Weighted vests are becoming more popular in the U.S. as an easy way to make walks more challenging.
But is this trend safe for most people?
According to the Cleveland Clinic, wearing a weighted vest alone won’t help build strength. Dr. Jessica Tomazic, a sports medicine specialist at the clinic, said vests should be combined with other forms of strength training.
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“Weighted vests can help you expend more calories when you're exercising, so they have that benefit,” she said.
They can also pose an injury risk if not used properly. Tomazic recommends starting with a vest that is 5% to 10% of a person’s body weight. For someone who weighs 200 pounds, that means a vest weighing 10 to 20 pounds.
“You want to be careful with things like bike riding, anything that's at a higher rate of speed or requires additional balance, especially if you're new to it,” Tomazic said. “It can throw off your balance a bit. So just being careful with those activities. I think walking and running are two safe ways to start using weighted vests.”
Spending on weighted vests is estimated to grow by more than 8% a year, according to Market Research Intellect.
Kristen Beavers, a professor of internal medicine at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, has researched the benefits of weighted vests. In 2025, she released a study examining whether weighted vests can help reduce bone loss among older adults.
Her research found that wearing weighted vests alone did not prevent bone loss associated with weight loss.
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Even so, she said there is still value in using them.
“Weighted vests are very practical. They’re scalable. They allow you to exercise in your home, in your neighborhood, doing resistance training without going to a gym. For a lot of individuals, there is a real appeal to that. The value of the weighted vest is that it allows you to sneak loading into activities of daily living,” she said.
