Is it harmful to walk with a hand weight (dumbbell) in one hand?

Question

I walk the dog daily. To add to the difficulty, I sometimes walk with a 10 lb. dumbbell in my right hand and the dog's leash in the left hand. (I started originally with a 5 lb. weight but it was too light and didn't really seem to make the walk any more of a challenge.)

Someone saw me and said it's "bad" to do this. I don't swing the weight or stress my joints when I do it. Do you think it's a bad idea?

Answer 1

It is harmful if you use more than five, . Power walk as much as you can, and you should swing arms& lift legs .slow to fast to slow. The more movement your body does the more of an impact. One more thing, you should take it easy with weight training until you know the weight is coming off. You could end up acheiving the muscle bulk which may not be your desired effect.

Answer 2

it's definetly not a good idea for most. the shoulder girdle is injured very easily for most that do not perform heavy resistance training in that area. basically it's only something that should be performed by advanced weight trainers and those that are highly conditioned athletes.

when shoulder injury does occur for some it lasts the lifetime. basically it's one of things where the con's greatly outweigh the pro's.

you would do much better by moving your arm vigorously but the leash will prevent you from being able to that.

Answer 3

it is if you don't switch the hands... you end up applying different force to your arms, in result your spine looses it's straightness... it would be better if you switch them half way