Melania Trump’s Workout Regimen Includes A Calorie-Busting Addition To Her Routine – Health Digest

Unlike during President Donald Trump’s first term, you probably haven’t seen Melania Trump as often in his second term. She still splits her time between Mar-a-Lago, Trump Tower, and the White House while balancing her role as a wife and mother to her son, Barron. The former model turned First Lady manages to stay lean at 55, thanks to Melania’s healthy diet and her love for Pilates and tennis.

But she also has a small tweak in her daily routine that helps her burn a few extra calories throughout the day. In a 2016 interview with GQ, she said she used to walk around New York City wearing ankle weights. While walking is already great for both mental and physical health, exercising with ankle weights increases the intensity of the workout.

Physical therapist Karena Wu told Today, “Wearing ankle weights can be a good way to push the muscles and cardiovascular system to work harder, which can help burn more calories.” These weights force you to engage your core, glutes, and leg muscles more, giving your walk a light strength-training boost. According to WebMD, wearing up to 3-pound ankle weights can slightly raise your heart rate and increase oxygen consumption by as much as 10%.

Walking with ankle weights can be tough, especially if you crank up the speed or add more weight. A 2023 study in Sports Sciences for Health had participants test the effects of ankle weights on heart rate, joint movement, and muscle activity. They walked on a treadmill at two different speeds — 4 kilometers (about 2.5 miles) per hour and 7 kilometers (around 4.3 miles) per hour — while wearing ankle weights that increased up to 13 pounds. As the speed and weight increased, so did heart rate and VO2 (oxygen consumption), with the biggest increases seen at the faster speed and heaviest weights.

(Find out what taking a walk every day does for weight loss.)

The researchers also noticed shifts in which muscles were doing the work compared to walking without ankle weights. One of the quad muscles, the rectus femoris, had to work much harder when participants walked at 7 kilometers per hour with 13 pounds strapped to their ankles. Want to target your calves instead? Try a slower pace. At 4 kilometers per hour, wearing 4 or 6 kilograms of ankle weights led to more engagement of the medial gastrocnemius, one of your key calf muscles. No matter the weight, walking at a faster pace recruited more leg muscles overall and increased hip flexion. However, ankle weights do come with some drawbacks.

Pilates and barre classes often use small ankle weights to target the glutes and hamstrings during standing or floor exercises. But walking or doing aerobics with ankle weights might be a different story. Ankle weights may engage your quads more than your hamstrings while walking, which could lead to muscle imbalances. Plus, the tugging motion at your ankle joint while walking with weights can increase your risk of back, knee, and hip injuries.

Not only that, but ankle weights can also slow you down. A 2017 study in the Journal of Exercise Rehabilitation found that walking with weights equal to 2% of your body weight on each ankle made people walk more slowly and take shorter steps. On the other hand, ankle weights at 1% of your body weight may activate more muscles while still allowing you to walk a little farther.

You might want to lose weight to lower your risk of type 2 diabetes or help your clothes fit better, but weight loss also eases the strain on your joints. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons says that for every pound of weight you carry, your knees feel up to six pounds of added pressure. Ankle weights can still put extra stress on your ankle and knee joints, especially if you’re overweight or have joint conditions like arthritis.