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103: Do Weighted Vests Do Anything For Us?
523 Plays10 hours ago
In this episode of the Movement Logic Podcast, Dr. Sarah Court, PT, delves into the trend of walking with weighted vests to improve bone density, especially among perimenopausal and menopausal women.
She reviews multiple long-term and short-term studies on the subject, comparing the effectiveness of weighted vests in bone metabolism, bone mineral density, and balance improvement. Sarah argues that while weighted vests do not significantly impact bone density for most people, they could be beneficial for balance and cardiovascular endurance, especially for the deconditioned or frail.
She also discusses the importance of proper exercise regimens like progressive overload and impact training for bone growth. The episode concludes with practical advice on when a weighted vest might be suitable.
00:43 The Weighted Vest Trend in Menopause Marketing
02:38 Debunking the Myths: Evidence on Weighted Vests
06:10 Research Study: Long-term Exercise with Weighted Vests
13:08 Research Study: Walking Exercise with and without Weighted Vests
17:48 Research Study: Short-term Aerobic Exercise with Weighted Vests
23:45 Conclusion: The Real Benefits of Weighted Vests
28:51 Final Thoughts
Sign up for our Bone Density Mini Course: Barbell 101!
Follow us on Instagram @movementlogictutorials
References:
37 Plyometrics - Get More Bang For Your Bones
38 Got Bones? Yoga Asana Isn't Enough
51 Persistent Myths About Osteoporosis
84 Trick or Truth: 6 Ways to Spot Osteoporosis Misinformation
91 LIFTMOR, Not Less: An Interview With Professor Belinda Beck
96 Bone Density Grifters: Introducing the Grift-O-Meter!
Long-term Exercise Using Weighted Vests Prevents Hip Bone Loss in Postmenopausal Women
Weighted Vest Exercise Improves Indices of Fall Risk in Older Women
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Transcript
Introduction and Mission
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm Laurel Biebersdorf, strength and conditioning coach. And I'm Dr. Sarah Court, physical therapist. With over 30 years of combined experience in fitness, movement, and physical therapy, we believe in strong opinions loosely held. Which means we're not here to hype outdated movement concepts. or to gatekeep or fearmonger strength training for women. For too long, women have been sidelined in strength training. Oh, you mean handed pink dumbbells and told to sculpt?
00:00:25
Speaker
Whatever that means, we're here to change that with tools, evidence, and ideas that center women's needs and voices. Let's dive in.
00:00:46
Speaker
Welcome to the Movement Logic Podcast.
Weighted Vests and Bone Density
00:00:49
Speaker
I'm Dr. Sarah Court. I'm a physical therapist and I am doing today's In Betweeny episode, which means you're going to be out of here a lot more quickly than the times that Laurel is doing the In Betweeny episodes. I'm just kidding.
00:01:04
Speaker
And you know what? Don't worry. The only reason this episode might be short I mean, frankly, who knows how long it's going to end up being because sometimes I can get talking too. But the only reason it might be short is because the evidence is very clearly weighted, pun intended, on one side and not the other.
00:01:22
Speaker
So this episode is no lightweight. Pun intended again. oh these puns are terrible. Oh boy, yes, friends, today we are tackling one of those trends that is suddenly everywhere, especially in the menopause marketing space, and that is walking with a weighted vest to improve bone density.
00:01:44
Speaker
Now, but I'm laughing because before we get into this episode, I want to take a moment to let you know that the fact that this was the topic for this week's InBetweenie is honest to God, 100% coincidental.
00:01:59
Speaker
If you don't know what I'm talking about, Laurel and I have been chatting on Instagram about a lot of the misinterpretation around the data on weighted vests here and there, but We both did a couple of posts over the weekend about a video created by a, let's just say, questionable menopause specialist. And in particular, we were questioning her using a weighted vest during deadlifts and during jump band assisted chin-ups.
00:02:25
Speaker
And Boy, did a lot of her supporters, I'm assuming, have a lot of feelings about that. They had a lot of feelings, especially about our tone and that we were being mean and that we were bashing women and that we used to make tutorials and now we just make takedowns.
00:02:43
Speaker
Am I a rapper? Is that what just happened? i I do find it interesting, and this is serious. I do find it interesting that when Laurel and I present facts about this grifter, about other grifters, the only comebacks that her supporters have are tone policing and name calling. Someone called me tweaked and jealous, which I thought was really funny.
00:03:07
Speaker
What are we in grade school? Anyway, I will post links to both of those posts so you can see what all went down. It was really quite surprising. And a bunch of new people are now following movement logic.
