Harness Lift

I had previously decided that I was not going to mess with the harness lift or figure out how to design a harness.  It is now time to walk that back.  The USAWA regulations are pretty open and stipulate shoulder straps no wider than 3 inches and a waist strap no wider than 4 inches.  Looking at several images on the usawa.com website, I have a few ideas.

Step 1 - Take a length of the leather belting and cut to 47 inches plus fold over on the front and dangling straps on the back.  This will allow me to adjust the length of the shoulder straps, before riveting the assembly.

Step 2 - Fabricate a second hip belt that is shorter.  Maybe 40ish inches.  The longer length of my current hip belt is to allow the delta rings to be clear of the lifters body.  This may be less of an issue with the harness lift.

I want the weight pulling straight down with minimal bend at the waist.  The shoulder straps will come down to a delta ring which then clips to both ends of the hip belt.  The chain passes through the hip belt anchors and connects to the heavy lift bar.  Essentially it appears to be a hip lift, but the shoulder straps allow the lifter to press up with the arms in a more erect posture.

These all seem to be fabricated with a single point of attachment at the back and the front of the shoulder strap and a "slice" for the head to protrude through.  I am not sure if this will work with the leather I have.  It seems like it is too thick.  I am going to try to make it work with a single point of attachment up front and two attachment points in the back.  It would be set up for me and any adjustment would have to happen by removing the rivets in the back or using carriage bolts for assembly.

UPDATE:  12/8/2024 - I made my way to Tandy Leather and my length of my remaining leather was only 92 inches.  I split the length in half and trimmed one half to 4 inches and the other half to two 2 inch shoulder straps.  My next step will be securing the two shoulder straps to a delta ring and building a shorter hip belt.

UPDATE:  12/9/2024 - The initial assembly went remarkably well.  I punched holes to attach the straps to the waist belt.  I set up 480 pounds and gave it a couple of pulls and I am not getting enough loading on my shoulders.  I will have to head back and punch a couple of more holes (1" centers? 2" centers?) and try it again.  I may actually stick with screw rather than rivet construction for the shoulder straps so that the set up could be modified for other athletes.

UPDATE:  12/12/2024 - Successful lifts crossing over the straps rather than shortening them.  I will get some help marking the alignment and punch additional holes so that I have three attachment points at the belt.  This lift took me to 137 of 195 lifts attempted.