a desired length is provided by a hinged cover 40 the cover 40 is desirably made of a soft fabric material but may be of other construction the cover 40 is hingedly coupled to the plate 12 and folds over the portions of the belt 14 located in the channel 20 the cover 40 may include hook material to also cooperate with the loop material 34 of the belt 14 and maintain the cover 40 closed against the belt 14 and in releasable frictional engagement therewith in this regard it will be understood that the indicated hook and loop materials may be reversed and that other cooperating fastener devices may be utilized to shorten the effective length of the belt 14 and hence of the brace 10 the cover 40 is lifted and the engagement members 26 and 28 are hingedly pivoted to their open positions this disengages the hook and loop engagement of the belt 14 therefrom the handle 36 of the belt 14 is then grasped and pulled upwardly such as shown in fig7 as will be appreciated this uniformly reduces the length from each end of the belt 14 and accumulates excess portions of the belt 14 adjacent the channel 20 the engagement members 26 and 28 are then closed to maintain the effective belt length the excess belt material may be folded or the like as shown in fig8 to neatly store the excess material in the channel 22 and the cover 40 closed to overlie the excess material and otherwise secure the brace.