00:03:19
Speaker
And that's very exciting. So hooray.
Debunking Myths and Misconceptions
00:03:22
Speaker
Let's get back to the actual question at hand. Weighted vests feel like they've become just all the rage among perimenopausal and menopausal women.
00:03:31
Speaker
The claim that they build bone density really took hold in this population, and then they just were off to the races. And this makes sense to me because women with osteoporosis have historically been told, and sometimes still are told, even though it's incorrect, that walking is enough to build bone density.
00:03:51
Speaker
So the jump to walking with a weighted vest, I mean, honestly, like I kind of get how that feels logical, right? Like we're merging the walking with some weight training, which we also know we're supposed to do for our bones. So this is good, right?
00:04:07
Speaker
Right? Well, hmm. let's Let's walk through what the research actually shows us, what's valid, what's kind of questionable, and what's actually just marketing.
00:04:21
Speaker
And then we'll get to what weighted vests can really be used for. Before we get into the episode, I do want to give a quick plug of our Bone Density Mini Course that you can get for free when you sign up for our mailing list.
00:04:36
Speaker
The mini course is a primer on everything you need to understand about lifting barbells from correct form for the deadlift, squat and bench press to weightlifting concepts like progressive overload and RPE.
00:04:49
Speaker
It's totally free. You can sign up at the link in the show notes or on our website or on our Instagram page. We are shoving the link in your face in every single possible place you could imagine because we want you to have the information.
00:05:02
Speaker
All right, let's get cracking.
Science Behind Bone Loading
00:05:05
Speaker
Let's start with the premise. We know that bone responds to load. A weighted vest adds load to the body.
00:05:14
Speaker
Therefore, a weighted vest must stimulate bone growth. Right? That's the kind of a plus B equals C logic that's being cited for weighted vests being bone building.
00:05:29
Speaker
However, the issue is that not all loading is equal. And not all exercise, even if it's weight bearing, reaches the load threshold necessary to stimulate bone growth or to preserve existing bone.
00:05:44
Speaker
Now, We have talked so very, very, very much about how bone remodeling takes place on this podcast, specifically in episodes, get ready, all of which I will link in the show notes. And so I'm not going to spend a lot of time here repeating this information, but just as a summary, but Bone remodeling, right? Bone growth is not triggered by just any activity. It takes a certain type and intensity of stress to get a response.
00:06:18
Speaker
Now, next season, in season eight, Laurel and I are taking a really deep dive into the current research on how different types of load may impact bone growth. But for now, it appears that low impact with high repetitions does the least amount for bone growth, if anything.
00:06:35
Speaker
And for many women, even if a weighted vest starts out feeling like a moderate load, the fact that you can hike or walk with them on tells us that it's definitely not a heavy load.
Study on Weighted Vests and Bone Loss
00:06:47
Speaker
So let's take a look at what the research really shows about weighted vests and their potential impact on bone metabolism and bone mineral density. And we're going to start with one of the better known long-term studies on this topic.
00:07:01
Speaker
And this one is quoted very frequently as so-called evidence that weighted vests build bone. And the study is called Long-Term Exercise Using Weighted Vests Prevents Hip Bone Loss in Post-Menopausal Women.
00:07:16
Speaker
And it was done by Christine Snow et al. out of Oregon State University in the year 2000. All of the studies cited will be in the show notes. So this was this was an interesting study. It was a five-year study, which is a really long time.
00:07:32
Speaker
18 post-menopausal women Nine of them did jump training with weighted vests, and they did it three times a week, 32 weeks per year for five years, which is really incredible.
00:07:45
Speaker
The other half, the other nine were generally physically active, but did not do the jump training. So they got bone mineral density measurements at the femoral neck, trochanter, total hip, using a DEXA.
00:08:02
Speaker
They got baseline. And then five years later, they measured again. The results showed us that the jump training plus weighted vest group maintained or slightly improved their bone mineral density at each of the sites.
00:08:16
Speaker
where the control group who were just doing what they called their regular exercise but they weren't doing jump training they lost over three percent of bone at each of these measured sites okay So before we can get into what these results tell us, we can certainly say that this evidence really does support compliance as a requirement for exercise when it comes to having any kind of impact on bone density. It's not going to happen overnight. It's something that you're going to have to keep working on for a while.
00:08:49
Speaker
It may not take five years, but it's going to take more than 12 weeks, let's say. And I also wanted to just sort of a quick couple of quick notes about the paper, just so you get used to like, you know, fine tooth combing and looking into the pros and cons of how the research paper was set up.
