Gregory Goes There

How does wearing a pack affect your body? At Gregory, that’s always been a key question, because the driving principle has always been ‘if you’re not comfortable, you’re not going to have fun.’

In that vein, longtime outdoor industry writer and observer Clyde Soles blogged about a recent study by the American Physiological Society that concluded backpack straps can cut off blood flow to your arms, resulting in decreased motor control and more fatigue.

We thought it would be interesting to get some perspective from Gregory’s guru of suspension, company founder Wayne Gregory. Wayne’s been living and breathing backpack suspension for about 40 years. If you want to know how passionate he is about the subject, just get him started … and budget some time. Wayne’s first question on this recent study: “Well, how were they carrying the weight? And were they in the right frame size?”

A pack for carrying bigger loads, according to Wayne, is like a finely-built automobile. You start with the appropriate chassis, and then the various components from there have to make sense with the rest of the car. Only then do you achieve appropriate load transfer so that they load is evenly - and comfortably - distributed to the various points on the body where it should go. But you also have to be able to change the way you carry that weight on the fly.

With regard to Wayne’s first question about how the study subjects were carrying the weight, he meant that a good pack will allow its wearer to shift the weight back and forth from hips to shoulders, so you can carry the weight exactly how you want to. Critical to this is being in the right frame size. If you are not in the right frame size, you won’t be able to achieve load transfer onto your hips in an appropriate way (or at all), and thus a disproportionate amount of the weight will rest on your shoulders, where – yes – it will inhibit blood flow.

So getting into the right frame size is critical because it allows you to shift weight (using the shoulder harness and hip belt load transfer straps) to hips and shoulders in varying degrees, which means not only is the weight distributed well, but you can also change the distribution over time so that one part of your body doesn’t get overwhelmed in one area. A Wayne-ism: “You’re going to have the weight where you decide to put it if you have a good pack.”

Frame size, though, while the most important thing, is only one of several components that help you achieve comfort, in Wayne’s view.

Because he designed his backpacking hip belts and shoulder harnesses on pivot points, they move with and conform to the body, rather than cutting into it. And because those waist belts and shoulder harnesses are designed in four sizes in both men’s and women’s fits, and are pro-molded in curves that match the body and allow for an appropriate wrap over the shoulder or around the hip, they allow the system to be tailored to achieve the ideal match for an individual’s body, and thus achieve the best possible load transfer into that person’s body. And that means less cutting into one specific area.

Now if we can just get those school children to carry their packs with both shoulder straps …