Sidemount Harness Shoulder Strap Tightness

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Taath

Contributor
Messages
197
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Location
Arizona, USA
# of dives
200 - 499
How tight do you keep your shoulder straps on your sidemount harness? Do you set it up like a BP/W where you can fit a fist between the harness and your body?
 
depends on which harness you're going with :p

if you have a chest strap, then I leave them loose because I find it more comfortable. If you don't, especially if you are not using a loop bungee, then you are going to want them quite a bit tighter because the bungee is going to try to pull the straps off of the shoulder.
 
Excellent points. I am using the Xdeep Stealth Tec. Using loop bungee. Bungees don't attach to the D-ring, so no pulling from there.

Thinking I should be okay with looser fit on shoulders. Vital connection points for me are the hips and bungees.
 
Sidemount should generally be tighter than backplate/wing BCDs.

There's inherent flexibility in sidemount rigs that use shoulder and lumbar plates, joined by a spine webbing strap or soft nylon plate.

The more rigid the backplate, the more option you have to loosen straps. Rigs with a stiffer full-length plate, like SMS100, allow looser straps. Rigs with two plates joined by webbing, like XDeep, Apeks or Razor, need a snugger fit.

When you enter the water and attain proper trim position, the arch in your spine shortend the distance between shoulder and lumbar plates. That doesn't happen in backmount, as the plate is solid along the spine.

To stop the spine webbing being slack during the dive, you'd want to keep the shoulder straps tighter.

Another factor favoring tighter straps is that the bungees are tensioned off the shoulder straps. Too much slack means the shoulder straps will pull outwards. This can reduce stability of the tanks.

When I dive backmount I keep my straps very loose. In sidemount they're quite snug on land (but loosen once in-water trim position).

You mustn't over-tighten sidemount shoulder straps though... as this prevents the spine webbing extending fully and causes 'bowing'.
 
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For short the types of harness that use chest straps, make at lots of different and can you loose the shoulder straps more, I personally use only comfort (adjustable shoulder and chest straps) type even in my Razor
 
When I was 20 years younger, I used the continuous strap (DIR) harness, & used the waist belt to pull the shoulders tight on my BP/wing.
At 62 I'm much less flexible now, so I'm using a DR nomad which has the chest (sternum) strap & adjustable shoulder harness. This makes it much easier to get in/out of in my dry suit.
 
Excellent points. I am using the Xdeep Stealth Tec. Using loop bungee. Bungees don't attach to the D-ring, so no pulling from there.

Thinking I should be okay with looser fit on shoulders. Vital connection points for me are the hips and bungees.

I found that when I tightened my Stealth tec harness too much I had a hard time reaching the rear dump valve. With H-style shoulder straps you may need a chest strap to allow it to be loose (I did with my SMS75) but with the stealth it can be loose and not pull away from where you want them. Just make sure you can read the dump valve when you're in the water, then as tight as it needs to be to feel secure and comfortable.
 

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