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I'm not talking something like an Ironman suit. I'm talking about a simple exoskeleton that reinforces your capabilities and enhances them, like lifting things 50% heavier than you could before, and running at twice the speed. Something people could use, similar to a car or a bike.

Running at twice the speed you normally do involves more than just that, keep in mind.

Somebody's already invented what are essentially exoskeleton shoes that apparently allow you to run at speeds of up to 20 mph that don't require power, so it wouldn't be the most difficult thing in the world. I think the single most difficult part would be making the exoskeleton useful, in a way that would help more than it'd get in the way. It'd be pretty clunky in the first place, so it'd be a concern.

A decent amount of people could reach 20 mph, twice that is 40. The body isn't built to have your legs moving that fast. Exerting that on the legs might be too much strain or whatever

There are very few people that can run 20 miles per hour or more, and I do aim to be faster than that. Besides, it's not about moving your legs faster, it's about getting more per stride. It still costs energy, but not much more than sprinting would anyway. Of course, chances are I can't manage it anyway, but it'd be fun to try, and would pay off if I succeeded.

Exoskeletons are already being used; mainly in the medical part for people who no longer can move much on their own.
The tech is built in a way to detect the person inside moving and from that predict their intention, then carrying out the action (or aiding).

Well, being used is too much said really, but there are research prototypes out there; yesterday there was an article about these in the newspaper. Pretty cool if you ask me!

Yeah, but what I'm talking about is a little different. I'm talking about something that uses no electricity or fuel, and therefore besides occasional maintenance, it costs nothing to use and produces no waste, like a bike. Essentially, it could work as a form of transportation, and also be useful for labor and such due to increased lifting strength. It's an ambitious idea that I probably can't really manage.

Err, so you want to have a exoskeleton powered by the person using it, to enhance their strenght?
Unless you're thinking of, like siphoning of chemical energy from their belly (god how much they would have to eat @_@'') thats literally impossible.

Well, it's not exactly impossible. For the most part, I'm thinking it would work by reinforcing your joints, essentially acting like extra tendons bones and muscles, like an extension of your arms. It wouldn't exactly have a dramatic effect, but with enough adjustments, I think it would be possible to increase lifting strength by at least 30%. I'm no engineer, though. I could be completely wrong about all of this.

Here check this out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion
Your exoskeleton is type 1: You're trying to produce work (enhance peoples strenght) without a energy input (Fuel).

Food is fuel by the way. Your exoskeleton could potentially work if you made the person eat much more to supply the energy trough chemical reaction, fueled the machine with some conventional fuel (oil as example) or electricy.

Maybe I'm being misleading by using the word strength. It'd more accurately just prevent people from breaking their arms by lifting something too heavy. Basically, it'd be like locking your joints, only much stronger. That's where the whole "making it useful" comes in. It's also worth mentioning that I believe some aspects will require electricity, I'm just scheming up ways to reduce the parts that do.

The part that would require electricity in the design though is the part that would lock the joints when necessary. Ultimately useless, but that's the real challenge.

See, but then you're relying on the persons strenght to lift the heavy exosekeleton in order to lift something else. So that means, the person has to lift both the exoskeleton arms and the heavy thing at the same time, so they are strained less by the act of carrying the heavy thing... at this point, why not just use a one of these car lifters as example?