First, you were diagnosed with osteoporosis. You were shocked, because after all, you eat healthy and you’re active. How could this happen to you? After you got over the initial shock, you did a little internet research, and saw that you should do “weight-bearing exercise.” You think to yourself “What’s more weight bearing than walking with a weighted vest?” So you searched “best weighted vest for osteoporosis”, and you ended up on this article.

Best Weighted Vest for Osteoporosis

Original source: here.

            And boy, are you lucky you did. Because almost every other site you land on that writes about weighted vests actually sells weighted vests. Can you see a conflict of interest there? I don’t sell weighted vests.

Rather, I’m the author of the Amazon bestselling book, Osteoporosis Reversal Secrets. I also run an online personal training company that specializes in osteoporosis. So that’s how I make my money. I care about the best results. If weighted vests get the best results, I like them. If they don’t get the best results (or any results), I don’t like them.

Osteoporosis Reversal Secrets

So here’s what we’ll cover in this article:

  • Can a weighted vest increase bone density?
  • Benefits of a weighted vest
  • Risks of using a weighted vest
  • What’s the best weighted vest for osteoporosis?
  • How to use a weighted vest
  • Bone-building workouts

Ready? Let’s go.

Can a Weighted Vest Increase Bone Density?

            After the advice about taking calcium (which is the wrong advice, by the way), the next piece of advice is to do weight-bearing exercise. Usually, that means walking.

Too bad it’s been long proven that walking doesn’t strengthen bones. In lots of studies where bone mass was meausred in postmenopausal, osteoporotic women, they lost bone mass. They just lost it slower than women who didn’t exercise.

One meta-analysis concluded that “Walking as a singular exercise therapy has no significant effects on bone mineral density at the lumbar spine, at the radius, or for the whole body in perimenopausal and postmenopausal women.”

Another meta-analysis found the same thing: “regular walking has no significant effect on preservation of bone mineral density at the spine in postmenopausal women.”

 

That’s not to say that walking is bad for you – it isn’t. Walking is fantastic, but not because of its effects on your bones. So don’t stop walking, but add more effective forms of exercise to it (we’ll talk about what those are later in this article).

So we know that walking doesn’t work. But does walking with a weighted vest work? Unfortunately, there’s not a single study that answers that question. All of the research on walking with a weighted vest combines that with either strength training, jumping or a higher protein intake. We know that all of those by themselves (without adding a weighted vest) improve bone density.

The only comparison we have to go from is one study. In this study, 18 postmenopausal women were divided into 2 groups:

  • Group 1: exercise (they combined jumping 3 times per week with walking while wearing a weighted vest).
  • Group 2: no exercise

 

After 5 years, group 1 had increased their bone density by 1.54% at the femoral neck (where the thigh meets the pelvis) and lost 0.82% of their bone density at the total hip.

Color me unimpressed. Furthermore, those kinds of results are on par with research on jumping alone, when no walking with a weighted vest was included. Case in point, according to one study, 6 months of jump training improved bone density by 1.3%. The participants here also didn’t walk with a weighted vest.

Furthermore, from practical experience, our clients see improvements of 2-9% in their bone density in a 1-year period (of course, we throw the kitchen sink at them – proper exercise, nutrition and supplementation). For example:

Besides the practical basis for the absence of results from walking with a weighted vest, it also doesn’t make sense theoretically.

We know that the only 2 forms of exercise that improve bone density are strength training and jump training. Nothing else. Not cardio, not stretching, not yoga, nothing else. Walking with a weighted vest is certainly not jump training. It’s often mistaken for strength training, but it isn’t for reasons that I elaborate on extensively in my article on what is strength training. In a nutshell – if you can do more than 15 repetitions of a movement, it’s not strength training. In other words, for walking to be counted as strength training, the weighted vest needs to be so heavy that you can’t take more than 15 steps with it. That just doesn’t happen.

I know that this section of the article goes against what a lot of other articles state, so I invite you to do 2 things:

  1. Look at the other articles, and see if they’re selling weighted vests. If they are, there’s your answer.
  2. Look at whether they provide evidence in the form of studies or meta-analyses to back up their points. Otherwise, it’s just an opinion. An opinion needs to be based on fact.

Benefits of a Weighted Vest

So hopefully we’ve now thoroughly debunked the myth that walking with a weighted vest is good for bone density. It isn’t. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad either.

There are certain benefits to walking with a weighted vest, even if those benefits don’t include greater bone density.

