Posts Tagged ‘weight bearing exercise’

Osteopenia and Hyper Vest PRO weight vest

May 10th, 2011
,,,,, - Hot Topic Tuesday - Hyper Vest PRO - osteopenia - osteoporosis - weight bearing exercise - weight vest

I had the most delightful conversation with a customer yesterday!  Our customers are truly amazing, interesting people and I love it when I get the chance to chat with them!  Feel free to contact us anytime you have questions or ideas or just want to tell us about some really cool you did with your Hyper Wear products!

Anyway, Melinda called bright and early Monday morning.  Just before the weekend, she was told she had Osteopenia and was given some options.  Her doctor said she could take the recommended drugs or try an alternative.  Melinda did not like the sound of the side effects of the drugs, so she went the alternative route.  She needed to do weight bearing exercise and walking her little 115-pound, 5′3″ self around was not enough weight to bear!  Her doctor then recommended that she load up a backpack with soup cans and carry it around as much as possible throughout the day.

Melinda’s response: “Soup cans?  Really?  I think we can do a little better than that!”

So she did some research online and found our Hyper Vest PRO.  I don’t want to put words in her mouth, but I think Melinda felt it was perfect for what she needed.  She could wear it pretty much all day, hidden under her clothes if she so desired.  A backpack full of soup cans is a little harder to wear discreetly!  She also liked that it wouldn’t hinder her normal activities.  In addition, we both felt like something that fits snugly on your entire core is of far greater benefit than something that, by its very design, pulls on your back and shoulders.

The applications for the Hyper Vest PRO are so vast, it sometimes makes me try to think of things it would not be good for simply because that list is so much shorter!

So, if you have Osteopenia or Osteoporosis, talk to your doctor about the benefits of wearing a weighted vest and then give us a call…I’d love to chat with you about it!!

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Hyper Vest PRO weight vest adds weight in small increments

May 3rd, 2011
,,,,,, - Hot Topic Tuesday - Hyper Vest PRO - functional fitness - older adults - physical therapy - weight vest

I used to live with an 85-year-old woman.  She hurt herself and had to go to physical therapy to rebuild strength in her legs.  The physical therapist strapped a half-pound ankle weight on her and had her do leg lifts with it.  As she improved, the therapist increased the weight of the ankle weight to one pound.  My roommate struggled, but trusted that her therapist knew what was best and lifted the additional half of a pound.  As she further improved, the therapist increased her from a one pound to a two-pound ankle weight.  my roommate tried her best, but the additional pound proved too much for her little 85-year-old body and she re-injured herself.  She had to start over again, a frustrating reality for anyone in physical therapy.

I have a couple of problems with this situation as well as corresponding solutions:

1.  How often does an 85-year-old woman need to sit in a chair and lift her foot straight up until it is even with her knee with added weight?  How practical / functional is that really?

Solution: Why not have her doing real-life movements – those things she does in her day-to-day life?  Things like walking around, squatting down to pick something up, etc.  And if you want to increase the weight on her so she is building muscle, add a Hyper Vest PRO so weight can be added in very small increments.  This also eliminates the use of weights on the joints and instead holds it on the torso.

2.  Doesn’t a whole pound seem like a large increase?  Especially at her age and strength level?

Solution: The Hyper Vest PRO weights are only one seventh of a pound each.  The original purpose for this was so the weights would be small enough to conform to and move with the body (think chainmail).  The added benefit is that the wearer can add very small increments of weight without doing too much too fast.

What are some ways you can see an adjustable weight vest being of great benefit to you?

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Hyper Vest PRO vs Mount Trashmore – MMM #83

November 29th, 2010
,,,,,, - Bill Meyer - Hyper Vest PRO - Monday Morning Muscle - burn calories - weight vest - workout

Good Monday Morning!

So we’ve all got loads of extra calories to burn off this week, let’s start it off with some creative and fun exercises with your Hyper Vest PRO! I recently visited Mt.Trashmore here in Virginia Beach; a state park that once was the city’s largest landfill. Once the location was full, the city decided to cover it over with grass and turn it into a park for the community. Great idea if you ask me!

So zip up your Hyper Vest PRO, head to your local park and get ready to have some fun this week! And don’t you worry about all the people looking at you crazy, those are the ones who are too afraid to exercise “outside of the box”! Enjoy!!!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD9wsym_H04[/youtube]

Never Stand Still!

Bill Meyer, SCE, USAW
Head Hyper Wear Coach

MMM #83

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A Word on Functional Fitness – Hyper Vest PRO & SandBell Style

November 17th, 2010
,,,,,,, - Hyper Vest PRO - HyperWear - SandBell - dumbbell replacement - fitness - functional fitness - kettlebell - kettlebell replacement - sandbag - training - weight vest

If you’ve ever spent any amount of time talking with someone from Hyper Wear or watching any of our videos, you know that we LOVE functional fitness.  We believe in the practicality of training the way you move in everyday life.  If you’re a stay-at-home mom, you need muscles that will enable you to pick up the baby, vacuum the floor, put away groceries, etc.  If you are an athlete on the basketball court, you need first-step quickness, rebounding ups, overall quickness, etc. You get the idea.

No matter what you do, you use certain muscles throughout your day.  Why bother building big muscles that don’t actually do anything besides lift a weight in a linear fashion?  We think muscles aren’t just there to look pretty, they should actually serve a purpose – to make what you do every day a little easier.

