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.
(Sorry just kidding, I know that it is hard work)