Do ankle weights work?

Ankle weights are back. They turn up in walking videos and barre classes, and they're often sold as a set with wrist weights. The promise is simple: strap on a pound or two, keep doing what you already do, and burn more calories and tone your legs without adding a workout.

We get the appeal. When finding time for a real workout is the hard part, an upgrade you can wear sounds perfect. Most of the research on ankle weights is old, small or both, but what it shows is useful. They're a good tool for one job and a weak one for another.

This page covers what ankle weights do to your stride, whether they're good for walking or weight loss, the exercises where they actually work and what the studies in older adults show. It also compares them with wrist weights and a weighted vest and covers the downsides.

What Do Ankle Weights Do?

Ankle weights add load to the end of your leg, which is the hardest place to carry it. Your leg swings like a pendulum when you walk. On every step, the muscles at the front of your hip swing it forward, and the muscles at the back of your thigh and hip slow it down before your heel lands. Put a weight at the bottom of that pendulum and both jobs get harder.

Where the weight sits matters. In a lab study by Browning and colleagues (2007), five healthy young men walked with loads strapped to their waist, thighs, shins or feet. Energy cost rose with every load, and more steeply the farther down the leg the load sat. Loads on the waist, thighs or shins left joint motion, joint torques and muscle activity much like walking with no load at all. Loads on the feet made the muscles that start each leg swing work harder. An ankle weight sits at the bottom of the shin, between those last two positions.

What muscles do ankle weights work?

While you walk, ankle weights mostly work the hip flexors that lift and swing each leg forward, plus the hamstrings and hip muscles that brake the leg at the end of each swing. In exercises, they load whichever muscles lift the leg against gravity: the outer hip and glutes in side-lying leg lifts and fire hydrants, the glutes and hamstrings in donkey kicks, and the front of the thigh in straight-leg raises and seated knee extensions.

Are Ankle Weights Good for Walking?

For most people, ankle weights aren't the best way to make a walk harder. They raise the effort a little and slow you down a little. A weighted vest raises the effort more, because it can carry far more weight close to your center of mass. Three small studies show the pattern:

• The extra effort is modest. Graves and colleagues (1988) had 12 sedentary young men walk on a treadmill at about 3.9 mph up a 6 percent grade with 3-pound weights on their ankles, on their wrists or in their hands. Ankle weights raised oxygen use from 26.6 to 29.0 ml/kg/min, about 9 percent, and heart rate by about 8 beats a minute. The same weights on the wrists or in the hands raised both more.
• The cost climbs with every pound. In 10 adults wearing 2, 4 or 6 pounds at the ankle, Barnett and colleagues (1993) found the oxygen cost of each meter walked rose in a straight line with the weight added, while walking speed fell.
• You walk a little slower. Hwang and colleagues (2017) strapped 1 or 2 percent of body weight to each ankle of 27 young adults. Their comfortable walking speed dropped from about 130 to about 125 cm per second, and their cadence from about 118 to about 114 steps a minute. Step length didn't change.

So walking with ankle weights works your legs slightly harder, mostly by making each swing more expensive, and the gain is small next to walking faster or uphill. If you want to try them anyway, keep them light, at about 1 to 2 percent of body weight per ankle as in the studies above. Walk on flat, even ground and start with short walks.

Do ankle weights help tone legs while walking?

Not much. Toning means building some muscle and losing some fat, and a pound or two at the ankle is a small load next to the body weight your legs already carry on every step. In the one randomized trial we found, described below, the extra muscle was small. Our article on whether walking tones your legs covers what walking alone does for leg muscle and how to make it work your legs harder.

What about running with ankle weights?

Running with ankle weights hasn't been shown to make you faster. In a study by Bhambhani and colleagues (1990), seven female recreational runners ran a mile on a treadmill at a pace of their choosing, with ankle weights of 0, 1.6, 3.2 or 4.8 kg. With the weights on, they chose slower speeds, while their oxygen use, heart rate and sense of effort stayed the same. In other words, they ran slower at the same effort. If you want harder runs, hills and intervals are a simpler route.

Will Ankle Weights Help You Lose Weight?