The Hyper Vest PRO is, of course, the most functional of all.  A weighted vest that you can wear around all the time, no matter what you’re doing, means you are building specific muscles for what you do.  Makes sense, huh?  But our SandBells are also high on the functional fitness scale.  Because they are so safe and so versatile, you can use them to mimic lots of real-world movements without worrying about dropping them on your toe, or bumping some body part with them.

Speaking of bumped body parts, I must confess, I am in my thirties, but my my knees look like the knees of a little kid.  They’re always bruised and scraped from when I miscalculate the speed and / or direction of some other piece of fitness equipment and my knee gets in the way.  I’m just thankful I’ve never been that clumsy with a kettlebell, but that’s mostly because I never use them!  Why bother when a novice user like myself can get all the same benefits from doing the same moves with a SandBell?  Forgive this short commercial break…now back to our regularly scheduled blog post…

The point of all this is to direct you to an article put out by the Mayo Clinic called “Functional fitness training: Is it right for you?“  It’s a good run down of the definitions, benefits, and even equipment of functional training, but someone needs to get those guys a Hyper Vest PRO and SandBells…

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Hyper Vest PRO Weighted Vest Tricks Your Body into Burning MORE Calories

September 8th, 2010
,,, - Hyper Vest PRO - burn calories - fitness - weight loss - weight vest

There are so many resources on the internet for people looking to increase their level of health.  I found an excellent resource called “Be Active Your Way: A Guide for Adults.”  It is chock-full of useful tips whether you are just getting started, working to make physical activity a bigger part of your life, or ready to up your duration and / or intensity.

The thing I love about reading guides and articles like this is that it is so easy to incorporate Hyper Wear products into each of these suggestions.  The simplest thing you can do to amp up your workout routine is to add a Hyper Vest PRO weighted vest.  Not only does it make every activity a weight-bearing activity (which builds bone density and muscle mass), it helps you burn extra calories with every move.  You see, it tricks your body into burning more calories!

How does it do this?  Calculate how many calories you burn in one hour of high-impact aerobics.  Let’s say you weigh 150 pounds; you can burn 477 calories in that hour.  But if you weighed 160, you would burn 508 calories in that hour.  That’s about 30 more calories per hour.  May not sound like much, but if you burn that extra 30 calories per day, you can lose a pound of fat (3500 cal = 1 lb fat) in just 116 days, simply by adding a 10 lb weight vest to the equation.  That’s 3 pounds lost per year.  That’s pretty good for not really increasing intensity or duration!

So keep in mind the ways you can get more bang for your workout buck and consider using your Hyper Vest PRO weighted vest to torch extra calories, no sweat!

Want to check out the fitness guide for yourself?  Here’s the LINK.

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Enter the Octagon – MMM #18

August 10th, 2009
,,,,,,,,, - Bill Meyer - CATZ - Hyper Vest - HyperWear - Monday Morning Muscle - SandBell - athlete training - weight vest

Good Monday Morning!

This week, we’re taking it back to the oooold school!! Lately, I’ve been experimenting with working out at my neighborhood playground with a pretty heavy SandBell.  I thought I’d show you all some of the crazy antics I’ve been up to.

For me, training in non-traditional settings is what works the best. I feel like it’s not even training, but really just playing around like when you were a kid….except your heart rate is sky rocketing and you’re a little bit more fearful of injury on the playground than when you were 6 years old! Enjoy “The Octagon” and all its twists and turns, bumps and bruises!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWxnLvlpXBA[/youtube]

Never Stand Still!

Bill Meyer, SCE, USAW
Head Hyper Wear Coach
Performance Director, CATZ-Austin

MMM #18

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Weighted Vests proven to be of benefit for older women

November 6th, 2008
,,,,,,, - Hyper Vest - older adults - weight vest

Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, Vol 53, Issue 1 M53-M58, Copyright © 1998 by The Gerontological Society of America
JOURNAL ARTICLE

Weighted vest exercise improves indices of fall risk in older women

JM Shaw and CM Snow
Department of Exercise and Sport Science, University of Utah, USA. Janet.Shaw@health.utah.edu

BACKGROUND: Bone mass and fall propensity are two major risk factors for hip fracture. Our intent was to determine if weight-bearing exercises with added resistance from weighted vests would improve dynamic balance, muscle strength and power, and bone mass in postmenopausal women, thereby reducing risk for falls and hip fracture.

METHODS: Forty-four nonsmoking, community-dwelling, Caucasian women aged 50-75 years participated in the study. All participants were at least 5 years past menopause and most were estrogen-deplete (n = 36). Bone mass and body composition were assessed by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry, muscular strength by isokinetic dynamometry, muscular power by modified Wingate Anaerobic Power Test, and indices of postural stability by dynamic posturography. Half of the subjects participated in a 9-month regimen of weight-bearing exercises performed three times a week that emphasized lower-body muscle strength and power development. Resistance was added progressively and individually by the use of a weighted vest. Controls maintained customary diet and activity patterns.

RESULTS: Significant improvements were observed for indices of lateral stability, lower-body muscular strength (16-33% increase), muscular power (13% increase), and leg lean mass (3.5% increase) in exercisers vs controls (p < .05). No significant changes (p > .05) were detected for femoral neck bone mass in exercisers or controls at the conclusion of the trial.

CONCLUSIONS: Lower body exercise, using a weighted vest for resistance, provides an effective means of improving key indices of falls in postmenopausal women.

The Hyper Vest is superior to other weighted vests in many ways.  With the Hyper Vest, the user can add weight incrementally, adjust the vest to be as tight or as loose as desired, wear the snug-fitting vest under her clothing, and enjoy freedom of movement for virtually any movement.

If you’re interested in reading more about Weight Bearing and Osteoporosis, click here.

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