Choosing the Right Hand Weights For Walking Workouts

Note: This is an edited (readable) version of the video transcription.
So when we look at walking with weights, what weight do we use? It can depend exactly on your body. So what's going on with your arms, what's going on with your body, how you walk. If you're walking already like this (hunched over), you probably don't want to add weights to that.

But if you feel your gait is good and you can stand fairly well tall and upright, then you can start with what you feel that you can. So it needs to be a bit of a challenge. If you're out on a two hour walk, I wouldn't recommend walking with weights for that long.

But if you're on a 20 minute to half an hour walk, there's no reason you can't walk with weights. So starting where you're at. When choosing the right hand weights for walking, you may start with one kilo, move up to two kilos, move up to three and so on.

You want to know that you can still stand up tall, upright. If I've got a weight in each hand as I'm walking around, I don't want to end the walk like this. I don't want to be kind of walking along at the end of the walk like this (hunched, shoulders rounded, head tilted forward).

There's a lady, my neighbour, she doesn't carry weights at all, but her walk when she goes out is like this (tilted forward from the waist). And she walks along, like she's still doing well, but you can see that forward, slight forward posture.

You want to be standing tall. So shoulders back in their socket, standing tall. If you can't do that to start with, you're probably not one of those ones that wants to be walking with weights, but you may get someone to film you.

If your upright posture looks good in the video and you feel good, and you don't get pain, start out by walking with one or two kilos. And the other thing you can be doing is alternate that. If all you want to do is carry on one side, you can do a one-armed carry and maybe make that weight a little bit bigger so that you challenge yourself on one side.

When we have a one-sided carry, we suddenly have to work that core so much more to maintain our balance and to make sure that we don't lean over to one side. So we're trying to stand tall and still doing the walk upright and tall. So I'll walk for a way with that, and then I'll kind of swap it over to the other arm for a way.

I don't actually time it, so I could be doing one side a bit longer, but you could time it every so many steps. You know, you're going to change it to the other arm so you get the same amount of time in each arm, but that can be a really good weighted walking carry as well.

It's like carrying a suitcase when we're at the airport or something, we need to get down and pick up our bag and walk along with one bag. That can be a great thing because not all of the time can we use the wheels. Sometimes we have to get off the plane and walk up some steps, and there's no lift and you can't use the wheels. So when you're choosing the right hand weights for walking, consider a heavier one, if you're only going to walk with one.

So if I was doing a one-arm carry, as I said, I would rotate between arms, still standing tall and change it around. Just challenge yourself with different positions you can do. And when we get into strength training, it is all about challenging yourself.

So it's not about doing the weight, it's about what does your body feel comfortable with? What can you do without acute pain? Because we don't work through acute pain. And how do you feel when you get home? I guarantee if you start doing some walks with weights in each hand or one hand, you're going to start to feel those upper shoulders working quite a lot, that core's working a lot.

Walking with weights is a full body workout, but you do want to be able to make sure that you're not in pain. So go ahead and challenge yourself and see what you can do. Thank you.