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Question for fitness geeks: Do ankle weights work?

Yeah they'll definitely make the same distance/speed harder with them on, but you can surely get a damn good workout without them.
 
In my younger days, a friend and I used ankle weights while sparring for about a month...

There was only one thing they made us better at...and that was sparring with ankle weights on
 
I don't get what they exactly do. Do they build up your calfs? Do you jump higher, run faster, skip longer, etc.???
 
I power walk using ankle and wrist weights... it really does help, also use the ankle werights while you're doing leg lifts and such 😀
 
In general:

Longer, Lighter Workouts = muscle tone and fitness and better cardio.
Shorter, Heavier Workouts = build muscle strength.

This is just a general guideline, and of course there are varying degrees of grey.
But depending on what you are going for, ankle weights could be great, or they could be useless.
 


<< Do they work? >>



They work really hard at tearing up your knee which isnt designed for the forces that added weight at the very end of your leg can add up too.

I'm no physics expert, (it wouldnt surprise me if one were lurking near here at ATOT 🙂) but consider the forces that a 2 pound weight at the end of an 18" lever ( your lower leg) could produce being swung back and forth as a person walked or ran.
 
No, they aren't good for you. All that extra weight down there throws off your body mechanics and your legs et al have to compensate for it, all for bad effect. This info based on an old study to discover its effects. This is similar to another study about batters warming up in the batter's circle (holding and swinging) with 2 or 3 bats at a time. The idea that if you can swing 2/3 bats well, then using only 1 would be better/easier/faster. End result: batters who warmed up with 1 bat did better.

For better legs, run, cycle, leg presses, (carefully) squats etc.



 


<< I don't get what they exactly do. Do they build up your calfs? Do you jump higher, run faster, skip longer, etc.??? >>



Each of those have their own machines...
 
I think strength shoes work better for jumping and other explosive movements. Ankle weights did nothing but mess up my mechanics and timing for me.
 
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