00:09:07
Speaker
18 people is not a huge number. It would be great to replicate it with a larger group, which would be from a research perspective, like the next logical step. I don't know that anyone did it. They may have, but I haven't seen it.
00:09:19
Speaker
Another thing that we should note is that the participants self-selected themselves into the exercise group or the control group. Which from a bias perspective isn't great, but the fact that 80% of the exercise group remained compliant for five years, you know, it's probably because they chose to be there, right? I doubt that level of compliance would have shown up if people were selected into the group that didn't really want to do it.
00:09:47
Speaker
And, you know, it it may not prove what we want it to prove, but it sure is indicating that compliance is a big deal for bone density. We are still lacking a really robust amount of research on load and impact for bone building. So while this does add to the in favor pile for impact for bone building,
00:10:08
Speaker
There are other studies out there that showed no effect from impact, but that may be more related to the degree of impact being studied, like how intense it was.
Impact of Jump Training vs. Walking
00:10:17
Speaker
Right. That might have been too light. The study length might have been too short.
00:10:20
Speaker
You know, there could be all kinds of things. so Most importantly, I think what would have been really useful is to have a third group doing the jump training, the impact training, but without a weighted vest.
00:10:36
Speaker
Because from this study, we can only say that weighted v vest plus impact is better than not doing impact training with a weighted vest. If we really wanted to compare and see if the weighted vest itself made any difference, we would need three groups, right? We would want a group that is weighted vest plus impact.
00:10:57
Speaker
We want another group that's doing impact, but no weighted vest. And we want a third group that's not doing impact. We can't say for sure what the weighted vest did, but regardless, here's the really important thing.
00:11:11
Speaker
These people were not walking with the weighted vest on. They were jumping repeatedly for five years. This was a really well-structured, high-impact, high-consistency program. This is not a stroll around the neighborhood with a weight on your chest and your favorite podcast, this one, in your ears.
00:11:35
Speaker
So we're talking kind of apples and oranges here, right? You can't look at this study and say, and extrapolate that this much meat must mean that if I take a walk with a weighted vest on, even if I'm doing incline walking, that that is going to build bone density. You just can't, right? There's no no evidence to prove that. And yet this is this study is the one that's very often cited as proof of the efficacy of weighted vests, not proof of the efficacy of jump training, which is really the only thing that it can prove.
00:12:06
Speaker
Now, this is a bit of an aside, but the exercise protocol that these authors used in this study was actually the same as one that they did in 1998, where they looked at how wearing a weighted vest for women who have never participated in resistance training impacted their balance, strength, and power over nine months.
00:12:28
Speaker
What was interesting was that they found that all of these qualities were improved, but bone density was not, even though it was a nine month period, which really should have been sufficient time to show any bone density changes.
00:12:39
Speaker
And they were doing progressive overload with the vest. They were making it heavier over time. They were doing exercises. They weren't walking. Right. And it still wasn't enough.
00:12:51
Speaker
So it doesn't seem likely. based on this work that walking with a weighted vest would really do anything for your bone density. What this study does tell us is it it lines up with what what we already know about impact training and its role in bone adaptation.
00:13:11
Speaker
right Bone cells really respond to high strain rates, that means faster force, and novel or multi-directional movements like hopping, dodging, jumping, not walking in a straight line.
00:13:28
Speaker
Jumping with a weighted vest provides high rate loading. But so does jumping without a weighted vest. Weighted vests may be helpful to build bone and impact exercise. Again, we cannot say that for sure.
00:13:42
Speaker
Just to summarize, this study did not test impact without the vest, so we really cannot draw a weighted vest specific conclusion.
00:13:52
Speaker
Okay, so the next study that I want to look at is looking at bone turnover markers, not bone mineral density. The study is called a comparison between the effects of the walking exercise with and without weighted vests.
00:14:07
Speaker
I'm going to absolutely murder this name, I apologize. Tanti Wibun Chai, I believe is how you would pronounce it, at all from 2011. This study took place in Thailand and it looked at 48 participants that were split into two groups. One group walked with a weighted vest that gradually increased to 8% of their body weight.
00:14:28
Speaker
The other walked without a vest. Both groups walked 30 minutes, three times a week on a treadmill at 65 to 75% of their max heart rate. So a decent pace, but they're certainly not, by no means are they running.
00:14:41
Speaker
Okay. And they measured something called bone turnover markers, which you may have heard some about. These are markers that show up in a blood test. There are several of these types of markers and they can tell us if there is bone resorption going on and or bone formation going on, right? Different markers show different things.
