Hey yall! I’m about to graduate the academy here in north Texas and I had a couple of questions about physical fitness.
1. Is it logical for me to buy and additional soft armor vest mainly for fitness reasons? (satellite has them on sale right now for $79)
2. How should I go about running with this vest? Do I thrown on my bdus and boots just as I normally would or should I just have it on in my PT clothes?
Also if anyone has any tips other than “just run” 😂it would be greatly appreciated. I’m still on the academy PT schedule but in my off time I’ve tried running with my vest and feel like I’m gonna die and can’t catch my breath.
Thank yall!
Running with soft armor
r/AskLE
Comments
Save money and just your duty armor. And run running shoes lol. Honestly just do normal cardio don’t need to run in soft armor.
Just buy a weighted vest with removable weights. Cheaper and you won’t look like a total dork.
On a serious note, you might be strapping it up too tight.
Soft armor for fitness lmao. If you want it for fitness get a weight vest. Or a plate carrier with steel plates. 🇺🇸
You can just buy a weighted vest on Amazon for cheap
Watch out for injuries.
The reason you feel like you’re dying is because your heart rate is elevated higher then if you didn’t have the load. If you really want to train up to run in armor, I would look into you finding your zone 2 heart rate. Then go jog at that heart rate, ignore the pace, watch the heart rate. First two weeks will be at a way slow pace, then eventually it will get quicker. If you keep running too hard in the vest then that will limit your progress more then help.
This is one of the goofier questions I’ve seen, but if you really want to do this you can almost certainly find some expired soft armor someone has lying around and use it.
You should never run in boots if you don’t have to.
If you are really bent on running with extra weight on board, look at something like rabbit plates.
That said, you might want to think about reward vs. risk of injury.
Same idea as shooting in kit. If your fundamentals are not there, shooting with “distractions” won’t help you.
Focus on overbuilding the fundamentals. Fitness, shooting, going hands on, etc. before adding complexity.
I would recommend getting a weighted vest but let me warn you, I used to be a runner and I don’t really see a big benefit to running with a lot of weight on. This is just my personal opinion of course.
Most modern ballistic armor is light enough and flexible enough that it really does not hinder you when running.
Back when I was a rookie, I would get up and run 2 miles a day before shift. I never had a problem during foot pursuits and always caught most people that I was chasing. This is simply because your average criminal does not run everyday and they have poor cardio. Even if they were faster than me, they would always wind out and I would catch them eventually.
Get a weighted vest. Don’t run in soft armor
Don’t run with extra weight. It’s terrible for your body.
Your are almost definitely strapping your soft armor on too tight and it’s restricting your breathing. The best way I’ve had it described to me is this: take a deep breath in, hold it, and just barely stretch the elastic on the sides to attach. The straps should not be tight all the time, it crushes your chest and restricts your breathing while you run.