Do Weighted Vests Work? What the Science Says About Rucking.

One day at 3 A.M., a few weeks postpartum, I had my baby latched to my chest while scrolling social media in the dark. The algorithm had decided it knew what I needed: new moms in weighted vests walking through neighborhoods after dinner. The comments claiming they were “life-changing” were a good enough endorsement for me. I ordered one on Amazon at 3:17 A.M.

My partner saw the box when it arrived, looked at the baby, and said, with the patience of someone who has learned to choose their battles: “Why would you need a weighted vest when you can just strap the baby to your body?” He had a point. But unfortunately, a weighted vest and a baby harness aren’t interchangeable. A weighted vest distributes weight evenly across the body, but my baby harness keeps my daughter’s weight concentrated at the front of my body where she sits. A front load shifts my center of mass forward. So, while my baby might feel great, my back doesn’t.

Because using my baby harness as a substitute weighted vest was out, I grabbed the real thing instead. But I found myself asking two questions: Why and how did weighted vests and load-bearing exercise become a thing? And what were the benefits? I dug into the history of the weighted vest and interviewed a physical therapist and a former military specialist to get some answers. Here’s what I found out.

The Spartans Did It First

Load-bearing training didn’t start with TikTok, or even the U.S. military. The Spartans called it the agoge. The agoge was a mandatory state-run program that peaked between the 5th and 4th centuries BCE and required boys, as early as age seven, to learn the art of battle. By the age of 20, they were considered members of the army, according to a 1983 historical paper about life in ancient Sparta. Some were hoplites, a type of Greek soldier who had to wear heavy armor and carry bulky weaponry for many miles. Their shields could weigh around 15 pounds and were about three feet wide.

Armies have long assumed that a soldier who can carry weight over distance is more valuable than one who can’t.

Cal Coblentz, a former survival, evasion, resistance, and escape specialist in the United States Air Force, said that, in his world, carrying an extra 50 pounds was a baseline. “In my survival training and missions, it wasn’t uncommon to have a pack that weighed over 100 pounds,” he told Outside. He also said carrying a heavy load built an invaluable sense of mental fortitude. To be clear: most commercial weighted vests do not go this high in weight. But wearing a weighted vest that adds a few more pounds offers several benefits.

Weighted Vests Make It to the Physical Therapy World

People in the military weren’t the only ones who figured out the benefits of carrying more weight. For years, before weighted vests became a fitness accessory, physical therapists used lighter versions to help people recover from injury and boost their cardiovascular endurance.

Weighted Vest Training Has Many Benefits, but Is Not a Substitute for Resistance Training

Peter Mason, a Wyoming-based physical therapist who works with athletes, describes the clinical logic: an evenly distributed load challenges the body without isolating vulnerable joints. In older adults with osteoporosis, a vest introduces progressive loading during functional tasks without requiring grip strength or external implements, he said. For someone rebuilding after injury or managing bone loss, that distinction matters.

When you add load to a walk with a weighted vest, the weight distributes the load across your body evenly rather than, say, carrying a set of dumbbells (or my 15-pound baby). Because the load sits close to your trunk rather than hanging from one hand, your postural muscles work harder to keep you upright, and no single joint takes the whole load. Moreover, wearing a weighted vest helps activate core muscles and improves lower-body strength.

A vest also gives your cardiovascular system a workout. A 2026 study published in the journal Physiological Reports examined the cardiovascular effects of wearing a weighted vest in people with obesity. Some of the 51 participants wore a heavy weighted vest (15 percent of their body weight), and others wore a light vest (one percent of their body weight). Participants in the heavy-vest group showed increased heart rate and cardiovascular workload.

There is an important caveat. Mason said that vests are a good option for general conditioning, but “they are not a substitute for high-load resistance training in athletes who need meaningful improvements in force capacity and resilience.” In other words, for an athlete who wants significant strength gains in their sport, weighted vest training won’t be as beneficial as resistance training with heavy weights. But for a new mom like me, a weighted vest is ideal because I can do bodyweight movements like lunges, squats, and push-ups while wearing it and boost my heart rate without putting too much strain on my body.

Books, Fitness Classes, and Social Media Popularize Weighted Vests

Eventually, weighted vests were no longer limited to physical therapy practices. They gained popularity through many mediums and went mainstream. According to a 2025 Forbes article, the global weighted vest market is projected to reach $350 million by 2033.

Professor and bestselling author Michael Easter wrote in his Substack, Two Percent—where he writes about the latest in fitness and health—that the New York Times credited his 2021 book The Comfort Crisis with kickstarting the weighted-vest craze.

In May 2025, when Peloton added weighted-vest streaming classes to their workout library, instructor Rebecca Kennedy said in a Time article that members responded with something close to relief and that the “appetite for weighted vests has been really wild.”

How to Make Weighted Vests Work for You

If you want to try weighted vests, Mason suggests starting with a vest that’s five percent of your body weight and doing one to two non-consecutive weighted-vest walking sessions per week.

If you weigh 160 pounds, that means you’d start with a vest that’s about eight pounds. A reasonable upper target for most people is ten to 15 percent of their body weight, he said. (That would be a max of a 16- or 24-pound vest for a person who weighs 160 pounds.)

The best way to gauge when you can take on heavier weight, he said, is to pay attention to how your body responds over time. If you’re using an eight-pound vest and your movement is solid, aren’t experiencing pain, and have minimal fatigue, you can increase the vest weight, he said.

“Fit matters: the vest should be snug enough to minimize movement and friction, but not so tight that it restricts respiration, trunk motion, or natural gait mechanics,” Mason said.

One other important callout is that a weighted vest might not be for everyone. Skip the vest, or talk to a clinician first, if you’re pregnant, recently postpartum, or managing pelvic floor symptoms like leaking or heaviness. The same goes for anyone with a known vertebral fracture, uncontrolled balance problems, or a spine condition. If you feel pain, dizziness, or pelvic pressure, take the vest off.

Overall, weighted vests are trendy for a reason; they are a legitimate tool for boosting the cardiovascular benefits of a walk. But they are not a substitute for strength training.

As for me, I’ll still strap my baby to my chest for a walk just to get her outside, then throw on my weighted vest when I need some extra oomph for my daily walk or bodyweight routine.

About the medical reviewer: Rachel MacPherson is a certified strength and conditioning specialist, an ACE-certified personal trainer, and a PN1-certified nutrition coach. MacPherson has spent over a decade helping lifters trade bro science for actual results. She’s happily turned an obsession with evidence-based health into a full-time writing and strategy career, helping publications, wellness brands, and supplement companies tell smarter stories that people trust. She’s a stickler for science-backed training advice that respects the reader’s intelligence, with the ultimate goal of getting you under the bar with total confidence (or moving in whatever way feels best).

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