00:15:06
Speaker
Real quick, I just want to chat about the difference between studies that are using a DEXA scan that shows bone mineral density versus studies that are using bone turnover markers, BTMs, for bone.
00:15:17
Speaker
This could probably, this conversation could stand to be an episode on its own, and I may well do one on it in the future. But just a real quick sort of comparison. So the DEXA scan at the moment is the gold standard for measuring bone density.
00:15:32
Speaker
But the changes that take place in your bone density take a long time to show up, at least six, maybe eight, nine months, right? But it is a very good fracture predictor, and it's a really good diagnostic toll for osteoporosis and osteopenia. And it's it's the one that people use out in the world when they're trying to see, are you at risk for developing osteoporosis? They're more likely to do a DEXA scan to see what your bone density looks like right now than to test your blood and see you like, what are the markers up to? Because the markers aren't telling you any information about the quantity of bone. They're just saying resorption is happening, formation is happening, right?
00:16:13
Speaker
So in comparison to bone turnover markers, as I said, they show ah us what's going on with bone formation and resorption. And you can see the changes pretty quickly, right? This study was a 12-week study, and they did see changes in the BTMs.
00:16:27
Speaker
But there there can be a lot of variability in the results. So the results are not always as accurate as they could be. um They don't predict what bone mineral density someone might have, and they cannot or and are not used for either prognosis or a diagnosis of osteoporosis or osteopenia.
00:16:48
Speaker
So here's what's interesting. both the walking group with the vest and the walking group without the vest had a significant reduction in bone resorption markers, but there was no statistically significant difference between the vest group and the no vest group, and there was no significant change in the bone formation markers in either group.
00:17:12
Speaker
So the walking with a vest or without a vest reduced the amount of bone resorption markers in the blood. And so therefore that suggests that it reduced bone resorption. it It stopped people's bones from breaking down as quickly, but it didn't build any bone. There were no markers for bone formation.
00:17:42
Speaker
And the vest in and of itself didn't show any difference in the decrease in bone resorption, right? It wasn't, they didn't get better results with the vest versus without the vest.
00:17:56
Speaker
12 weeks is not enough time to measure bone mineral density changes. And it does appear very robustly that bone building exercise requires longer time under load than than a 12 week period.
00:18:11
Speaker
So the walking itself reduced bone breakdown by a certain amount, but the vest didn't make any difference in particular. So yes, walking has health benefits, but again, the vest is not transform it into a bone building activity.
00:18:30
Speaker
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00:18:41
Speaker
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00:18:56
Speaker
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00:19:07
Speaker
Why focus on a five-rep max lift instead of higher reps? How long should I rest between sets? And why is that rest so important for lifting heavy? What exactly is rate of perceived exertion? And how can it help me pick the right weight every time?
00:19:24
Speaker
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00:19:41
Speaker
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00:19:55
Speaker
All right, so the last study I want to look at is a pretty short study, but it's interesting.
Effectiveness of Weighted Vests
00:20:01
Speaker
This one is looking at postmenopausal women with diagnosed osteoporosis.
00:20:06
Speaker
It's called Effects of Short-Term Aerobic Exercise with and Without External Loading on Bone Metabolism and Balance in Postmenopausal Women with Osteoporosis. And it's from 2012 by Rogani et al.,
00:20:19
Speaker
by roganni at all So this study had 36 women. They were split into three groups. One walked on a treadmill without a vest. One walked on a treadmill with a vest and the vest started at 4 p.m. The vest started at 4% of body weight and increased to 8%.
00:20:38
Speaker
And one group didn't exercise at all. So they trained three times per week for six weeks. And the researchers looked at bone turnover markers, body composition, and balance.
00:20:50
Speaker
um So we know that they couldn't use a DEXA scan because six weeks is not anywhere near long enough for any actual bone building to show up on a DEXA scan. So again, they're looking at these bone turnover markers that show up to indicate that there is this activity going on.
00:21:05
Speaker
So the balance test, this is the interesting part. So they use two balance tests. One is called a near tandem stand and the other one is called the star excursion test. These are tests we use in PT to evaluate someone's balance.
00:21:20
Speaker
So the near tandem stance test and sometimes it's called the 10 Seconds Tandem Stance Test. That's not easy to say. It goes like this. You stand with one foot in front of the other, like heel to toe touching, and then you close your eyes and you stand there,
00:21:36
Speaker
And hopefully you were able to stand there for that full 10 seconds. If you lose your balance in less than 10 seconds, it can indicate that your static balance is in some way compromised.
