Do Weighted Vests Help?
What's up, guys? And welcome back to another THB Strength podcast. On today's episode, we are gonna be talking about weighted vests and how they apply to jumps, sprints, etcetera. Before we get into the topic, we wanna give a huge shout out to our sponsors over at THB Strength. If you're gonna jump higher, get more athletic, and get healthy, go to thbstrength.com.
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John:Okay. Okay. So getting into the topic, let's go with our experiences with weighted jumps. I actually have not well, I've done weighted jumps, I've never actually used a weight vest ever. Yeah.
John:Never. Have you?
Isaiah:I've literally never have had a weighted vest on my body.
Austin:I have, actually.
John:Austin is the one that can give us context on this. Alright. How did you do it? How did you how did you apply it? Take the mic.
Austin:I can't pet your dog and hold the mic.
Isaiah:Actually, you can. You are
Austin:right now. I'm I'm trying to think. I actually just had a flashback. It was just five sports online, one foot program I was showing, and he would have a do it would be, like, bounding with weighted vests, like and then, basically, just take off the vest and go again and do the same thing.
John:And What year was that?
Austin:Probably, like, 2014. But I used to bring a weight vest, like oh, I would carry it to a park inbound. Did it help? No. Well Do we know?
Austin:I was I was very undertrained, so, like, I I was I think her breath is bad. Yeah. She got it. I do think it helps a little bit, but it wasn't like a I don't think that specifically was the reason. It was probably just more jump volume.
John:You think that you were just jumping?
Austin:Yeah. That's why I always keep seem to come to the same conclusion of I'm just jumping. Wait.
John:Are you ready? Yeah.
Isaiah:Take it. Success leaves clues.
John:I've never used a weight vest. Isaiah has never used a weight vest.
Austin:I've tried everything.
John:We also we also jumped higher than Austin last week. So
Isaiah:I'm injured.
John:Probably because you used a weighted vest. Yeah. No. I'm kidding. Alright.
John:So getting into the topic, how would we use them, or are they even useful at all? So it does depend on what you're doing. If you are going to sprint, I think that it would potentially decrease the ground reaction forces, probably, which might be a surprise because you would not be able to actually, I lied.
Isaiah:I have a question.
John:Wait. Real quick. I have to I have to think about this real quick. You would have lower RFD at touchdown, and your and your impulse would I don't know what your imp it would have to go up. You would run slower.
John:You'd have to yield against more force. It's like it I I guess you could probably do it. I would not use it for acceleration. I mean, upright sprinting, because it looks or appears to be that vertical forces are the limiter of upright sprinting, like how fast you can apply vertical forces. Maybe it would I'd have to think about what the curve would look like.
John:It would probably flatten the curve. So you'd have less sharp spikes making it less specific because, obviously, you would run slower. You're not gonna run faster. So, yeah, I would assume that the impulse would decrease, and therefore, would be less specific. You're training to run slow, I guess.
John:But maybe there's a mental component when you take it off and you feel lighter, quote, unquote, but I've never tested. I don't know. I have to see on a on a on a force plate curve.
Austin:Flashbacks of all this weighted best training I used
Isaiah:to try actually. Oh, test it.
John:Oh, allow it. Wait. Isaiah, I have something to say.
Isaiah:I think we need a we we had some complaints that we talk too smart. So I have a I have a couple terms. I I think it would be beneficial to define some of these. People need to be reminded more than they need to be taught if you already know these terms.
Austin:Sorry. I don't know. It's frenzy.
Isaiah:What's a yeah. What's a ground reaction force?
John:Ground reaction forces are the reaction force. Like, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So when you strike the ground, the ground pushes back up on you. That is the ground reaction force.
Isaiah:And then what is RFD?
John:RFD is rate of force development. It's kind of like power. It's how fast you see force go up.
Isaiah:And then the last one, what is impulse and the impulse curve that you're talking about and making it flatter? This will be a good one for for whiteboard.
John:Yeah. Force time curve. So you would have force on one axis, time on the other. The more force you apply over a given time will increase impulse, the area under the curve. So yeah.
