Will wearing ankle weights all day long make any difference?

Question

If I wore them when I'm not exercising, like if I wore them at work (I work in an office), or at home, all day, would it be like a passive form of exercise?

To estimate how much I walk: I guess I walk to the bus stop, probably about 100-200 metres. Get off bus, maybe 100 metres. Then I sit around all day. But maybe go and talk to somebody two or three times - average distance maybe 5-10 metres (?). Go to kitchen or toilet maybe three times (i drink a lot of water), so that's probably about 50 metres away? Maybe I'll take the stairs too, that's 5 floors up and down. Probably its barely half a km in total.

Would wearing ankle weights help me get fitter or will it not be enough to make any sort of difference?

Answer 1

About.com has a nice article about ankle/walking weights. They estimated the following:

Adding weight will allow you to burn more calories per mile, but only about 5-8 calories more per mile for every 10 pounds added. Compare that to walking a quarter of a mile - a 100 pound person burns 15 calories in a quarter mile at an easy pace, while a 200 pound person burns 30 calories. That takes only 5 more minutes and you aren't increasing your risk of injury.

This is similar to the question about walking up stairs, where I calculated that the additional calories are simply not worth it. This isn't an excuse to stop taking the stairs, instead you need to realize that walking only a 1000 steps per day simply isn't enough exercise.

Increasing the workload with even 20% would still only be the equivalent of 1200 steps, while you probably should be targeting 10.000 steps. As you can see you're almost an order of magnitude behind on the amount of exercise you should be getting and just adding the weights isn't going to cut it.

So my advice would be to not use weights, but find more 'excuses' to walk more during the day.

Answer 2

Yes. A negative one. You will destroy your knees and hips if you wear ankle weights all day long. Your body was not made to handle excess weight at your extremities for that length of time.

Answer 3

My sensei used to work out with ankle weights and wrist weights when he was younger. This was against his sensei's advice. He would keep doing it until they wore out (and shot the metal bars out the bottom when he was kicking a target), and then replace the weights.

The bottom line is that the body is not meant to deal with those additional stress of that weight at the extremities. He ended up having to get both hips replaced later in life due to the unnatural stresses the ankle/wrist weights put on his body.

If you do add weight, use something like a weighted vest. It provides a more natural balance of weight and doesn't interfere with the normal motion of your legs and arms. Additionally, you can add more weight when it is close to your body than you can at your ankles and wrists, providing a better advantage.

That said, I agree with Ivo's advice: find more excuses to walk more during the day.