8 Smart Ways To Make Your Heavy Backpack Or Laptop Bag Easier To Carry

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We've all experienced the phenomenon at one time or another. We pack our bags full of stuff, and then we have the privilege of carrying all of that stuff far enough to where it starts to get annoying. While it is great for strength training and general endurance, especially in military training, where carrying your ruck for dozens of miles is a rite of passage, it's sometimes a good idea to lighten the load a little bit. After all, the point of a bookbag, laptop bag, etc., is to make your life easier, not harder.

There are some health benefits to lightening the load a little bit as well. Heavy backpacks can cause muscle strain and numbness or tingling, especially in kids. Plus, carrying a huge backpack or laptop bag in a cramped space can cause the wearer to bump into things and other people and get generally caught up while walking, which adds another level of difficulty. So, while it is good exercise, it's important to remain comfortable to avoid injury or discomfort. For kids, at least, it's recommended that a backpack is no more than 15% of the child's body weight to avoid issues.

There are myriad ways to make your bag lighter. Of course, there's the obvious and easy method of simply putting fewer things into the bag. However, there are other things you can buy or use to either replace a heavier item already in your bag or stabilize the bag on your back to make it easier to carry. You can even do some things in software to digitize items to make them easier to carry.

A chest bag, on the other hand, will redistribute some of the weight from your bag. While they largely engage the upper body muscles, having a chest bag can balance the load and put less strain on your back. Chest bags are a little bit like fanny packs, but they look nicer, and they can be used alone or in tandem with a laptop bag or backpack, depending on your needs. Typically, they aren't spacious enough to house large items like full laptops or textbooks. However, you can fit plenty of smaller items.

The MJNUONE Outdoor Chest Bag works pretty well for this, although there are plenty of other options. This one has a bag in the front with straps that go around the user's sternum as well as over the shoulders for better balance and stability. There is a back pad that shouldn't interfere with backpack or shoulder bag usage at all. Plus, it comes in seven colors, which is always nice. It's a good example of a decent chest bag that can make carrying a lot of stuff easier.

The only real downside to a chest bag is that you're adding more straps to a chore that already has straps. Usually, it's okay, but having multiple things covering your shoulders, back, and chest can feel a little claustrophobic, especially during hot days when you want fewer things covering your body. In any case, this is still a good choice to take some weight off your back.

Sternum straps are a good choice for carrying large bags. They help in a couple of different ways. The first is by stabilizing the bag on your back. By preventing it from moving around too much, it can reduce the risk of falling over if you shift your weight around. Secondly, a good sternum strap can disperse the weight from your shoulders to your sternum, which is much better equipped to handle lots of weight for a longer period of time and your shoulders. Between the comfort and stabilization, there are few better accessories than sternum straps.

A good place to start looking for something like this is the Ikerall Sternum Straps. It's a reasonably inexpensive strap that connects to your existing backpack. The straps connect to your backpack with hooks and clasps, so it's relatively easy to add or remove to your existing bag. There are also 10 different colors to choose from so you can match them to your bag. There are also various loops and straps on it where you can hang things like your keys, sunglasses, and other accessories, which makes them easier to get to than digging through a bag.

You'll see a lot of hikers and backpackers use sternum straps, and for good reason. They actually do help by lightly dispersing the weight across multiple parts of your body while also adding stabilization. Of course, the more expensive ones will help more, but unless you're backpacking across 100 miles of wilderness, a less expensive strap will be fine.

It doesn't take rocket science to know that on a list of the heaviest things people stuff into bags, textbooks rank toward the top. This is especially true for middle school, high school, and college students who get to haul around several books between classes every day. Some schools allow kids enough time to visit their lockers between classes to offload and pick up the proper books, but a lot more don't. Plus, carrying them all home after school for home constitutes heavy exercise.

There is a better way, although it does take a bit. Adobe has a PDF scanner app available for both iOS and Android. You simply point your phone at a textbook page, and it'll scan the page. Once you scan the whole book, you can use Adobe's Merge PDFs tool to turn it into a whole book. This is such a neat solution to an age-old problem. Yes, it means you spend a week scanning in textbooks to combine into one whole textbook PDF. However, now that it's there, you can easily view the book on a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or PC.

Since Adobe-created PDFs natively recognize text, you can also use text search to find specific parts of the textbook that you need to find answers, study, or whatever else you need. Students likely still need textbooks for class, but being able to bring it up on the family iPad at home means no more carrying half a dozen heavy textbooks home after school, and that's a big win.

Finally, let's take a look at the backpack frame. Current and former members of the military will likely recognize these things since most soldiers have had to attach their rucks to one during long marches. They are a mixture of the sternum strap and the backpack spacer. The frame on the back disperses the weight more evenly across your shoulders and back. Meanwhile, the straps usually wrap around your body to add stability and support. Unlike those other two products, though, the backpack frame usually comes with its own shoulder straps that replace the ones on your bag.

You can see how this product works by looking at the Stansport Freighter Aluminum Pack Frame. The pack straps to the frame from the back and is supported by a bottom frame. From there, you slide your arms in the shoulder straps and clip the belt around your waist. The Standsport Freighter uses aluminum in its design, which is one of the popular lightweight metals to make things out of alongside beryllium, titanium, and magnesium. That means it won't add a ton of extra weight to your pack.

There is a downside, and it's that you can already buy packs with an integrated frame. Such bags integrate the frame into the pack itself, which makes it a lot less bulky to wear than an add-on like the Stansport above. REI sells packs with internal frames and waist straps that you can check out so you can see what we're talking about. If you're going so far as to get something like a backpack spacer or frame, it might be time to consider buying a purpose-built bag with these amenities baked in.