John:The I don't know. What was the other word?
Isaiah:That's pretty good. And impulse is important because it's directly correlated to jump height.
John:And you'll have a change in momentum.
Isaiah:And how you jump, could you could potentially have the same result, but you could have a wider impulse curve, or you could have a squished together impulse curve. As long as the area under is the same, it'll result in the same jump height.
John:Which is different than sprinting because in sprinting, there's only one way to run fast. Everyone's curves look the same in sprinting. Did you not?
Isaiah:I did not know that actually.
John:Like, if you run like, if you're a girl and you run ten ten eight and you're a guy and you run ten eight, they're gonna look the same. You're gonna get there the same way. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, there might you'd have to correct for,
Isaiah:like, height. But
John:Yeah. The curve looks the same.
Isaiah:Sprinting is it's two things. It's it's stride frequency times stride
John:length. Yeah.
Isaiah:And so are you saying if someone has, like, a ten eight sprint, how why why do they look the same?
John:Because so you might have, like, a higher frequency of it, but to get to a 10.8, like, to run that fast if you wanna run, let's say, it's, like, 10 meters per second, you can you get to 10 meters per second the same way regardless of whether you're a guy or a girl or something else. Like, it doesn't matter. Interesting. Does that make sense?
Isaiah:Yeah. And then you're supposed supposed to be the curve. Right? Yeah. The curve
John:looks the same.
Isaiah:Yeah. That makes sense.
John:So it would be like a sharp, you know, sharp incline, and then it kinda falls off really quick.
Isaiah:And, like, the area
John:people faster people, like, slow people, their curve is, like, flat and kind of shallow. Where it's shallow and wide, faster people, it gets shorter. It gets more
Isaiah:Does your body weight affect it? Like, if you're like, if you're
John:a heavy ten eight If you correct for if you correct for body weight, it would I guess, it would probably have to go up. I don't know. I'd have to think about that. I'm I'm sure that the spike of it is maybe, like, higher if you're heavier.
Isaiah:Yeah.
John:Because you have to like, you have more downward force that you're dealing with. Right? The reaction force would have to be higher to get the same acceleration.
Isaiah:Like, if you're if you're running the same speed and you're heavier, have to yeah.
John:You have to have
Isaiah:more force.
John:But everyone maybe a better way to say it is, like, to run faster, you see the same trends. The curves get shorter and steeper. And, yeah, if you correct for body weight and stuff, they all look the same.
Isaiah:Yeah. So the whole the whole goal of training is obviously, like, if you're trying to jump higher is to have more area under that curve, Do weighted now now back to Okay. In
John:spring or jumping?
Isaiah:It's jumping jumping. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So back to the the weighted jumps.
Isaiah:So what would be, like, the reasoning? What what would be a reason to do weighted jumps? And then what's, like, the arguments against it? Like, what arguments do you have against practicing, specifically full approach jumps? Because I feel like logically You
John:gotta hold your mic a little further away. I don't want it to be too loud, and these are new. So I have no idea what they're gonna sound like. Yeah. Your question is, what are the pros, what are the cons basically of it?
Isaiah:Yeah. Practicing full approach jumps with a 30 pound weighted
John:vest. It's 30 pounds?
Isaiah:Yeah. Or 20. Let's do 20 pounds.
John:Okay. So one, the weight of the vest does matter. Like a like, if you have a 30 pound vest versus a 20 pound vest, you're gonna see that you're getting less specific as you get a heavier vest. So if you're really early in the season, you would wanna use the heavier vest. If you're later in the season, you would wanna use the lighter vest.
John:So what I would kind of expect, like, the pros, I guess, are is you have really high specificity. You have really high rate of force development. You would have to deal with more downward velocity. Like, as you're pushing into the plant, you would probably have a higher velocity, negative vertical velocity that you have to deal with. Right?
John:And so you'd have to generate the force to overcome that and still get off the ground. The downside is that everything is gonna be slower. Right? So you're going to flatten the curve. You're not gonna have as high RFD.
