Sidemount- Principles For Success !exclusive! Jun 2026

The Principle: Tanks drive the dive. Keep them high and tight on the hip—level with your iliac crest, rotated back slightly so the valve sits in your armpit pit. This allows you to "scoop" the water with your chest, reduces drag by 30%, and prevents the tanks from acting like side-mounted parachutes when you frog kick.

A shivering diver cannot maintain neutral buoyancy. Period. Sidemount- Principles For Success

: The shoulder plate should sit just below the C7 vertebrae (the prominent bone at the base of your neck). The lumbar plate must be positioned very low, over the S2 vertebrae at the flat area just above the buttocks. The Principle: Tanks drive the dive

That is success. That is sidemount.

For two miles, the train crawled along the rusted freight line. It was slower than a bicycle. But it was moving. And at the end of that line was a emergency station—unused for decades, but intact. Elias had checked the blueprints years ago. A shivering diver cannot maintain neutral buoyancy

A loose harness is a failed rig. Your sidemount harness is not a backpack; it is a second skeleton. The butt plate must sit firmly in the small of your back. The waist strap must be cinched tight enough to leave marks on your wetsuit. When you move your shoulders, the D-rings should move with you, not slide down your chest. Loose webbing creates "slosh"—the tanks will lag behind every turn, destroying your stability.