRT as if maybe I were hoping to sneak out of a store with 17 layers of shirts under mine or something. :rofl:

It’ll be easier in in about 5 weeks – within 2-3 days max of Halloween, the temp here drops suddenly to biting chill, so then all my big baggy zip hoodies will make this more comfortable, it’s just slightly better than a t-shirt I guess. All my clothing is sweats, t-shirts and hoodies and gigantic – it was huge when I bought it and it’s huger now, all big men’s stuff – so fortunately it’s no problem finding things to fit over the top of it and then some. (They also all nearly reach my knees, but I consider that a feature not a bug.)

I’m not wearing the vest now as it’s the middle of the night and I’m up (alas) in my nightgown, but will continue attempting to force myself to adapt to it by wearing it fairly constantly for awhile. Nothing but to plow through it I figure. I’ve already gotten vastly more used to it just in two days of wearing it all day. You can get used to anything I guess. (When young I once had a job where I’d sometimes forget to take my bandanna and hard hat off for hours. I just forgot it was there once I adapted.)

Gotta admit it’s a real PITA trying to do much bending though…

Since my body is feeling ok now – it was weary the first night and yesterday, but I feel good now – do you think it would be overkill to add another 3# weight? I mean it’s only 6# (plus 4.4# vest) right now. I dread adding weight to the back since it means any sitting in it will start sucking in an even bigger way. I want to be able to wear it most the waking time not just for brief periods when exercising or something. The two plates I have in there now are on each side in top front. I’m just assuming that generally this needs to be done evenly between sides first, and then front/back second.

Is there any kind of guideline for the timing of weight increases on these things? Not sure if being a menopausal seriously overweight grandma makes this different than being military, but it might. :wink:

PJ

#5

I just put weights in a backpack and went walking. At least, I did when I had a place to walk.

(squirrel-kissing paper tamer) #6

This may be a dumb question, but couldn’t a weight vest add wear and tear to joints and compact vertebra? In other words, aren’t we aiming to get this excess weight off to save our knees, joints, etc?

(Katie) #7

Part of the wear on joints is the extra weight…but… also a huge part is the K2 deficiency that almost every one has…also…collagen lack.

I had a torn miscues in my knee…also bursitis in both knees. Since starting keto, and using bone broth I have seen a huge improvement. I added K2 supplement 3 months ago, and the pain in my knees is gone,. Only issue I have had was the day I got nuts and started doing jumping jacks (68 years old…thought I was 30 again)

I suspect that carrying that extra weight is not harmful to joints if you are taking care of everything else. Is carry 28lbs on wrists and ankles. (7lb each). No problem. Consider, I was carrying 50 lb and more just 5 months ago, and doing none of the right things for my joint health.

(PJ) #8

Hiya! Well, that’s not really why I’m aiming to get more weight off, though of course that’s always a good thing to add to the list!

My metabolism is low. I was profoundly sedentary for a few years then bedridden for a few years, and profoundly sedentary for another year or so while gradually working up again, and mildly sedentary since. My metabolic rate is pretty low, despite my high body weight. As I lose weight, it just gets lower. So I am in part hoping to increase that. (Obviously this comes second to food and supps, but those are ok, this is its own category of effort.)

I am also hoping to generally increase my overall strength. The vest is not specific to a given muscle group, but rather to something I could wear when doing some walking and ordinary things around the house. A lot of the “smaller muscles” are what are problems for people who have whole-body atrophy. Eventually my legs became strong enough to do basic stuff, but then I do some totally normal, barely even moving behavior, and the small muscles that are not used to handling 350# reaching up in the cupboard and twisting have an issue. Not just “I’m a tad sore” issue but “!@#$(& you will not be moving in that direction for a week now.”

So I worked up to doing stuff around the house without injury, and the next step is to do all that stuff with just a little more weight added, and so on… enter the vest.

I am also working more specifically on targeted muscle groups of course, but the vest to me seemed like a rather good “overall” thing.

I usually walk in the Autumn and Winter here (I’m on the flat edge of the Ozarks), and so I thought if I got used to wearing this around the house for chores and for a few errands to stores, by the time I started walking again I could wear it for that.

Farmer Carries, where you carry weights in your hands, are great exercise, and I want to do more of them, but they put a lot of strain right on specific shoulder muscles for me (everything is weak for me but especially upper body – I couldn’t lift my arms for years, and could only put on upper body clothing without having to rest for a bit, like three months ago). I realized I could put weight in the vest, and although it’s still on the shoulders, it is somewhat more body-distributed than being down in my fists, so that also seemed like a better way to go about it.

