Body weight workouts have made a lot of noise lately, partly because of the 300 movie, but also because people are always looking for something new and better and these workouts offer some great alternatives and really boost the metabolism, burn fat, and can build muscle. The greatest part about them is that they are quick, you can do them anywhere, and you don’t need any special exercise equipment.
I have been doing body weight workouts for years and I have maintained an excellent level of fitness using just body weight but sometimes that just isn’t enough. We must, after all keep challenging ourselves if we want to continue to get better and it reaches a point where you are just doing too many reps with a body weight workout. When you get to this point I suggest that you add a weighted vest into the workout.
These come in all different weights and many of them have interchangeable weights so that you can continue to challenge yourself or change weights for different workouts. These vests can make push ups and pull ups what they were when you started exercising and they can also assist with muscle gain. Body weight workouts are not famous for adding muscle because they are usually so high rep and low intensity. The vest allows you to drop the reps and increase the intensity while still doing an incredibly flexible home workout with limited exercise equipment.
Weight vest can be used for cardio vascular exercise as well but I would caution you not to add to much too fast. If you are going to run with a vest, start with the lowest weight possible and slowly increase the weight. It would also be wise to slow your pace until you are conditioned for the new weight. Adding weight will significantly increase the pressure in your knees and if overloaded bad things happen to knees. There is a reason why many overweight people experience significant knee problems.
Go ahead give this piece of exercise equipment a try and see where it takes you. This is also a very wise investment in your future and while it may not last as long as a hunk of steel it still has a pretty good life expectancy and is not as expensive as some other pieces of gym equipment.