Only slightly. In the Graves study, 3-pound ankle weights added about 2.4 ml of oxygen per kilogram per minute to a brisk uphill walk. For a 155-pound (70 kg) walker, that works out to roughly 25 extra calories in 30 minutes, using the standard estimate of 5 calories per liter of oxygen. That's about what two or three more minutes of the same walk would burn. Lighter weights or a flat route add even less.

Will wearing 2-pound ankle weights help you lose weight, then? On their own, no. A 2-pound pair adds less than the 3-pound pair in that study, and weight loss depends far more on what you eat and how much you move overall. That time is better spent on the leg exercises below or on a few more minutes of walking.

Ankle Weight Benefits: Where They Do Work

Ankle weight benefits show up when you use them to add resistance to leg and hip exercises instead of to your walks. The weight sits at the end of a long lever, so even 1 or 2 pounds makes a straight-leg raise or a side-lying leg lift much harder. A shopping bag feels heavier held at arm's length than against your chest for the same reason.

Light loads can build real muscle, too. A meta-analysis of 21 studies by Schoenfeld and colleagues (2017), all with sets taken to momentary muscular failure, found that light loads of 60 percent of your max or less built similar muscle to heavy loads, though heavy loads built more maximal strength. The catch is effort. With an ankle weight, a set usually has to run to 15 to 30 controlled reps before it gets hard enough to count.

These six moves cover the hips, glutes and thighs with nothing but a mat, a chair and a pair of ankle weights:

1. Side-lying leg lift. Lie on your side with the bottom knee bent for balance, then lift the straight top leg to about 45 degrees, toes pointing forward, and lower it over 3 seconds. In a study of 21 active adults by Distefano and colleagues (2009), this move produced the highest gluteus medius activity of 12 exercises, 81 percent of a maximal contraction.
2. Straight-leg raise. Lie on your back with one knee bent, tighten the thigh of the straight leg and lift it to the height of the bent knee.
3. Donkey kick. On your hands and knees, push one heel toward the ceiling with the knee bent, without arching your lower back. Our donkey kicks page shows the form.
4. Fire hydrant. From the same position, lift one bent leg out to the side until your thigh is about level with your hip, as on our fire hydrants page.
5. Standing hamstring curl. Hold the back of a chair and curl one heel toward your glutes, then lower it slowly.
6. Seated knee extension. Sit tall on a chair, straighten one knee until the leg is level, pause and lower it slowly.

Do 2 or 3 sets of each on each side, two or three times a week, and end each set with 1 to 3 good reps left. When 30 clean reps feel easy, add a pound or slow down the lowering.

How heavy should ankle weights be?

For leg exercises, start with 1 to 2 pounds (0.5 to 1 kg) per ankle and choose the weight that lets you do 15 to 30 controlled reps with a couple left in the tank. Over time you may work up to 3 to 5 pounds. For walking, if you use them at all, the studies above used about 1 to 2 percent of body weight per ankle, which is 1.5 to 3 pounds for a 150-pound person. Heavier isn't better on a walk, because the cost of each step climbs and your stride slows.

Ankle Weights for Older Adults and Balance

Ankle weights are most often recommended to older adults, and that's also where the evidence is most mixed. In a 12-week study with no control group, Akatsu and colleagues (2022) had 73 older adults, median age 71, wear 0.5 to 1.5 kg on each ankle for walks of at least 20 minutes, at least two days a week. Their 30-second chair-stand count rose by about 1.3 reps. Grip strength, one-leg standing and standing balance didn't improve, and one participant lost balance after taking the weights off and bruised their face. Without a control group, there's no way to know how much of the gain came from the weights rather than from walking more.

The one randomized trial we found is small. Soenarti and colleagues (2026) randomly assigned 36 older adults to Nordic walking twice a week for 12 weeks, with or without ankle weights. The ankle-weight group gained a little more muscle as a share of body mass, more grip strength and a better score on a sarcopenia screening questionnaire. Their chair-stand and gait-speed results were no better than those of the group that did Nordic walking alone.

Can ankle weights improve balance?