John:You're not gonna jump as high, so the area under the curve is gonna be less. But it's still shaped like the same, basically. Right? It's probably shaped very similarly. I would assume that the negative vertical velocity and the collision of that is I mean, the landing forces might be higher because you have a higher negative vertical velocity because it depends on how you push off the penultimate step.
John:I would think I would think it could be used it could be used, like, appropriately.
Isaiah:Could be a tool.
John:It's a tool in the toolbox. It's a tool in the toolbox. I do think that people probably
Isaiah:Are we ever gonna implement it in my training?
John:We I mean, I would wanna do accommodating resistance before we do that. Yeah. But, I mean, there's a couple things I wanna do with you. One, I wanna do accommodating resistance.
Isaiah:What is that?
John:Accommodating resistance is like using bands or chains. So it's like Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
John:Like in a better leverage position, the weight's heavier or feels heavier.
Austin:I wanna try that too.
John:Yeah. And then when it's lighter or when you're weaker and a less favorable position, your leverage is worse, the weight is relatively less. So I've
Isaiah:literally never done a combination.
John:Yeah. That's something I wanna try. I think would be really, really good. And then another thing, I don't know how your joints would respond to it, but I would I would wanna try that. I think a vest could be useful.
John:I would probably have to do it in, like, a three months out, and I would have to do it in really low volumes.
Isaiah:Is there inherently any difference?
John:I know Jay Clark did a lot of weighted vest stuff, and
Isaiah:Yeah.
John:I didn't really see too much of an impact from it, but he likes it a lot.
Isaiah:So Yeah.
Austin:I don't know.
Isaiah:Is there a difference? Because I've done dumbbell squat jumps, barbell squat jumps, hex bar jumps. Strictly speaking, standing counter movement jump, is there a difference, like, if I between any of those three or even a weighted vest, if I were to do standing jumps with a weighted vest, is the training effect gonna be the same? Or the
John:I mean, you'd have more so you're doing counter movement jump 30 with a 40 pound weight vest versus a 40 or 45 pound weight vest versus a 45 pound
Isaiah:barbell squat jump versus dumbbell squat jump with twenties in each hand?
John:Man, you're getting, like, physics questions. The system weight is the same. So, I mean, I would assume it's the difference is your arm swing. You get an arm swing.
Isaiah:And so, yeah,
John:you probably have more downward ground reaction forces at the bottom. You probably would get more force out of it. You definitely would get more force out of it. In terms of the mechanics, yeah, it's gonna look more like a counter movement jump. But a 45 pound weight vest is I mean, it it has to be really tight.
John:For I mean, firstly, it has to be really tightly equipped, like, on your body. And it's all centrally like, it's centrally central mass, and we do see that, like, who have more central mass, I e, like, beer bellies, they have more tendon issues. Yeah. So And I feel
Isaiah:like your mechanics might change a little bit too. Like, I knew you would, like, increase your body fat temporarily.
John:Well, that is actually what what Mike used to do. He would have his guys do a lot of bodybuilding circuits for high jumpers early in the year, and then he would cut them all out, and they would lose they would lose weight. And it would be like a little weight vest. That makes sense. Yeah.
John:So he would he would use that oftentimes for high jumpers. But I think for for two foot jumpers, I think you could get away with it. It would probably be beneficial. It's just gonna be more force. Yeah.
John:It's it's gonna be It's risky. Yeah. It's risky. I think anytime you start to get the curve flatter and longer like that, I think that the tendon is gonna I mean, the tension it only knows tension, and it knows time. And tension, I don't know per se if it would go up intramuscularly.
John:I don't know. I've never looked at it on a on a force plate to know.
Isaiah:And there's probably zero studies on two foot approach weight vest Yeah. Jumps. I Jay
John:Clark Jay Clark would be a better one to ask, honestly.
Isaiah:It's a good case a good case study for it.
John:I mean, it seems like
Isaiah:So is it uncharted territory? Like, because
John:Oh, I'm sure some people have tried it, but I don't know if people have tried it, like, I don't wanna say intelligently. But
Isaiah:Yeah. And they probably haven't measured progress Yeah. Pretty well. Like, there, like, there hasn't been someone that's,
John:like There's not,
Isaiah:tested the vertex.
