Workout for Kids: The Gold's Gym 20 Lbs. Adjustable Weighted Vest

Finding fitness equipment that is appropriate for kids, interests your child and which actually gets used can be a challenge. For the child who wants to achieve a higher fitness level, perhaps along with a healthier body weight, incorporating a weighted vest into his workout, athletic training, or just his everyday activities may provide a big payoff.

The Gold's Gym 20 lbs. Adjustable Weighted Vest

After researching weighted vests, we found they range in price quite a bit. We decided to purchase the Gold's Gym 20 lbs. Adjustable Weighted Vest. It cost about $50.00 at Wal-Mart (also available at Wal-Mart.com online). This is a flak-jacket style vest made of nylon mesh. It has 20 individual pockets; each pocket can hold a one-pound weight. The weights, which are small, nylon mesh sandbags are included (right-click to open product photos in a new window).

There are ten weight pockets on the front of the vest and ten on the back. If fully loaded, this distributes the weight evenly between a person's front and back. The fact that there are 20 weight pockets also gives the user a lot of flexibility in how much weight is added to the vest and the ways in which it is distributed.

The vest has snap-lock closures and padded shoulders. My son was happy to find the Gold's Gym weighted vest had a convenient pocket for his MP3 player. I was happy the vest had reflective tape, for added safety in low-light situations, on both front and back.

Comfort and Appeal of the Gold's Gym Weighted Vest

Somehow strapping on the Gold's Gym weighted vest prompted my son to engage in a muscle posing session. (See photo on page 2 of the article. Okay, that's not my son, but you get the idea.) After that enthusiastic display was done, I asked him about his initial impressions of the vest.

Obviously, for whatever reason, my son liked the look and feel of the Gold's Gym weighted vest right away. I think its hat tip to military styling, the "important" feel of its weight fully loaded, and the snap-lock closures all gave the vest the appeal of Serious Equipment. And what's not to love about that? Whatever it is that makes working out and achieving fitness goals more appealing, I'm all for it!

Not only did my son find the Gold's Gym weighted vest appealing, he found it quite comfortable. Although many people like to work up to full weight, my son was gung-ho (and strong enough) to put the vest at 20 lbs. right away.

Ways to workout with the Gold's Gym Weighted Vest

If your child takes to the vest, it becomes easy to find opportunities to incorporate it into his fitness or athletic training activities. We found the Gold's Gym Weighted Vest easy to use in three ways: walking, sports activities, and chores and other everyday activities.

Walking

Walking for fitness is a simple, but very effective workout. My son found that wearing the weighted vest while walking substantially increased his energy expenditure. The good thing was, he hardly noticed that fact until he finished the walk. In other words, while wearing the vest, he did extra work without really trying. Who could ask for more?

One tip my son had about wearing the vest was that it was better to fasten the vest somewhat loosely. If the vest was fastened tight around his abdomen, he felt the weight did not distribute as well over his upper body. He also felt that, when tightly fastened, the vest's weight was carried more by the its straps than by his hips and leg muscles.

The vest should not swing freely, but it should not be tight, either. It works best when it is comfortably snug.

Sports activities

A hard-core athlete can add a weighted vest to his usual training regime and see fantastic results. Weighted vests, for example, have been shown to help an athlete increase vertical jump significantly.

For the average kid who wants to improve his fitness level by building lean muscle and burning fat, wearing a weighted vest optimizes the exercise effect of simply shooting baskets, skating, playing catch and even riding a bike. It even adds a new fitness dimension to Guitar Hero!

Everyday activities

If weight loss is a goal, your child may choose to wear his weighted vest while doing all kinds of everyday activities. We identified certain activities and time periods during which the exercise effect of wearing the vest could really add up.

Chores, for example, often involve an hour or so of physical labor. Vacuuming, carrying a full laundry basket downstairs and clean laundry upstairs, sweeping the walk, picking up and shelving toys---these and similar activities are perfect for optimizing as exercise with the weighted vest.

The future of the Gold's Gym Weighted Vest

Since the weighted vest is not an activity or workout in and of itself, there is little danger that it will become the proverbial Treadmill-turned-Towel Hanger. The weighted vest is one piece of exercise equipment that is endlessly adaptable to a person's activities and activity level. Because the twenty weights for the Gold's Gym weighted vest come in one-pound tubes, it's also easy to calibrate how much "challenge" the vest adds to any given activity. All in all, it doesn't appear that my son will lose interest in the weighted vest any time soon.

Since the only effective piece of exercise equipment is equipment that actually gets used, we give the Gold Gym's 20 lbs. Adjustable Weighted Vest two thumbs-up for real-world usefulness. The vest is well-constructed, comfortable, easy to adjust (both in fit and weights), and reasonably priced compared to many other similar products on the market. About $50.00 at Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart.com.