My week wearing ankle weights: 'I was helping kickstart my muscles'
A knee problem her doctor jokingly called burpee-itis, followed by a complaining lower back, forced a self-confessed cardio queen to rebuild her routine around strength training, barre, pilates and walking. With squats and lunges still off the table, she wore ankle weights every day for a week to see whether they could load her legs another way. Her verdict was positive: the weights let her isolate and work her lower body without aggravating the knee, and she notes that building muscle matters to her in perimenopause. It is a single reviewer's anecdote rather than evidence, so treat it as an idea to explore, not a finding.
For you: Ankle weights are one way to keep the legs working when an injury rules out the big lifts, but nothing here shows they beat other options.
What it shows: Reported by Guardian (health) and not verified by us: we could not trace this story to a published paper, so treat it as news rather than evidence we have checked.