Originally Posted by
terrymorse
I suspect the weighted vest provides the training stress of backpack, except that it allows you to move around in ways that would be difficult/annoying with a backpack.
My wife and I were hiking one day at "
The Dish" above Stanford, which is quite steep in parts, when we saw a young, muscular guy running laps while wearing a weighted vest. He lapped us twice. We were astounded.
I could see the upper body atrributes working different ways based on the design. Too tight restricts torso xpansion and flexing, while too loose perhaps a not-well-supported load which moves around too much. But I'm just an amateur, guessing.
Anybody heard of any downsides to walking distancce with a lot of spinal load? I certainly don't want to change "too wimpy" to "can't move due to laminar or vertebral injuries!" This is one reason I'm starting with small loads, or so they seem to me!