Hey, backpacking gurus: I have aquired a new backpack.
It’s an EMS Short Circuit. It’s got laptop compartment, so it’s clearly meant for use as a bookbag, not a day pack, but it also has a sternum strap and waist strap. Does that mean that it is really designed to be used with them, or are they just there to make the bag look all cool and buff?
Personally, I think it looks kinda dorky to wander around campus all strapped into you pack like you think you’re climbing Mt. Everest, but at the same time, I wonder if just using the shoulder straps means that the weight isn’t distributed properly and I’m putting extra stress on my back. (I’m an old lady now; I find I must be kinder to my body to keep it in acceptible working condition.) What do you advise?
The waist strap is a must for me, being a petite female. It settles more of the wieght on your hips, making it much easier on your shoulders and back. It’s awesome.
If travelling, I will sometimes use the sternum strap too, as it also helps.
I don’t use a waist strap unless my pack is over 75lbs. And even then I wont use it all the time. Just for a couple miles or so here and there to take weight off the shoulders… mixing it up a bit.
I never use a sternum strap. But I’ve wished I had one pleanty of times.
YMMV of course. I’d say if you just have some school stuff in there, it’s probably not necessary at all. Unless you’re like 90 lbs or something.
Would you recommend the EMS Short Circuit, Podkayne? 'Cos I badly need something to carry all my stuff, laptop, multiple books, flask, minidisc recorder etc, and my back is generally not too happy about me having one rucksack full of books, plus a laptop bag slung over my shoulder, and a polythene bag in my hand to carry all the excess.
I can’t find anywhere to buy it in the UK yet but if you seriously enjoy your bag I might start trying a bit harder.
On a backpack used for hiking and camping, the sternum strap provides stability while the wearer is hopping across boulders and such. For walking across campus, you probably won’t need it. My guess is that EMS includes it in their products just because they started as a traditional outdoors gear provider. Laptop backpacks made by computer-briefcase companies (e.g., Targus) don’t usually come with sternum straps.
Hip belts on larger backpacks are padded and serve to settle the majority of the pack’s weight to your pelvis, thus relieving you of much shoulder and back strain. As far as I can tell, though, your pack only comes with thin straps across the waist and thus don’t help in the weight transfer at all. They’ll keep your pack from swishing side-to-side, but as with the sternum strap, you probably don’t need it for walking on pavement.
It depends how heavy the load is you’re carrying. I have a Karrimor rucksack with both straps, and when the load in the bag gets to a certain weight, the arm loops start moving to the edge of my shoulders, pushing them right back.
Like everyone says, it depends on load and distance. But let me give you an anecdote…
I was hiking a section of the AT in Shenandoah NP, doing an overnighter. I was carrying about 25 lbs. in my Gregory Reality. I hiked about 10 miles without the waist strap hitched. My upper back was troubling me, so I had the duh! lightbulb and hitched the strap. The remaining 3-4 miles felt way better, and I hiked another 12 miles the next day (with the waist strap hitched) and felt great.
YMMV, of course, but for the most part, backpacks do their best with all the straps firmly hitched up. Also, it’s a good idea to go to your friendly neighborhood outdoor store and get someone to help you adjust your backpack right.
If you want something that’s kind to your back for hauling gear around campus, you might consider one of those ergonomic shoulder bags or one-strap backpacks. After all, you’re probably going to be slinging the pack over one shoulder to dash from room to room anyway, and you might be happier with something that doesn’t have to have three or four straps adjusted properly every time you want to carry loads without hurting yourself.
A secondary solution is just to cut down the amount of stuff you haul around. I try to work it so that if I didn’t use something the first three times I schlepped it around with me, I just leave it home thereafter, unless I know I’m going to be using it. Having everything you might possibly need available at all times is nice, but it’s probably not worth the chiropractor’s bills.
I couldn’t disagree more, it may be the cool thing to do to use one strap, but kind on your back to unevenly distrubute a load on a single shoulder?!?!
As for the waist strap, it should help, but perhaps not all that much if it’s a light load you are carrying.
Most school backpacks aren’t really designed to be used as regular strapped down, hip supported, back country camping backpacks even though they do have the straps. There are some smaller serious backpack sized “daypacks” that do have these support and stabilizing straps, but they are typically much beefier and thicker than those found on the school type.
The only use I ever found for the support and stabilizing straps on the school packs was stabilizing very heavy loads (groceries) while pedaling a bicycle.
kanicbird:I couldn’t disagree more, it may be the cool thing to do to use one strap, but kind on your back to unevenly distrubute a load on a single shoulder?!?!
Well, if you’re going to carry the thing on one shoulder much of the time, which is what I see very many students doing with two-strap backpacks, ISTM it makes more sense to use something that is ergonomically designed to minimize stress when carried on one shoulder (especially if you alternate shoulders over the course of several trips).
It’s kind of like birth control: there’s the ideal-use effectiveness level, and then there’s the actual-use effectiveness level. A properly-sized, properly-adjusted two-shoulder-strap backpack with properly supportive waist and sternum straps is indeed the least stressful way to carry large loads on your back. However, if you’re not going to be saddling up properly most of the time, the superior ergonomics aren’t really doing you any good, are they? You might well be better off with something that’s designed to reduce stress in the configuration you’re actually using.
I would not recommend it if you’re carrying a lot of books. It doesn’t have a lot of room. There’s only one main compartment which contains the laptop sleeve, and an organizer compartment with lots of wee pockets and whatnot. I use it to carry, at most, my laptop, a paperback textbook, a spiral notebook, and an accordion folder full of papers, and a trade paperback, and that’s using up pretty much every cubic centimeter of the main compartment.
Myself, I like the slimmer design, but I don’t have as much stuff to carry around anymore. It has a small padded pocket in the organizer compartment that fits my iPod like a glove, so it should accomodate your Minidisc recorder. Another thing I like about it is that the laptop sleeve has an adjustable strap to secure the computer, rather than the velcro-secured strap that lost its zip on my old backpack.
I haven’t had it for very long, so I can’t speak to its durability.
Thanks for the advice, everybody. I’m not just dashing from class to class anymore, fortunately (or unfortunately), it’s more of a long slog from the parking lot to my office which, given that I’m usually schlepping at least a laptop, really requires a good backpack. I tried the whole sophisticated briefcase thing for about three days, and it just killed my back and shoulders. Briefacses, clearly, were designed for people with more parking seniority than I.
Have you considered an airport-stylee bag with a handle and those little wheels? Terribly dorky, but if you have a smooth path to trundle on, they beat lugging a bag around on your back.