00:21:48
Speaker
The STAR excursion test, although it might sound like it, it is not an all expenses paid trip to Hollywood. No, it is another balance test, but this time it's testing your dynamic balance. So the way it works is there'll be three lines marked on the floor that all intersect in one middle spot, right? So they make this quote unquote star shape, right?
00:22:11
Speaker
So you stand in the center of the star, you keep one foot in the center, and then you reach your other leg as far as you can along each of the legs of the star. So forwards,
00:22:22
Speaker
diagonally backwards to one side, diagonally backwards to the other. And then they measure how far you could reach each leg and they compare it to the normative values to then determine your dynamic balance capability.
00:22:35
Speaker
It's also actually, as a side note, it's a really good test for seeing if your balance is better on one leg than the other. um If one leg than the other is stronger in certain ways, it's it's kind of a real good like so test of symmetry, just as an aside.
00:22:50
Speaker
Okay, so here's what's interesting. Both exercise groups showed positive changes in the bone metabolism markers without any difference between the VEST and the NO VEST group, which lines up with what we saw before, right, in the in the study previous.
00:23:06
Speaker
But here's what's really interesting. The VEST group significantly outperformed both other groups in the balance measures. Their near tandem stand score improved by over 100%. They improved in every direction of the star star excursion balance test.
00:23:24
Speaker
While the control group, their balance actually got worse over the six-week period. Now, we know that six weeks is not a long enough time to stimulate bone growth, but it was long enough to improve balance markers significantly.
00:23:39
Speaker
Now, could we extrapolate that bone growth would occur if they did it for longer period? No, we can't make that assumption. Even though we saw positive changes in the bone metabolism markers, we cannot make any assumption about what bone mineral density will do.
00:24:02
Speaker
Well, here's what's interesting. Wearing a weighted vest while walking helped significantly with it balance, which is really important for people who are at a risk of falls or fractures.
00:24:14
Speaker
This is also, you know, the weighted vest is not the magic tool. It's the weight part. So very likely had the people been holding two dumbbells in their hands, I mean, I can't say this for sure, but It's the weight part of the way to vest. It's not the vest part that matters, right?
00:24:35
Speaker
Working with resistance, something that is going to help build some strength, it confers improved balance because of your increased strength, because muscles around your trunk and hip get stronger from walking with a load, right?
00:24:54
Speaker
Now, that is true for this group of post-menopausal women who have diagnosed osteoporosis. They had certain exclusion criteria. Oh, here we go.
00:25:06
Speaker
So the people that they recruited had no record of regular exercise for at least one year and had a T-score that indicated osteoporosis. So the fact that they got stronger from walking with a weighted vest is has a lot to do with the fact that they were sedentary, that were probably pretty deconditioned, possibly afraid of exercise, right? Because that's what a lot of people with osteoporosis find happens.
00:25:36
Speaker
So the fact that the weighted vest made them stronger And we can't say that weighted vests are going to make everybody stronger, right? that We can't even say weighted vests are going to make postmenopausal women stronger. But it did make a dent in strength for these women who were specifically recruited because they were sedentary and because they had not and done any regular exercise for at least a year.
00:25:58
Speaker
All right. So where does this leave us in the weighted vest debate? Well, here's what we can say. So if you're walking while wearing a weighted vest, you might get slight increase in your cardiovascular endurance.
00:26:15
Speaker
You might see some improvements in your balance and muscular endurance.
00:26:24
Speaker
Hold for Victor. If you haven't heard this before, Victor is my 100-year-old landlord. He lives directly upstairs. I think he wears, like, dress shoes every single day. I mean, that man can really get around.
00:26:37
Speaker
He's not a slow walker. Okay, so weighted vest while walking, you might help slow down bone loss a little bit, particularly if you are deconditioned or frail. But if you are neither of those things, it's very unlikely that it's going to make any sort of a dent in your bone density.
00:26:59
Speaker
If you want to build new bone, if you want to increase bone mineral density at critical sites like your hip and your spine, or if you want to actually attempt to reverse your osteoporosis, assuming it responds to the best evidence out there, which is resistance and impact, you're not going to get any of those things happening in a light vest and a brisk walk.
00:27:27
Speaker
You need more load. You need more impact. Bottom line, your bones need more stress. And so that means progressively overloaded resistance training. It doesn't matter how heavy it is, as long as you are continuing to make it heavier based on a program that is appropriate for you.