There's no good evidence that they do. The claim you'll see online, that 1 to 2 percent of body weight sharpens knee position sense in older adults, comes from small one-session lab tests, such as one in 21 adults where knee repositioning was most accurate with the middle of three weights. The authors noted the difference wasn't statistically significant (Kim and colleagues, 2016). In the Akatsu study, standing balance didn't improve over 12 weeks, and swaying with the eyes closed got worse in the younger half of the group. If balance is your goal, train balance directly. Our review of balance training and falls research covers what works.

Ankle Weights vs Wrist Weights and Hand Weights

Wrist weights are the more popular search, and they do raise the effort of a walk more than ankle weights. In the Graves study, the same 3-pound weights raised oxygen use and heart rate more on the wrists or in the hands than on the ankles. Hand weights were also the only condition that raised diastolic blood pressure compared with walking without weights, by about 4 mmHg. Weighted wristbands and other arm weights for walking work the same way as wrist weights.

How much hand weights add depends mostly on how hard you pump them. Our power walking guide covers the studies on hand weights and blood pressure and how to use them safely, so this page won't repeat them. The short version for walking with weights: wrist and hand weights beat ankle weights for extra effort, but neither adds much unless you swing them hard. If you have high blood pressure or heart disease, check with your doctor before carrying either.

Ankle Weights vs a Weighted Vest

If your goal is a harder walk, a weighted vest is the better tool. A vest puts the load on your trunk, close to your center of mass. In Browning's study, loads of up to 16 kg (35 pounds) around the waist left walking mechanics essentially unchanged, and each kilogram cost less energy there than lower down the leg. That's why a vest can carry far more weight than a pair of ankle weights. In 10 young adults, Puthoff and colleagues (2006) found that vests of 10, 15 and 20 percent of body mass raised oxygen use at every walking speed they tested.

Our guide to weighted vest walking covers how heavy to go and who should skip a vest, and our weighted vest research review covers what the trials show for calories and bone.

What Are the Downsides of Ankle Weights?

Light ankle weights used for short exercise sessions are fine for most healthy people. The downsides come with heavier weights, longer wear and walking or running in them:

• They change your stride. Even 1 to 2 percent of body weight per ankle slowed walking speed and cadence in the Hwang study, and the muscles that swing your legs work harder with every step.
• They can throw off your balance. In the Akatsu study, one participant lost balance after taking the weights off. That matters most if you're already unsteady on your feet.
• They pull on your knees and hips. During each swing, the weight hangs from your knee and hip instead of resting on the ground, adding to the pull those joints already take from the leg's own weight. That's uncomfortable if they're already sore.
• They're easy to overdo. The cost of each step climbs with every pound, so a heavy pair turns an easy walk into a slog, and in the walking and running studies people simply slowed down.

What happens if you wear ankle weights all day?

No controlled trial we could find has tested it. Participants in the Akatsu study could wear their weights as long as they liked, but that study had no control group. The likely result of all-day wear is a slightly slower, slightly more tiring stride and straps that rub, with little extra strength to show for it. Fifteen or twenty minutes of leg exercises with the same weights is a better use of them.

Who should avoid ankle weights?

Check with a doctor or physical therapist before using ankle weights if you have pain or a recent injury in your knees, hips, ankles or lower back, osteoporosis, balance problems or a history of falls, or you're recovering from surgery. Skip them for running and for walks on uneven trails, where a misstep with extra weight on the swinging leg is harder to correct.

What This Means for You

Ankle weights are a cheap, compact tool for one job: making leg and hip exercises harder when you train at home. For walking, they add a little effort and slow you down a little, and they do less than a weighted vest or a faster pace. If you own a pair, strap them on for 15 minutes of side-lying leg lifts, donkey kicks and straight-leg raises two or three times a week, and walk without them.

The harder part is doing those 15 minutes week after week. If that's where you usually stall, a bodyweight workout app for home can plan the sessions for you. In FitCraft, a 3D AI coach demonstrates each exercise on an interactive model you can zoom in on, says your name during the workout and adapts your workouts as you progress. A streak keeps count of every day you show up. As Stacy, a FitCraft user, put it: "After my second kid, I needed something stupidly simple."