The 2 benefits that I see are:

  1. It may improve your cardio – on condition that you do it for a minimum of 20 minutes, with a minimum pulse of 65% of your maximal heart rate (your maximal heart rate is 220 minus your age). Yes, it’ll improve your cardio, but don’t take that to mean that it’s the only thing that will improve your cardio. It’ll improve your cardio on par with other cardiovascular activities, like jogging, swimming, cycling, rowing, etc. It’s not superior to those options. It’s on par with those other options.
  2. If you hike regularly, walking with a weighted vest carries over better to hiking than cycling, swimming, etc.

 

Those are really the only 2 benefits that I see. There are claims of other benefits, but those aren’t true, like:

  1. It burns more calories. Not really. If you wear a weighted vest, you can’t go as fast or as far. So you burn more calories from carrying extra weight, but you burn fewer calories because you sacrifice distance and speed. The net effect is the same caloric burn as without it.
  2. It works the core. To that, I simply have to say hahahahahaha. Anyone making this claim has no knowledge of anatomy whatsoever. But even if they don’t, let’s use logic (which seems to be lacking on the internet). Ever feel your abs burning when walking with a weighted vest? No? That’s because it doesn’t work the core.
  3. It builds muscle strength. We’ve debunked that one earlier.
  4. It improves balance. No, it doesn’t. To improve balance, you have to challenge balance. Walking with a weighted vest doesn’t challenge your balance whatsoever, because it’s actually easier on your balance than walking without a weighted vest, for the simple reason that it lowers your center of gravity.

 

Man, that felt good to get it off my chest. Thanks for listening

Risks of Using a Weighted Vest

Yes, there are a couple of benefits to using a weighted vest (not for your bones, obviously), but it also comes with a few drawbacks:

  1. If someone has joint pain due to arthritis, extra weight can hurt the joints even more.
  2. In people who have severe osteoporosis, there’s a high risk of compression fractures. Putting on a weighted vest increased it even more.
  3. One of the greatest fears of people with osteoporosis is falling. The consequences of falling could be grave. The consequences of falling with a weighted vest are even worse.

What’s the Best Weighted Vest for Osteoporosis?

You’ll see a bunch of different weighted vests claiming to be the best for osteoporosis, like:

  • Hyperwear Hyper Vest PRO
  • Omorpho G-Vest+
  • Rogue Echo Weight Vest
  • Empower Weighted Vest for Women

 

…none of those are true. You’ve already read the beginning of this article, so you know why weighted vests are ineffective. If something is just categorically ineffective, the little equipment changes will not enhance the effectiveness.

So the best weighted vest for osteoporosis is the one you don’t use.

How to Use a Weighted Vest

The way to use a weighted vest is really for cardio – not for your bones. If you have severe osteoporosis, start with a very light weight, like 2-4% of your body weight. Every month, increase it by 2%, until you get to 20% of your body weight.

Other than that, just use the effective cardio protocols that apply to every other form of cardio. That is:

If Doing Moderate Intensity:

  • Weekly duration: 150 minutes per week.
  • Intensity: Between 65-85% of your maximal heart rate.

 

If Doing High Intensity:

  • Weekly duration: 90 minutes per week.
  • Intensity: Over 85% of your maximal heart rate (this would have to be interval training)

Bone-Building Workouts

Now that we’ve thoroughly established that walking with a weighted vest doesn’t strengthen your bones, what does? As mentioned earlier, the only 2 forms of exercise that do it are strength training and jumping. That’s it.

But not all strength training is created equal. You can’t lump all strength training into one category. It’s like lumping all shoes into one category. Within the broad category of “shoes”, there are running shoes, sandals, dress shoes, stilettos, boots, etc. The same is true for strength training. There’s more than 1 way to strength train. There’s a right way to do strength training for osteoporosis, and a wrong way. Not everything that strengthens muscles also strengthens bones. Likewise, not everything that strengthens bones also strengthens muscles.

I talk extensively about bone-building workouts in this video, as well as my book.

Want a real plan to reverse your osteoporosis/osteopenia? Here are a few ways you could do it:

  1. Check out my YouTube channel. That’s free.
  2. Get my book, Osteoporosis Reversal Secrets. It’s very inexpensive.
  3. Consider hiring my team for online personal training for osteoporosis. Go to our home page, and fill out the application form. Don’t worry – filling out the application form doesn’t obligate you to anything. We’ll just chat over zoom for 10-15 minutes, without a sales pitch, no pressure, no obligation. We’re just trying to understand your situation, and how we can help you.