00:27:52
Speaker
Jump training also, if appropriate for you, but hugely valuable. That's something that your bones are actually going to respond to. Okay.
00:28:03
Speaker
So here's the part where we do an asterisk.
Benefits of Weighted Vests in Specific Situations
00:28:06
Speaker
And this asterisk is called, but some people could actually really use a weighted vest. What about them? And yes, absolutely.
00:28:16
Speaker
There are probably a lot more examples of what this would be, but here's a few. For example, someone who has maybe severe arthritis in their hands, who would have difficulty holding weights with their hands, right?
00:28:30
Speaker
You could put on a weighted vest and do your squats, right? or lunges or anything like that. Someone else that might benefit from it is someone who is like really deconditioned and who could only actually hold a relatively light dumbbell because of their decreased grip strength.
00:28:47
Speaker
You could use a weighted vest to help with the progressive overload for their weight training that way. right? Or let's say you're doing an aerobic exercise like walking or hiking, and you actually want to increase the cardio effect and bring your heart rate up.
00:29:05
Speaker
A weighted vest can help, but you're going to run into a problem where as you get accustomed to the weight of the vest, you're going to have to keep increasing it as your cardiac capacity improves.
00:29:21
Speaker
Now, I think people might be surprised to hear this, but I actually do. I wear a weighted vest, but only in one very specific circumstance. And that is when I go on a hike with my dog.
00:29:34
Speaker
His name is Henry. And this is because Henry's little legs are, are they're little. Listen, let's let's not beat around the bush. He's got little legs. And he also likes to sniff things because he's very close to the ground because his legs are so little.
00:29:49
Speaker
So an uphill hike that I would be doing without him, where I'd just be like charging up the hill, that would get my heart rate up, right? But when I'm with him, it's stop, start, smell, say hi to this dog. You know, it doesn't do it.
00:30:03
Speaker
And I personally, i don't have a large menu of cardio exercise that I really enjoy enough to do. So this is this is, hiking is really one of the few things that I am on board with. So I appreciate the help of the weighted vest so that I can get my heart rate into at least zone two.
00:30:22
Speaker
my My weighted vest has little like pouches of weight that you can take in and out. And I've had to like keep adding them in. And I think pretty soon my I'm going like top out at the maximum amount of weight that I can add to this vest. And then I'm going to have to see what happens. I'm not interested in owning a collection heavier and heavier weighted vests.
00:30:44
Speaker
So I might have to just stop considering my hikes with Henry as any part of my exercise and more about practicing being present and stopping to sniff the flowers and I was going to say and the buttholes but that's him I don't I don't need to do that okay I hope this helps you better understand the value and use of a weighted vest what it can and cannot do for you and whether it's an appropriate tool to add to your
00:31:19
Speaker
cupboard full of and tools and whether it's an appropriate tool for you.
Conclusion and Course Promotion
00:31:26
Speaker
The TLDR is that it's really unlikely to do anything meaningful your for your bone density unless you're using it in a way that we already know improves bone density, right? So with impact or as part of a progressively overloaded resistance training that is more likely moderate and even heavy loads, less likely to be useful if it's just a low load.
00:31:52
Speaker
Hopefully that makes sense. Okay. Please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. This is a topic that people seem very confused about. So if you and your friends or your neighbor or your mom have been talking about whether or not you should get a yeah ah weighted vest, send them the link to this episode. Let them take a listen to the evidence that's out there. And then you can make a evidence-based decision rather than being convinced by somebody on the internet who is just making money.
00:32:27
Speaker
I do not sell a weighted vest. I got no money in weighted vests. So... I got nothing on this argument. Okay.
00:32:36
Speaker
And like I said, if you sign up for the Movement Logic mailing list, which you will be able to do at the link in the show notes and all over the place, we will send you our free course. It is a simple evidence-informed guide to get you started with lifting barbells safely, confidently, and effectively, even if you've never lifted before.
00:32:54
Speaker
And even if you're not actually using barbells, it's just going to show you the form and the alignment you can always replace with dumbbells, kettlebells, whatever you had. I mean, frankly, if the heaviest thing you own is a weighted vest and it still feels heavy to you, I mean, you could slap on your weighted vest and do your squats.
00:33:14
Speaker
It's going to depend on how heavy it is and whether that makes much difference to you and your body. But certainly for building a little bit of strength, it might be useful. Okay, that's it for me.
00:33:27
Speaker
Weighted vests are not the devil.
00:33:32
Speaker
But they might not be doing what you think they're doing. We will see you in two weeks.