Anyway so that’s a variety of reasons but that’s the stuff that I was thinking. I mentioned in my first post I’d wanted to do this for a dozen years but not until last year could I even find a vest that I thought might fit me. Which wouldn’t have then. But does now… only just.

So basically I’ve wanted to do this for a dozen years, and then I’ve been waiting with the vest in a box until I could finally wear it for another year.

So at this point even if it were my doom I’d probably still wear the damn thing. :rofl:

I took a day off it yesterday because my uppermost traps around back of my neck were so ‘weary.’ Not like ‘sore’ more like just ‘exhausted.’ Reminded me of overtraining (or maybe poor form) on deadlifts eons ago, where I felt like my spinal column was exhausted somehow. I wasn’t sore, I just had a sort of fundamental exhaustion difficult to articulate. Anyway I gave it a day and most of today, but I’ll be slipping it on to do some stuff this evening for a short bit, and then hopefully most all the weekend.

@Katiekate I’ve just recently been obsessing a lot more about quality A E D3 K2 supps (and homemade emulsified/liposomal ascorbic+lecithin for C, and both phospholipid and liquid B complex), but I didn’t know K2 would help with joint pain. Which fortunately I do not have, but that’s good to know!

PJ

(squirrel-kissing paper tamer) #9

PJ, thanks for the reply. Your reasons for wearing the weight vest makes a lot of sense. I imagine it will help with the atrophy and understandably hand weights might be a bit too much until you strengthen your shoulders and upper body. I’m sure I could have just googled “what’s the benefit of a weight vest” but I appreciate hearing your story and reasons for using it.

Since your spinal column was “weary” do you plan to do stretches after you stop wearing it or anything to counteract the “squish” of it? I probably sound like a crazy person but let me explain. I have degenerative scoliosis. I didn’t even know that was a thing but went in years ago for a back injury and my doc said I’d be a little old lady with a Dowager’s Hump and there’s nothing I could do about it. I had also lost 1.5 inches in height since high school. So in my brain, pressing on or doing anything to squish the spine jumps out at me. That’s why I ask, really.

I hope it works for you and you build up your overall body strength and stamina with it. Please do keep us posted. And congrats for getting into it!

(PJ) #10

Thanks. Wow that doesn’t sound good, I hope the right nutrients can help mitigate some of that.

My best friend in 8th and 9th grade had scoliosis, which at the time (I don’t know what it’s like now), was this crazy big metal brace that came up to the neck. I recall I met her standing outside math class, she was kind of an outcast because of the brace (kids are cruel), and she was wearing this scarf all tucked around it… as if it wasn’t just horribly obvious anyway of course. I said Hi! Pretty scarf. But if you’re trying to hide the brace, don’t bother, you know you can’t. If other people don’t like it, fuck 'em! We became the best of friends until we both moved schools. I could never even wrap my head around how hard it must be to have to stop and think about nearly everything in life and whether one could even do it at all, let alone do it without wrecking their life.

It was hard for me to understand limiting anything physically. I was pretty athletic until I left college (softball, volleyball, badminton, tennis, early judo), and then gained over 200# in less than two years in my early 20s. Was interesting though since most people are either fat all their life or get there gradually. I went from being a rock singer/guitarist martial artist Type-A sort (I actually took my leather boots and guitar to L.A. for music, but got distracted massively, which was the period where the weight gain happened), to being 2x morbidly obese and hiding behind columns in the mall lest someone I recognized from school see me (not to mention I could never get on stage again in mortification). I didn’t know anything about lipedema then of course. But it gave me a real “comparative” difference in how people responded to me – strangers, acquaintances, friends, coworkers – when very large and when lean. It was a truly horrific learning experience over time but it had a taming of the shrew effect and massively improved my personality I admit.

I was neurotic as hell for eons, then somewhere around age 35 I just got the hell over it. I quit giving much of a damn about what people thought of me any more. It so happened that I was separating from my husband at the time – tragic in some senses, but dramatically better for me and my life for sure – and moving at the same time. I bought the mother of all sex toys, moved to another state near my only family, declared myself independent of stressing out about anybody else’s opinion any further, and moved on with life. :smile:

And eventually lowcarb saved me. The heart valve issue interfered for many years in the middle but now I am ok enough and I can return to the path-toward-better-health I was on when it hit critical mass. So I am trying to “pick up where I left off” (though I am much farther down the pole then I was then alas) and continue, because it was going so well until then!

