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What walking with ankle/wrist weights can
do: Walking with ankle or hand weights may seem like a good way to increase your workload and therefore your caloric expenditure but it really isn’t. Swinging your limbs around with additional weight at the end puts a lot of extra stress on your body and significantly increases your chance of injury. This also goes for weighted sneakers. There are many websites that say it’s great to use ankle and/or hand weights, but THINK ABOUT IT. The sites making these claims are usually the ones that are selling the ankle and/or hand weights, so there’s profit involved. Don’t be a victim of good marketing. All the peer-reviewed, university studies I looked at concluded that the minimal increase in calories burned (and were talking about an extra 3 calories per 30 minutes – pathetic!) is ridiculous when compared to the large percentage increase in injury. Want to burn more calories and tone muscle when you walk? Do it the SMART way, pick up the pace and walk a little faster, walk on hills, add lunges, squats or stop to do push-ups on park benches, or add short bursts of sprinting into your routine. For websites that present science based information on hand and ankle weights during walking check out the links below. http://walking.about.com/od/gear/bb/weights.htm |