Surprise benefits of wearing a weighted vest

There are some surprising benefits to using a weighted vest. When you traditionally think of a weighted vest, you think of increasing strength and building endurance and speed but you wouldn’t think about relieving neck pain!

Thanks to the team at COREFX for sending us a 40lb vest to try out. You can adjust the vest weight by removing plates, but we used the full 40lbs. It’s definitely a quality item that you will want.

Here are 5 surprises we discovered about using the weighted vests:

#1 It Stretches Your Neck and Trap Muscles

One amazing benefit is that when you put on the vest you immediately feel the pressure of the weight and vest on your shoulders, traps and neck muscles. The COREFX vest is good because it doesn’t hurt or grab anywhere that is uncomfortable; it also has adjustable straps to keep it tight near your body. Wearing the vest is almost like someone taking both of their hands above you and pressing down on your traps and shoulders. This can release some tight muscles in the traps, neck and scalene muscles around the neck. This feels amazing and can also help with pain. If you try doing neck exercises and stretches wearing the vest, you will find they are that much better and more effective with the vest on. Check it out, it feels amazing!

#2 Helps with Injuries or Walking Gait

Now, if you have a weird walk or stride due to an injury or imbalance or whatever, the weighted vest can help you improve the way you walk. The weight forces you to use the most efficient stride when you are walking, which helps strengthen the areas that are causing the imbalances. The weight doesn’t care how badly you walk; it’s going to force you down and the only way you can compensate is to walk as efficiently as possible. This helps your body build and fill the gap in your stride.

#3 Helps Fix Posture

Once again, if you have bad posture, the weighted vest is going to help correct that too. With gravity, like dropping a coin from the air, the weight wants to go straight down. Same is true wearing the vest – the weight of the vest is pulling your posture straight down. So if you are not aligned, with your neck back and good overall posture, the weight of the vest is going to work against you and therefore help to correct your posture.

#4 Doing Exercises Wearing The Vest Makes Them Even Better!

Okay, maybe not such a big surprise but when you try doing your fitness routine wearing one of these vests, we assure you that you will notice how much harder you have to work and breathe. The vest stretches your core and diaphragm  at the same time. So many top level fitness buffs perform exercises like chin-ups, dips, and you name it wearing the vest, but even doing routine curls or presses is so much harder. Wearing the vest makes your workout even better and harder. You don’t have to be a pro athlete to wear one and it can help with everyday activity.

#5 Taking It Off is Like A Drug

We saved the best surprise for last! We wore the vest for 5 days a week for two weeks and did walking, exercises and even cooking food in the kitchen. 40lbs or whatever weight you use is a lot of weight to wear for 30+ minutes and it takes some getting used to it. One of the best parts of the vest is taking the bloody thing off! It’s like walking into a spa after having worn the vest for so long. It is a stress buster for sure and there is nothing like taking a real load off after a hard day! It’s addictively healthy too.

Thanks to the team at COREFX for sending us the vest to test and try. We did not get paid to write this article. You can check out the COREFX Vest here.

Discover More: Check out our 7 day home workout plan here!

Author

  • Alex Hurst

    Alex Hurst is a writer for HUM@Nmedia covering Optimyz and Silver magazines in print and digital editions and is based in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

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