A little while back I had an offer to try out a weighted vest as part of a launch of Fitness Sanctum, an online retailer designed to be a one-stop shop for all things to get you going for your workouts, from accessories to gear to apparel.
While I had never tried a weighted vest before, after competing Murph last year for a second time, I knew I wanted to make it a goal this year of doing it completely RX, 20# vest and all. After some discussions with the founder, John, we agreed upon a 22# OneFitWonder weight vest.
I anxiously awaited receipt, excited to try it out and see how much I can challenge myself with the added weight. I am up about 20# from where I was just three years ago, so it seems a little silly to want to add another 20#, but knew it would be a good test of strength.
I was thinking of all the different ways I can use the vest: the standard “Murph” workouts including push-ups, pull-ups, squats, and running; I could do dips, wall balls, handstand pushups. But then.. I got out of WOD-mode and set my sights on becoming a weightlifter, and Crossfit took a backseat.
Now that the Open is upcoming and the fire has been reignited, I found it a perfect opportunity to see where my fitness level is at today so that I can prepare for how far I have to go until this spring’s Murph.
While this vest is unisex, I did struggle a bit keeping it secure since my waist is pretty tiny and I have an overall small frame up top, which is one of only two cons that I had with the vest.
The second downfall was that it is one-weight-fits all, which is great for someone accustomed to the standard Hero-RX weight, but ideally I would like to have seen a vest with interchangeable weights so that I could start lower and work my way up.
Overall the quality of the vest is great and it is very durable and oddly comfortable due to the material, despite the slightly awkward fit.
Once the Open is over, I would love to put a training plan in place, incorporating the vest more, starting with smaller sets of the push-up, pull-up, and squat, plus get some run-time in with the vest (when it no longer 5º outside!).
Though I only had an opportunity to try out the weight vest, Fitness Sanctum offers a wide variety of other products, with the perk that you can order from multiple brands in one place, creating a simple marketplace where you can order a new outfit plus a wall ball, or battle ropes and jump ropes. They also have a 365 return policy (can’t beat that!), and competitive shipping rates in the US, free under 2lbs.
In order to help YOU get ready for the Open or any other upcoming workout, Fitness Sanctum wants to give one of my fans a chance to win $50 to the store just for checking out the site and signing up for their newsletter! And for those who can’t wait, you can use “W2W15” at checkout until the end of March for an overall discount!
Your turn..
Have you ever used a weight vest?
Do you participate in, or train for Murph?
What is one exercise that you would like to try with an extra 20#?
What would you buy if you won?
I would love incorporating a vest into my crossfit training. I did “Murph” last year for the first time without a vest and want to give it a shot this year with a vest! Would be great for doing weighted lunges and box stepups for that extra glute and posterior chain strengthening.
Murph is scary WITHOUt a vest; it’s going to be a tough one WITH one! 🙂
Twitter: fantabulouslisa
February 16, 2015 at 1:00 pm
I did murph for the first time last year and I didn’t use a vest. I felt TERRIBLE! All of my workout buddies had vests on. I did all of the running with the vest but i didn’t think there was any way i could possibly do all those pushups and pull ups in a vest. I regretted it SO bad, so after i was finished, i donned a vest and joined my friends in the remainder of their pull ups and pushup and even on their final runs!!! I definitely got my work in that day, but I hope to get a vest to wear next year 🙂 I want to do the whole thing in a vest this time!!! I want to win SO bad!
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I’ve never used a weight vest but I would love to start training with one!!! I would really like to run with a weight vest and do pull ups with a vest 🙂 Thanks for offering this!
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I did Murph no vest but I’ve done weighted runs. So I would love to do murph with one!
Hey, guess what, I got a weighted vest for Murph from Fitness Sanctum! =) Love mine, it’s really well made. Plus the weight is adjustable, which I really like. Yours looks like it allows even more freedom of movement… you can feel the bulk of mine when doing things like push-ups a little bit.
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