Weight is less important than overall fitness both in assessing health in general, and in considering your safety and ability to self-suspend. Tying yourself up and hanging in the air can be very strenuous! Dynamic sequences involving drops and position changes or especially challenging suspensions require a high level of fitness and body awareness. This is not to imply that dynamic suspensions are more dangerous than static suspensions—in some cases they are safer, but often they do require more athletic ability. The best parallels I can think of are yoga or circus arts training (bar, hoop, silks). Are you healthy and fit enough, at whatever size, for those activities? You may need to build fitness before you can do the more strenuous types of self-suspension (should you choose to do those types of rigs at all).

The fitness needed and strain involved in self-suspension are eminently scalable, it is not an all-or-nothing either-you-can-do-it-or-you-can’t activity. If you want to do strenuous, dynamic suspensions (and there’s no reason you have to; they’re not everyone’s kink), be realistic and spend some time training! Rigging involves practice, skill, and training; being suspended (by others or by yourself) also utilises many skills, like body awareness, balance, and core strength. Just as a skilled rigger can meet at bottom wherever they are in terms of fitness and body size, so too can you adjust your ties to your body and find a level of tying that’s comfortable, fun, and safe for you.

It’s important to note that both ends of the weight spectrum have some additional considerations for self-suspension. Very thin people are at higher risk for acute compression nerve injury and can have comfort issues when common ties cause a lot pain where rope presses up against bone without much padding. Logistical challenges for larger-bodied people include difficulty seeing the knots/tensions when tying certain types of harnesses and challenges with finding the best rope placement and avoiding rope rolling and moving out of place.

Self-suspension is not about brute strength. Personally, I can't even come close to doing a single pull-up, but I can do lots of dynamic moves in the air. If you have a higher strength-to-weight ratio (meaning that you are strong relative to your own body weight—if I can lift 120 pounds and weigh 200 pounds, things will be more difficult than if I can lift 200 pounds and weigh 120 pounds), you will have a much easier time repositioning yourself (especially hoisting yourself up). A higher strength-to-weight ratio allows some self-suspenders to accomplish through brute force moves that the rest of us have to put more thought into accomplishing… but a lot of the time we can accomplish them! Much can be achieved with body awareness and knowing how to move, balance, and manipulate your center of gravity. I’ve certainly seen larger bodied people who were extremely capable and graceful in the air. You can learn to leverage your weight to your advantage, at any size.

One issue to consider is whether your spotter will be able to partially support your weight to help you in an emergency situation. If the answer is “no,” one possible work-around is to set up a pulley system and do your rigging from that, so that even a relatively small spotter can safely lower you to the ground quickly if needed. Pulley systems create an additional layer of complexity and potential point of failure, so this is an area where additional expertise is required. You should also keep a step stool, chair, or “apple box” (a 1-2 foot high, 2 foot square box that is ideal for this purpose) nearby. If you get stuck, having your spotter pull that under you so you can use it to take some weight off the ropes can be very useful.