Weight Vest Routine(s) for Body Building?

Training
1

Hi guys,

Long time lurker, first time poster, love the community.

I’m starting to program my next few weeks and I’m leaning towards doing a Push/Legs/Pull/Conditioning split. I know a full on conditioning day isn’t exactly standard, but I feel like the biggest obstacle I’m running into right now is my work capacity.

I was wondering if anybody had ever tried to incorporate a weight-vest based day into their hypertrophy routines. I’m thinking of some sort of combination or subset of:

High-Rep “Air” Squats
Burpee to Pullups
Turkish Get Ups
Stair Runs
Reeves Deadlifts
Farmers Walk
Fat Man Rows
Pushup variations

I’ve got my vest at 60lbs right now, and was going to do a 60/66/72/78/84lb progression over the next 5 weeks.

Thanks

2

Nice, looks like you got the XVest.

Good ideas on the exercises.

TGU: Since the distribution of weight will be on your torso, you will undoubtedly use a lighter weight on your arm. That being said, you can incorporate a single-arm press through multiple phases on the Turkish Get Up which hits a lot of angles quite nicely.

For calves/hamstrings, you can do hill sprints with the vest. Of course, the sprints will be a bit slower than normal sprints, but the feeling is so nice… you can really dig in and hit the hams/calves nicely with a vest on the hill.

3

I actually have one of these, http://www.mirweightedvest.com/pro-weighted-vest/MiR-Pro-100LBs-Weighted-Vest.html

It tends to bounce around a bit more than I like, but it does expose a little more surface area to dump heat.

I did a bunch of Vest-TGUs a few months back when I was training to TGU one of the trainers at my gym, I think I maxed out at 84lbs vest+60lb DB. I’ll give the single-arm presses thing a shot tomorrow.

Thanks dude.

4

Farmer’s walks with a weighted vest are an absolute killer.You could also do some other loaded carries with the vest to mix things up a bit (waiter walk, suitcase walk, sandbag carry, stone/keg carries etc)

5

These weighted vests sound interesting.

Questions for you guys;

  • Do you think the XVest would still be beneficial if you only plan to use it once a week for lets say a circuit of bodyweight exercises?

  • Does it impact on the joints at all? Would you recommend for example skipping rope while using the XVest?

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6

I think it would probably be beneficial, it just may not justify the expense.

My body isn’t very impact tolerant so I wouldn’t consider using a jumprope for myself, but YMMV. I’d recommend doing a few very short, 10-15 second, sets and feel out how your joint feel before really going all out. 60lbs doesn’t sound like very much when compared to a 500lb DL, but it makes a huge difference when trying to do stuff you normally do unloaded.

7

i think if you skipped rope for an extended period of time in a weighted vest you’d end up with some brutal shin splints. Be a big load change going from bodyweight to an extra 60lbs. Not to say a moderate workout to work up to it wouldnt be possible.

8

[quote]shibboleth wrote:
i think if you skipped rope for an extended period of time in a weighted vest you’d end up with some brutal shin splints. Be a big load change going from bodyweight to an extra 60lbs. Not to say a moderate workout to work up to it wouldnt be possible.[/quote]

Probably not, shin splints only really occur when their is large impact through the heal. The achillies will just take a beating.