How Do Weighted Shorts Help You Lose Weight Or Inches?

Weighted clothing increases the load your body has to carry around to accomplish your workout. Whether walking, jogging or hiking, the extra weight will increase the amount of energy you expend, which increases the calories you burn. Provided you don't eat more to compensate for the extra calorie burn, the energy deficit will result in fat loss. Adding load to the lower-body muscles will also help tone and strengthen hip flexor and extensor muscles.

Background

When you first start exercising, your new workout regime challenges your body. If you are totally sedentary and you gradually start a walking program, you will eventually reach a training plateau limited by the amount of time you have and the intensity at which you want to exercise. If you only have an hour to work out, and you don't want to start running instead of walking, then you have to consider other ways to make your workout more challenging to keep improving your fitness level.

Function

Weighted clothing allows you to increase your workout intensity without changing activities. For example, let's say you weigh 150 lbs. and you walk at a 3.5 mph pace for one hour four times a week. The American Council on Exercise Fitness physical activity calculator estimates that you would burn an estimated 259 calories each time you walk. But if you put on a 40 lb. pair of weighted shorts and walked the same time at the same pace, you would burn about 327 calories. That's an additional 68 calories four times a week, or 264 calories per week.

Weight Loss

The more weight you lose, the fewer calories you burn per workout. To keep burning the same number of calories as your body weight drops, you have to find ways to increase your time or intensity. An advantage of weighted clothing is that it temporarily adds the weight back on for the duration of the workout.

Cautions

Exercising with weighted shorts or vests does increase intensity immediately. If you decide to use them, be sure to acclimate yourself slowly. The first day out, use less than 4 lbs. of additional weight. ACE's Chief Science Officer Cedric Bryant, Ph.D., warns not to add carry more than 10 per cent of your total body weight in weighted clothing to prevent excessive stress on joints.

Alternatives

Weighted shorts generally cost more than $100, and additional weights cost more. If you want to get the workout boost without spending the money, there are other ways to rev up your exercise. You can run instead of walking, seek out hillier terrain, push your baby in a stroller, carry a loaded backpack or use less-expensive strap-on wrist weights. Avoid strap-on ankle weights as these can increase the risk of falls.