My only complaint is that my hair is so thinning on top of my head. I’ve spent a fortune on every supp that allegedly helps. So far I don’t see much change. But, eh, what the hell, if it gets that bad I guess I’ll wear a wig. I don’t have any reason to think that if I for some reason had not lost weight everything would be better in that area, and I know it would certainly be worse in every other!

I have a whole body vibration plate that I use and I think this probably helps with shaking out tension, compression, and adding warmth and blood flow and lymph flow to the body. But you have a great point about how the vests really do actually pull on the shoulders, and some kind of stretch after would be ideal.

Getting off the floor is still a lot of work so I don’t get on it much. :slight_smile: But I have some new cable bands and loop bands, and I can wrap 'em on my squat cage or ideally, if my dad will help me out soon, on X-mounts I’ll have in a few places. I am not strong enough to hang my weight with my hands (I hope someday to be but here’s hoping the weight is dramatically less to make it possible!) but I stand on my vibeplate which is 9" high and inside my squat cage, and I can just reach up and grab the pullup bar at the top of my reach, so I can kind of stretch a little that way, too.

I’m rambling, I’ll stop. :wink:

#11

I have one that’s either 20 or 25lbs that I’ll use when I’m doing lunges, squats, pushups, and other body weight exercises. I may start wearing it when I start jogging again.

I’ve not jogged or worked out in 2 weeks but I’ve lost 8lbs in that time. :rofl:

(PJ) #12

I did already have one positive. I hadn’t done much exercise and no squat attempts in a week, and stepping up the kind of high step in my front doorway was a little tough, so I knew it was time to buckle down again. After wearing the vest for two days, I realized last night and today that stepping up I didn’t even notice. It wasn’t even any extra effort. This might be more just the fact that I moved a little than the vest, but something helped.

(PJ) #13

I added 6# more to the vest this evening, and wore it to visit my daughter and then to walmart for a small shopping trip. Found some ‘angus burgers’ (frozen in box) the ingredients seem ok in, and a block of cheese and some steak. Finally got back to my van and realized I’d lost my truck key off the ring I have hooked on my vest. Whole drama with neighbor to get extra truck key then found it (under truck, somehow!!) and home, heh. Then made some dinner.

I notice that while I’m wearing it, I only notice any effort from the bottom half. Like I notice, hiking through the parking lot, effort on the part of pelvis down for the motion. Or I notice, some mysterious little pain on the top/side of my foot. But once it’s off and it’s the next day, the place I feel it is in the upper neck traps regions, mostly the back. Tonight having the 6# added (3# on each side of the back) did not seem to be much noticeable in terms of “feeling harder,” but I do think it kicked my heart rate up slightly higher when in motion.

Tonight is my first test for a rather offbeat idea I have about “low-motion HIIT.” More on that after the test. :slight_smile:

PJ

(PJ) #15

I took 2 days off for ‘recovery’ (as I am new to much weighted work), and then another for feeling lousy for unrelated reasons (ate something that didn’t agree with me). Then last night, I was going to add more weight to the vest, but decided to stay with the 16.4# for at least one more wearing.

I went to Walmart (which is huge) as my daughter (who has a newborn at home) asked me to get her some groceries. This turned out to be a massively bigger effort than I expected. I thought it would take 10-15 minutes. It took a solid hour. I had to stop about four times, checking my heart rate which varied from about 159-165 when I checked it, so now I think I’m getting pretty good at knowing when I have hit about that level.

I had a realization, walking across the parking lot into the store, though: I realized that my normal posture does not support wearing this vest. I recalled something fuzzily that I once read about military and the reason for good posture being so important, with load-bearing and endurance. I made myself correct my posture and pay attention to it.

And it made a fairly massive difference in the obliques on my back. I was so weary that when I got to the checkout point, I was occasionally losing my balance just a tiny bit. I was almost weaving when I walked. I nearly fell against the door of my van when putting groceries in the back. And I ended up staying at the kid’s like 3 minutes because I was exhausted, my obliques hurt kind of right around my back kidneys, and I wasn’t sure I’d be safe anymore if I didn’t get home right away.

