Chestbands are commonly used instrumentation in injury biomechanics to measure the contour of the thorax during impact, which may be used to calculate chest deflection. There exists a concern that by tightly wrapping chestbands around the thorax, particularly of a small frail subject, that thoracic response to impact may be altered. This study examined the effects of chestbands on global thoracic response, characterized by chest deflection and thoracic stiffness. A series of eighteen frontal impacts were imposed on one post-mortem human surrogate (PMHS), using a 23 kg ram. Impacts were at speeds of 0.8 m/s, 1.0 m/s, 1.5 m/s, and 2.0 m/s, and had either 0, 1, or 2 chestbands on the subject during impact. The baseline case of 0.8 m/s with zero chestbands was tested initially three times to examine repeatability, then was repeated intermittently throughout testing. For each impact speed, the difference between response with chestbands and without chestbands was calculated. Results show an average increase of 1.7 mm in chest deflection when chestbands are used, but this increase was not statistically significant (ttest, p=0.6). Thoracic stiffness, on average, decreases by 0.84 N/mm when chestbands are used, which also is not statistically significant (t-test, p=0.36). The results provide support for the commonly employed assumption that chestbands do not alter the response of the thorax to impact.