The Science of Load: Why Weighted Vests Improve strength & Daily Function

Load refers to the external resistance placed on the body when performing any voluntary movement, providing mechanical stimuli. There are many ways you can add mechanical load, the most common being with free weights, such as dumbbells, barbells, etc. Weighted vests are also a way to add greater loads on the body, increasing the intensity of body weight exercises, driving greater adaptations. Weighted vests are also very scalable, allowing you to adjust the load easily to match your desired intensity. Considering mechanical stimuli, achieved by adding external load to movements, drives physiological responses and subsequent adaptations in strength and hypertrophy, adding a weighted vest will ultimately lead to improved daily function. This blog post will provide evidence-based and practical information on why external load can induce adaptation and dive into the weighted vest benefits. 

What Is Load and Why Does the Body Adapt to It?

What Is Load in Strength Training?

Overall load is made from your bodyweight and any external load applied or placed on the body. Importantly, strength adaptations occur through two primary mechanisms: neural adaptations and muscle growth. Mechanical load plays an important role in both of these pathways. 

Neural Adaptations

Your body has millions of fibres that specifically report information from the muscle to the brain; some of these fibres are activated (to report information to the brain) by mechanical stimuli from the load placed on the body. Thus, increasing the relative load placed on the body leads to greater activation of these fibres. Like any adaptation in the body, the enhanced and repetitive activation of these fibres causes the brain to adapt to deal with these loads. In the case of the nervous system, certain responses occur to increase the 'neural drive' to the muscle to recruit more muscle during a movement to perform a stronger contraction (Source). Not only will you have greater strength from this, but some of the neural adaptations are also related to 'motor control' i.e., more precise movement control.

Muscle Hypertrophy

Hypertrophy is also known to be associated with increased strength. Hypertrophy is induced by two primary stimuli, mechanical tension and metabolic stress (Source). Interestingly, heavier external loads provide greater mechanical stimuli placed on the muscle and subsequently a greater production of metabolites in the muscle. In turn, you experience a myriad of physiological responses that lead to increased protein synthesis, the process by which the body builds new muscle proteins that attach to muscle, leading to muscular hypertrophy. The more muscle you have, the stronger you will be!

More generic equipment limits training because it adds external load to specific movements that often fail to mimic real-world movement. However, by thinking of including something like a weighted vest in your home gym ensemble, you can place external load on a range of activities.

 

Why Weighted Vests Improve Strength and Functional Movement

Simply, weighted vests increase the external load placed on your body, subsequently increasing mechanical tension and metabolic stress that drive physiological adaptations. Fortunately, weighted vests offer high versatility and can be used during both aerobic and strength training. They are also easily adjustable, especially the Exersci ones anyway! This allows you to adjust the weight relative to your desire or need. It also means you can share the equipment even when you are at different training levels with your partner. 

 

How You Can Enhance Strength and Daily Function With Weighted Vests

As mentioned, Weighted vests are versatile pieces of equipment and can induce adaptations to the upper body, core and lower body. 

Resistance training

Body weight exercises are something you can complete anywhere at anytime. It is not uncommon for people to set goals of 100 press-ups per day (or whatever exercise you aim to do). By adding a weighted vest to your arsenal, you will be able to increase the stimuli placed on your body. As a result, you will become stronger, bigger and healthier. This logic can be applied across multiple exercises. For instance:

• Press ups
• Inverted rows
• Pull ups
• Dips
• Planks (and straight arm planks)
• Russian twists
• Squats
• Lunges

The list goes on...

Plyometric training is also a great tool to increase explosive power, or in the scientific world, the rate of force development. By pairing a weighted vest with movements like broad jumps and box jumps, you will increase the rate of force development, strength and muscle size. These also provide translational benefits to walking and sprint performance. 

Aerobic training

Completing aerobic training is crucial for cardiorespiratory health, i.e., the ability of the heart and lungs to intake oxygen and deliver oxygenated blood to the musculature and vital organs. This makes aerobic training critical within your exercise plan. Additionally, in line with Wolff's law, increased mechanical stimuli during repeated movements, such as walking or running, enhance bone formation, subsequently improving bone health, which is critical for older adults. Furthermore, by adding weighted vests to walking or running, you can significantly increase calorie expenditure and fat oxidation, which is the breakdown of fat (Source). The benefits don't stop there. Weighted vests naturally engage core stabiliser muscles, supporting a good posture to limit injury risk. 

Collectively, research supports the use of weighted vests during exercise. Thus, incorporating them into a training programme can help you achieve your fitness goals.

 

Conclusion

Weighted vests are extremely beneficial in exercise. Whether you are new to training, introducing safe mechanical load, or looking to maximise training benefits, weighted vests can help you achieve your fitness goals. They add external load to drive physiological adaptations to muscle, bone and the respiratory system. Furthermore, you don't need an array of equipment. One weighted vest is enough to induce full-body adaptations with adjustable weights to match the demands of each exercise.

Train smarter, not just harder. Explore the Exerscsi weighted vests through our website www.Exersci.co.uk