I did end up resting for 15 minutes at home, and then doing another brief experiment with the low-motion HIIT. I had intended originally to add weight for the next experiment, but I was definitely not up to it at that time, and I decided that doing one where I did NOT lift or hold a weight, and see after 4 minutes what my heart rate did, how that differed from my first experiment. I suspected that with more time standing on the WBV plate, my heart rate would rise more. I hadn’t given it a lot of time for that before picking up the weight, in my first experiment. So I did that for a few minutes.

Then took the vest off, which humorously raises my heart rate itself, and rested. The pulse falls quickly.

For three years after heart surgery I was on a drug that unbeknownst to me, limited my heart rate, and so kept me from even being able to work up a sweat. I was sweating like crazy last night before I got off the WBV, and absolutely delighted with the ability to do so.

I love the vest. Hopefully tonight, add another 6#, and do another test on the WBV. What I really want is to see if I can find the weight (if possible) that I am capable of wearing, but which doesn’t require any additional weight-lifting or motion to get the heart rate to that point when on the WBV. I mean I will use those as necessary. But the whole-body (not just pull on the shoulders like when holding a bar or DB/KB) effect of a vest, I like a lot better. In my perfect world, I’d be able to stand on WBV, and then either reduce the Hz or step off it for the recovery, that would keep my heart rate to the ~50-70% recovery level.

(PJ) #16

I have gradually raised the vest to 25.4# now. I feel it a lot more on shoulders. It’s hard for me to get on and off as my arms aren’t very strong and it’s bulky. This appears to be the weight at which some critical mass was reached, and it has shifted my center of gravity, which is normally extremely low, both because I’m female and because nearly all my body weight is in the bottom. If I’m in motion and then, I turn or something, I am constantly having to suddenly stop and regain my clear sense of balance before continuing. Also, possibly because of big breasts, the sense of something really squeezing my whole torso/chest and affecting breath just a little is stronger now.

I have given myself a couple days between each wearing of it, to recover a little. So far though, aside from the first time or two where I felt it in the neck traps, I mostly feel it in the obliques. I expected that.

Since I’m not yet adapted and if it gets much heavier I might not be able to get it on or off (as it goes over my head, I do open one side but not the shoulder), I will keep it this weight for awhile. Tomorrow is the next vest day.

(PJ) #17

I spent a week not using the vest, and dropped the weight to 19.4#. Went back to it today and was shocked at how hard it was to do a short walk to the store, spend eons waiting in the deli section, then walk home. My heart rate spent most of its time in 150-160, I start feeling great distress when it goes above that, it got up to 170 at one point. I’m seriously beat after that (and it made me want to eat more).

My hope is to begin doing this every morning, fasted.

(PSackmann) #18

PJ, I just wanted to say how inspirational your sharing has been to me. I know you’ll succeed, you are so determined.
I read where you mentioned posture and yes, it can make a big difference. Looking up and lifting the chest up, rolling shoulders up and back, thinking of the belly button closer to the spine, are the mental tricks I use to fix my posture when I’m walking.
As you continue, have you ever checked out T-Tapp? It’s an exercise program designed by Teresa Tapp to be very rehabilitative. There are a few freebies on her website, or you can do a YouTube search. There may be some exercises that can help with your upper-body strength and flexibility.
Anyway, just wanted to say thank you for sharing, I’m looking forward to your posts about getting the boots back on.

(PJ) #19

Thanks very much.

This evening I went to a candlelight vigil locally for an 11 year old girl who was shot (with her family, by her father). So tragic.

I knew I would have to park some distance and walk. And I knew there would be some standing around.

I parked about 1.5 short blocks away. Stood for about 45 minutes. Walked two blocks in the dark (that area has almost no street lights, no street signs, and is a bizarre sort of soft triangle with streets in odd directions) only to realize I was on the wrong street. My feet hurt and were nearly asleep with stabbing like pins and needles. My heart rate was too high even walking slowly and pausing constantly.

And I was NOT wearing the weight vest, thank God!

A good Samaritan realized my dilemma and drove me around to find my van. Oy!

Anyway, walking to the park initially, and then around it a bit, I realized how dramatically easier it is for me now than it was not all that long ago. I credit some degree of the weight vest for that. Everything seems easier comparatively!

PJ

(Susan) #20

That is so horrid that that happened =(((. I can never fathom a parent taking their child’s life. It is so tragic =(.

(PJ) #21

Today I walked to the store with the vest again. I found my old tennis shoes, to wear instead of my chucks. It was so much easier today. I did pause a few times but my heart rate never got crazy and I barely even broke a light sweat. I can’t decide if I’m adapting well or if the shoes could possibly make a real difference.