Workout Vests and Traveling Workouts Oh My....

For Christmas my parents bought me a weighted workout vest and it is AWESOME. This beast of a vest I got can hold up to 40lbs of extra weight, but I have been using it at just half of its capacity. As a fitness scientist of sorts I am constantly trying to find ways to get a good workout without the use of the gym. This is not due to my lack of access to a gym, but I find getting outside to do workouts quite pleasant and I enjoy finding ways to give non-gym members advice on how to stay fit without a gym pass. Simple tools such as the kettle bell, TRX, weighted vest and medicine balls have become staples in my fitness program as they travel easy and I can bust them out just about anywhere to knock out a good metabolic session.

Those of you who follow my blog know I did a 6 week experiment where I worked out only using my body weight and was rather pleased with the results. My favorite part about the weighted vest is it adds a little more resistance and challenge to traditional body weight training (push ups, lunges, jump squats, pull ups, etc), but it has been a lot of fun to play with on the TRX. Granted you can increase resistance on the TRX with tons of exercise variations, but I have certainly noticed a difference in using the TRX with a weighted vest. Combining these tools with the use of heavy medicine balls and kettle balls has led me to conclude I could cancel all of my gym memberships, never step foot in a gym again and stay in phenomenal physical condition. Of course these fitness tools come at a price of their own, but with the ability to workout anywhere and maintain fitness that is totally functional: you can't beat it!