Throughout the population 60 to 80% will suffer from back pain some time in their life due to carrying and lifting strenuous loads (Hamill and Knutzen). Students who carry heavy loads to class each day find they experience pain due to the load on the spine. Due to these loads, people make adjustments in their movement patterns to adapt to the load and make it easier and more comfortable to carry. Our focus in this experiment is to compare the biomechanical differences in carrying a frontpack versus a backpack in order to find the most efficient way to carry a heavy load.
It is in our interest to question whether it would be better to carry a load on the back or front of the body. We feel that by doing this experiment we will be able to help backpackers, parents carrying babies, construction workers or anyone carrying heavy loads, to avoid back pain or injury. We will observe the kinematics of the different motions to see how the torque affects each pack. We think that there will be different use in the extensor and flexor muscles in order to compensate for the load.