John:Pretest, posttest.
Isaiah:Did four weeks deload. How did you test after? What happened to your freaking sprint speed?
John:I mean, it would probably I would think for jumping, it's loading and unloading, so it's probably gonna work. It's very specific. You'd probably wanna do it for, like, a month to two months out, but you have to be really careful anytime you're adding weight to a specific movement because or resistance because what can happen is you can get the interference effect. And the interference effect is basically like, oh, if I wanna run nine point eight seconds, I don't really wanna be practicing running, like, ten point five. I don't wanna be practicing running or eleven seconds.
John:Like, I definitely don't wanna be in eleven second range if I'm trying to run nine eight. And Yeah. The because the problem with that is that you're teaching your body to run submaximally. And if you do it a lot, then it can be really detrimental. So you wanna you can bleed that volume in and be okay as long as you're hitting all the other stuff.
John:Mhmm. But you do have to be careful with it. And Tony Hollar, Feed the Cats. He's like a coach in Chicago, and that's, like, his big thing. It's, like, only fast stuff for fast athletes.
John:Don't make them do anything slow ever
Isaiah:Yeah.
John:And keep really low volumes. That's his other thing. But he I think the same thing applies for for jumping. Right? Like, you could have an interference effect where now you're actually flattening the curve.
John:Right? Like, it's like when I was drawing the force time on the fridge, and I was like, what happens is you generate more force, but it takes more time, and therefore, your slope decreases and your rate of force development goes down. Mhmm. So you would have to see, like, because jumping is not sprinting and you can jump high multiple different ways with different shaped curves, you might get a longer flatter curve. But if the total area is more, then you'll jump higher.
John:Whereas running, you will not run faster if you get the same impulse because time is that's what you're measuring. And this, we're measuring and implement moving. Therefore, it's irrespective of time. Sprinting is respective of time. You can't bound down the track.
John:You'd have higher peak forces, more impulse
Isaiah:Yeah.
John:But you'd run really slow, you know, or you'd have a really slow time, you know, even if you're speed bounding.
Isaiah:It would be like what what would be a comparison with jumping is like, offer how
Austin:many times could
Isaiah:you touch 11 feet in a row or like in ten seconds.
John:Yeah. It'd be like.
Isaiah:Like, you'd to change your jump strategy to to be more, like, reactive, like,
John:Yeah. Or or it'd be like the backboard touches. It would be like, oh, Isaiah, I want you to go and do a 100 jumps sub maximally. Yeah. Like, only touch, like, two hands on the glass, you know, and do that a 100 times.
John:Like, that's a bad training stimulus because now you well, wait. Were you saying the curves? The shape of the curves are diff oh oh, I see what you're saying. Now I see what you're Yeah.
Isaiah:Exercise though, by the way, is like every high school coach
John:is Yeah. Every high school Favorite exercise.
Isaiah:I remember in high school, had knee pain. This is when I started getting bouncy. And then I had knee pain, and the coach was like, alright.
John:Like 2,000 backboard
Isaiah:stats. 10 backboard touches. Rest thirty seconds, 10 backboard touches. I was taking I was taking the jumps easy because I was like, this is this is hurting my knee. And then the coach got mad at He's like, you're the highest jump on the tee and you're not.
Isaiah:Blah blah blah blah blah.
John:And you should have said correct. Yeah. Yeah. Literally.
Isaiah:Do you not know proper load management principles? Idiot.
John:But I I I do think yeah. Like, if you were to time and say, oh, well, you know, you gotta touch the you gotta touch the backboard or touch the rim 20 times as fast as possible. Right? That and and then now it's respective of time. You're gonna pick the best strategy.
John:You're gonna pick RSI. Yeah. You're gonna pick RSI, guys with long reaches, whatever else. Like, that's what's gonna do well in that. But that's not the case.
