Running with a weight vest

Eric Hulst did it; I read it in RW(1970's version)

Yes - works, use it consistently on hills and you will leave the realm of mortals.

What about weight related injury. If you gradually put on 15-20 lbs., you're body may have time to adapt. But, it you just smack that weight on with a vest, your body may not be strong enough to compensate for it. Just a thought.

What about speed related injuries? What about overuse injuries? What about sand in the vagina????

bstnrunner wrote:

What about weight related injury. If you gradually put on 15-20 lbs., you're body may have time to adapt. But, it you just smack that weight on with a vest, your body may not be strong enough to compensate for it. Just a thought.

Listen to bstnrunner. This is a bad idea. If you feel you have to do it at least stay off the pavement.

I do my long runs with a hydration pack which is like a back pack with about a 1/2 gallon of water and I feel the extra weight makes me stronger and faster. I started very conservatively, gradually adding miles and getting my body used to carrying the extra weight to avoid injuries.

I use ankle weights when I train and feel that this has really helped me.

I was able to break 25 min's in the 5K last month after using these weights for about 2 months.

Bad idea for the most part. It will change your mechanics for the worse. Ankle weights are especially bad.

You'd have to be very careful about impact and adjustment to it, but its possible it could help. To simulate the gradual increase you'd need a weight vest that you could slowly add weight to (say 1 lb a week until you were up to 15-20 lbs). Then, all at once you could take it off and do regular training (ala the front page quote, simulate a pregnancy).

training ideas wrote:

A good friend of mine started running again after a serious injury kept him from running for a few months. He had put on about 15 punds during the injury. He just recently got down to his normal weight. He says he feels great and he thinks that running with some extra weight actually helped him as he got stronger. It sparked some dicussion between him and I if running easy runs with a 15-20 pound weight vest would be a good idea for training. Has anyone ever tried this? What did you think?

Definitely a bad idea. If you feel a need to work hard, run some hills.

I have a zippered wristband that I keep spare change in and a goo when I'm out for a 4-5 miler. The change is in case I need to call my girl Lufanda to pick me up and the goo is for when I bonk. Unfortunately, I'm finding that the weight of the wristband throws my stride off kilter and it is hard for me to keep up my 3 min run 1 min walk pattern. I'm having to go to a 2-1 pattern.

goo ... bonk ... Lufanda

three words that do not go well together

Running with a weight vest, particularly if the weight balances around your center of gravity, can be a help. I've known some people who felt they got a lot out of it. You might find it particularly useful uphill (though you would have to take any downhills especially easy, to avoid impact injuries).

Each running step has both a vertical and a horizontal component. To keep from falling on your nose, you would adjust (probably without even thinking about) to a heavier bodyweight by slightly increasing each step's vertical component. As someone pointed out above, this would risk altering your mechanics.

However, I still think the added weight might be a help overall--beyond just the uphills--if you built it up gradually, and if you followed each "weighted" run with some unweighted acceleration runs (pickups, strides, shakeups, whatever you call them). These would reinforce your normal mechanics at something roughly approximating race pace. Similarly, before a repetition workout you might want to run your warmup with the vest.

I second the emotion of whoever said to avoid ankle weights. I tried them and got severe calf strain, strangely enough.

The weight vest sounds like an interesting possibility for pre-season strength training, but I'm not really sure how much it would help.

I think it would most likely just make you run slower for the same effort and also increase impact. So, you're increasing injury risk and also losing some speed in the process. Maybe not the case though, but I bet it would be more useful as a once or twice a week deal on hill repeats or something instead of everyday training.

Also, the ankle weights are a bad idea. Even if they're light, they still increase the mass of the very lower part of your leg by a lot. When you have to slow and accelerate that much mass at the end of your leg with each step, you're putting huge strain on your tendons and muscles.

The idea would work best for short speed or drills where the time spent in the plant phase is low. If you add weight and do longer runs or lactate-intensive work which causes you to tie up, there's a good chance your stride mechanics, posture and cadence will suffer. So use the weight vest (make sure the weight is evenly distributed) to increase resistance during very short sprints or drills, making sure to keep a rapid cadence and a short foot contact time. It's probably also best to work your way up to 20 lbs. starting with 5 lbs. extra, then 10, then 15, using each new weight for a couple of weeks.