Consistency is key, however. “Whatever intervention you use to decrease bone loss, it has to be sustained,” Dr. Messer says. “You can’t just wear a weighted vest for a few months and then stop, because you’ll quickly lose that new bone. You have to pick something that’s actually realistic for your lifestyle—something you can keep up long-term.”
How to choose (and use) a weighted vest
Before shopping for a vest, decide if you want the fixed-weight kind or one whose weight can be adjusted. Most of the experts I spoke to prefer the versatility of the latter. “When we start a patient on a vest, we don’t have them add any weight to it, so they wear just the vest itself, which is about two pounds,” says Dr. Messer. “Then we very slowly add on weight—but we never want the total weight of the vest to be more than 10% of the person’s body weight.”
For beginners, 5-10% is a good rule of thumb, says Holly Rilinger, a menopause-focused fitness coach and trainer in East Hampton and New York City and founder of The Lifted Method. So, if you weigh 120 pounds, your vest should be in the 6-12 pound range.
The vest should fit securely, close to your body, its weight distributed evenly over your front and back. It helps if it can be fastened or cinched in multiple spots as opposed to just one. If you have large breasts or you’re nursing, you may need to try a few options to see what’s most comfortable. This is a popular topic on Reddit, where women talk about vests smooshing, shoving, or bisecting their breasts in weird ways. (One Redditor claims this Aduroa Sport Weighted Vest, with a single strap across the top of the bust, fits her double-Ds without issue.)
Rilinger encourages her menopausal clients to start by wearing their vest for 10 minutes a day, five times a week, and to “conquer walking before trying more intense and complicated movements,” she says. “This is the lowest risk exercise with the highest reward.” You can gradually add weight or time under tension, building up to a brisk 20-minute walk, and then wearing a vest to do squats or jump training, assuming it doesn’t throw off your form.
As always, keep your expectations in check. Despite what these vests may conjure (given their aesthetic), they will not rescue you from a sea of menopause symptoms or render you bulletproof against midlife health risks. But they are backed by legitimate science—which cannot be said for all (most?) of the products being peddled in the menoverse. And who knows? A cute, new vest might just motivate you to move more. Or it may add an air of confidence to your workouts. Or perhaps inspire other acts of self-care. (Not long after ordering mine, I booked a bone scan I’d been putting off forever.) All in all, I can think of worse ways to spend 50 bucks.
The Best in Vests
If you’re in the market for a weighted vest, these are the six to consider, according to experts (and this writer) who have been wearing them.
Zelus Adjustable Weight Vest
I bought this vest on the recommendation of plastic surgeon Gabriele Miotto, MD. She went for the 20-pound fixed-weight version; mine adjusts within a range of 4-10 lbs. In my opinion, it’s a great starter vest for walking, but—one drawback—no matter how I try to adjust the fit, it still shifts around too much to wear while strength-training or doing even basic jumping exercises.
RITFIT Adjustable Weighted Vest
With thick, adjustable shoulder straps, this vest distributes its weight evenly across the upper body to help prevent shoulder and back injuries, says Dr. Messer. It comes with packets of iron sand to customize the weight. And it’s made of neoprene, which is soft and breathable.
HyperWear Hyper Vest Pro
Dr. Beavers chose this vest for her study because it offered “a high degree of precision,” allowing her team to “titrate the load to 1/8th of a pound” when aiming to offset the bone loss that accompanies significant weight loss. Given that subjects were wearing it for long stretches, she says, “we liked that it fit comfortably over or under clothing, wouldn’t interfere with upper-body movement, and allowed for full chest expansion without restricting breathing.”
Prodigen Weighted Vest
Dr. Reed purchased this affordable, fixed-weight style “as a way to try out the weighted-vest trend.” It’s best for walking, she says; “I wouldn’t take it to a plyometric-based workout class.” Menopause influencer and board-certified OB/GYN Mary Claire Haver, MD, wears this same vest in some of her Instagram posts and features it in her Amazon store.
TRX Hexgrip Weight Vest
“This vest is more of an investment,” says Dr. Reed. She describes it as “athletic, fitted, and durable,” and says she can comfortably wear it while lifting because “it doesn’t feel too restrictive.”
Omorpho G Vest
According to the Wall Street Journal, supermodel Kaia Gerber owns this neoprene vest in white, if that sort of thing matters to you, and The Hollywood Reporter claims Olivia Rodrigo likes it too. It has adjustable shoulder straps and side cords. Its weight (a fixed 10 or 9 pounds) spreads evenly across the torso, and it’s sleek and snug enough for sprinting. Allure visuals director wore it for the photo at the top of this story and found it more comfortable that she’d expected. “It’s funny—when I first put it on, I felt like I was wearing armor, but I forgot I was wearing it after a few minutes,” she says. “I would definitely use one to help gain bone density.”