Help with harness setup

[Antagonist]

I am taking my tech class and I am not comfortable with the way my harness is set up. I understand it will become a little loose when I am diving, but when it does that my rig kind of slides to one side and my deco stops are so uncomfortable due to me constantly trying to correct my balance problem. Is my harness not tight enough around my waist, crotch, or shoulders? Its really a pain and I am trying to focus on my tasks and and my balance issue. I am diving in a 5mm with a 4lb v weight. Also I am kind of feet heavy, could that be due to my body position? My feet are not dragging but I just want to be perfectly horizontal. It just don't feel natural to me. Thank you for the help

 

[chrpai]

My rig doesn't shift at all when I dive. Seems like you'd want to have all of this squared away before adding on learning new skills / task loading.

 

[rongoodman]

You should be able to tolerate some looseness in the shoulder straps, but the crotch strap should snug everything down when it's tightened. I assume you're diving doubles? They often want to put people head down, because of all the weight at the top, and the natural inclination to deal with that is to go a little head up--if you're flat, they'll feel like they're trying to roll you forward. You might need to move some weight back, either with more tail weight, or a pair of negative fins. A picture or bit of video of you in the water would help. Basically, get the posture right first, and then move weight if you need to.

 

[TSandM]

Isn't your tech instructor helping you with this? This is one of the first things he or she should do -- check out the way the gear is adjusted, and make sure it's the way it should be.

Shoulder straps can actually be fairly loose, if the crotch strap is snug. However, if you are diving doubles, the length of the shoulder straps will be limited by how far you can reach and still get to your valves. The waist strap should always be quite snug, and with that thin a suit, you won't notice much change at depth.

Trim is a complex interplay of static weighting (balance of the tanks and weights you are carrying) and dynamic positioning (posture, arm and leg position). The first thing your instructor should do is check your static weighting with you in a fairly neutral posture -- flat from the shoulders to the knees, head up, knees bent maybe 45 degrees. After that is adjusted, the fine tuning is done by changing arm position and the degree to which the knees are bent. In a wetsuit, the system is simpler, because you don't have the variable of the amount and positioning of gas in the suit. But that means you have to get your static weighting closer to right, because you are lacking a tool to compensate for it.

 

[NAM001]

That rig should nt be moving around. if you have a thick wet suit it will be come a bit looser at depth but at your stop depth's thier should not be any moving around. if your arms are out like wings it wwill be looser than with your arms crossed in fromt of you.