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Testing Hard shell harnesses. Any Questions?

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stefarius
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Re: Testing Hard shell harnesses. Any Questions?

Postby stefarius » Sat Sep 02, 2017 11:15 am

alfredo68 wrote:
Sat Sep 02, 2017 9:41 am
Starsky wrote:
Sat Jul 22, 2017 3:38 pm
Wow,

First, I generally love your stuff, but that was painful.

Pull vs Push? what???? Its all pull budday. No one is getting pushed around in kiteboarding! Should have just talked about pressure and torque distribution differences between hard and soft shell. Man, how to unessecarily talk around ergonomics and not really impart anything helpful.

You want simple points.

1. Pick a harness type that suits your body shape....

If your an endomorph, maybe a seat is going to stay put a little better than a waist. This is as basic as not putting skinny jeans on an overweight middle aged man. If your skinny, go waist, if your round through the middle don't.

2. Pick a harness type that suits your riding style.

If your boosting big all the time with a standard hook, a hardshell might not be the best choice. high torque through a rigid shell can actually hurt more than something softer that will bend and rotate a bit more easily on your body. Crashing hard and hang time are less suited to rigid edges, the worse the fit, the worse the effect of a hard shell ramming into your ribs or hips. Racers, and danglers.... do you really want to be yanked from the waist, or would you rather take a seat? Already have a hernia??? yeah, get a seat. If your foiling or wave riding with a pivot or slider, a hard shell that stays put will likely suit you best.

3. A harness is just a harness. No matter which one you choose, it's no substitute for good ergonomics and core fitness.

A bent waist posture with arms at full extension is just bad core ergonomics and every waist harness in the world is going to make for sheer forces through your lower lumbars. Like riding your 12 in 25 knots?... Ride a hook and chicken loop and are mostly looking to boost big?,,,only really happy when you have half the trim pulled in?.... get a seat. If you know what drift is?.... Ride toe side a lot?... Ride strapless?,,, on a surfboard? rig smaller than most?, or rig down before pulling in a foot of trim? Get a waist.... and a hard shell is simply a nice step in the evolution of a properly fitting waist harness.

Lastly, a rigid shell really suits a pivot or slider best. Because they hold their lumbar curvature, if you have a lumbar curve for them to fit into, they tend to have a lot of grip on your core. If your primarily using a hook and chicken loop, torque put through the harness will be more effectively transmitted to your core. You take that strain at the top and bottom edge of the harness..... two places where the facet joints guiding vertebral movement are not oriented to cope well with rotation. The rigid nature of the hard shell suits a connection system that will minimize torque through the axial plane. Can you ride a rigid harness with a hook... of course you can, but as an every day set up, its a miss match.
:thumb: good points.
What about if you have lumbar lordosis or hyper lordosis. Would hard shell help?
Everyone has its personal body print. At the moment the padding is the solution for a personal shape different. Personally, I believe in custom shapes. Better support & lighter (less padding). If you already have a Hyper lordosis and you want to ride a waist harness, give attention to the spreader bar connections. Your hook should stay in place.
Last edited by stefarius on Sat Sep 02, 2017 6:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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jaystore
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Re: Testing Hard shell harnesses. Any Questions?

Postby jaystore » Sat Sep 02, 2017 4:03 pm

alfredo68 wrote:
Sat Sep 02, 2017 9:41 am
What about if you have lumbar lordosis or hyper lordosis. Would hard shell help?
Some thought about traction forces the kite pull transmit to harness, it will help to better understand how rigid harnesses work.

The pull on the hook pulls up and twists the spreaderbar creating pain 1 to the front ribs 1. Some help comes from pad extensions going inside the harness.
The pull generates also squeezing of the hips 2. This problem is controlled by hard shell or a wide spreaderbar.
One solution is to let kiter to add additional leg straps 3 to distribute some pull force to legs.

The pull 4 pushes :-? the harness shell against the back and spine 11 and could generate some pain 10 due to contact with bones 11.
If the harness has a low profile will increase lumbar lordosis, better a high profile 12 to better distribute load (our solution is medium profile with straight shape).

The kite side pull will rotate 6 the harness few cm. In this case the hard shell shape is very important because it has to adapt to the different position on body.
A more rounded shape is better, a shape too ergonomic can create pain 7-8-9 . Another issue is the body who moves continuously specially in old style and wave riding.
When the body is bend forward the contact surface with hard shell decreases and you could fill pressure/pain on the spine 8.
We designed a straight shell and and an ergonomic padding 12, when the body bends the padding is compressed and the contact area increases.

The side pull generates the "uncork" effect turn-pull and helps the harness to ride up 5. The sliding hook eliminates this issue.

RigidHarnessPull.png


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