John:Right? We don't care how long it takes you to do your approach. Maybe in basketball, you care in a game because you don't have all day to do that. The defender will react. Yeah.
John:You kinda wanna get them off guard. But, you know, in in our case, if you were to throw that weighted vest in there and it were to flatten the curve and everything else, you could take it off. And then you could obviously potentially train, and now you've trained to handle maybe more time, and now you're trying to shorten that time.
Isaiah:Yeah.
John:And then your total impulse goes up. What's maybe even more interesting is assisted approach jumps because then you're actually seeing RFD go up because it has to.
Isaiah:Yeah.
John:You have to generate more force. You're basically generating force faster than you can apply it, or you're trying to generate force We should do that as higher than you could.
Isaiah:We should do that as another topic. Yeah. Podcast.
John:That's just There's some very good good stuff when it comes to spurning related to that. Yeah. Like, if you had a hon a harness and you were running Yeah. Like that, really, really good.
Isaiah:I think it'll be interesting to try it sometime in the future. It'll be a it'll be a good case
John:want it to feel like clothes. I don't want it to be, like, swinging around. Because, like, what happens when you have that is you also have an you have torque and a moment of inertia.
Isaiah:Oh, if it's, like, freaking
John:So well, the further the mask gets away from you, the more moment of inertia it has, and therefore, the more forces you're gonna be dealing with. Right? Like, swinging a baseball bat at the very end of it or swinging it, you know, close to the middle, you're gonna get a lot you're gonna feel more force in your hands at the bottom of the bat or the same thing with the golf club or whatever else. So if the mass is really far away from you and you're moving around a lot, it's gonna hurt. Like Which is another reason why fat is bad.
John:You don't wanna be fat if you wanna be a healthy athlete. It's
Isaiah:crazy. This is a tiny bit off topic, but I was we alluded to it earlier when we were like, a lot of athletes don't test. Mhmm. I think it is very important. Like, if I have one piece of advice for you guys is actually measure your jumps.
Isaiah:Because a lot of athletes will, like, try a training style and then just think that it is helping or, like, they're like, yeah. This will help, but, like, you never really know until you measure until you actually measure Yeah. Measure your vertical. I think
John:that's really important. I think, like, dunk sessions are an assessment, you know, in and of themselves, but it's better to have actual numbers to it. That's why I use flight time.
Isaiah:Yeah. Like, I use flight time to kinda generalize here.
John:At. I think for me right now, it's just I'm trying to get better at dunking. But once I I think when you're especially when you're plateaued, it's really important to test regularly. Because Yeah. You should expect that if you're plateaued, it might not be better.
John:It might be worse. But you wanna look at the cluster month to month, and then you can look at year to year. That's what lot of track guys do. They look at their season opener. Where's my season opener?
John:Is my season opener faster than it was last year or slower than it was last year?
Isaiah:Yeah.
John:Like, that matters because even though it's not your best time and, yeah, you did train for eight months leading up to the season opener, oh, I should run faster. That's just not how it works. Like Yeah. And plus the the point of purization is to try to get you to perform at a higher level when it matters. But, you know, not everyone is gonna respond perfectly like a you don't we don't live in a a vacuum.
John:You know? There's other variables that that play here. Genetics are obviously a big one too. All got
Isaiah:a podcast topic right there.
John:Genetics. Yeah. Rolls genetics. Yeah. So I think it's a pretty good place to stop.
John:Anything else you guys wanna add?
Isaiah:I have my brain hurts. Have one ask for you guys. Comment below any topic Please don't want us to cover. Why are you sitting like that? I'm tired, man.
Isaiah:Comment comment below one topic you want us to cover on this podcast. And then if you're on a podcast platform, give us five stars, please. Motivates us to make keep making content and it pushes this out to other athletes so that we can win this war against bad jump training.
John:Bad jump training. Austin, you're doing ISOs? No. Oh, you're just just flexing on me with your big old quad. Anyways, thanks for watching, We appreciate it.
Austin:We
John:will catch you next time. Don't forget to go to THB Strength dot com and use discount code THB at checkout. 10% off. See you guys.
