When is the last time you got out of an airplane or a car after travelling for many hours without feeling discomfort?
Carrying heavy luggage around and sitting for extended periods is very fatiguing for your back. While some people only experience mild discomfort, others suffer from serious back pain.
Our travel posture tips cover everything you can do to feel better from the moment you leave your house to the moment you arrive at your destination.
Table of Contents
How to carry heavy luggage
When thinking about posture in regard to travelling, most people assume that their sitting position is the number one factor of back pain. But they don’t spend a lot of time considering how their luggage effects their discomfort.
Protect your back
As you can learn extensively in our anatomy and body mechanics section, being mindful of your posture is especially important, when you carry heavy objects around. This applies to your luggage when travelling.
Whenever you lift something, you should do so while maintaining a neutral spine. Rounding or arching your back when lifting heavy objects puts a lot of strain on your intervertebral discs.
Although one-time events are not likely to cause any damage, it is possible that they do. Especially when the load is relatively heavy for you.
Lift with your legs
A good rule to keep in mind is to lift with your legs. Whenever you pick your suitcase or heavy backpack up off the ground, keep your spine straight and use your legs to pick up the object. Do the same whenever you place it on the ground, in the trunk of your car, or on the scale in the baggage drop-off.
If you are going to tweak your bag while travelling, it is most likely to happen while bending your spine extensively to lift your heavy luggage.
Pack light
Regular exercise to become strong in your whole body and back is the safest way to ensure not getting injured while carrying something heavy. If you are about to leave for a trip, however, you have to work with what you’ve got.
When packing your bags, don’t add more weight than you can safely lift yourself. Especially for elderly people or people with already existing back problems, it can make sense to leave non-essential items at home.
The idea is straightforward but in reality we always want to bring more stuff. It is just too tempting to put another jacket in the suitcase or bring one more pair of shoes if there is empty space in the suitcase.
If you know you are the type of person to come back from your trip with a lot of unworn clothes, taking a smaller suitcase might be something to consider. Picking a smaller suitcase will help you avoid unnecessary weight.
Use a wheeled suitcase
Another option to minimize the load is to use wheeled suitcases. You are probably already using them. Most practical and comfortable are the ones with four wheels that allow you to push or pull them.
However, many people travelling by plane choose a backpack as their carry-on. This is practical in some situations but also fatiguing for your back muscles.
While you are walking to your gate or standing in lines, you don’t give your body a lot of brakes. The backpack is a weight you’re carrying around constantly.
If you use a rucksack, you can learn how to optimally pack it and wear it most efficiently.
Otherwise, you can opt for a carry-on-sized wheeled case that you can comfortably push around while walking and just rest next to you while waiting in lines.
Ask for help
If packing lighter is not an option or you still struggle to lift your suitcase safely, don’t be afraid to ask for help.
Although train stations and airports are stressful places, you will be surprised how many people will gladly help you if you ask them kindly. Particularly if you explain, why you need assistance.
For the service personnel in those locations this is routine work, and your friendly request will surely be answered. Depending on the location it is appropriate to tip the staff as a form of gratitude for their service, for example in hotels.
But even when there is no service personnel around, fellow travelers and friendly strangers are happy to help.
Comfortable sitting position for travelling
When you were searching posture tips for travelling, you were probably thinking about your sitting position. So let’s talk about that.
Switch positions to avoid back pain
Prolonged sitting is not comfortable and causes discomfort. You will often hear the advice to sit perfectly upright.
While sitting with a neutral spinal position is good, it is not the goal to be in the same position for the whole trip.
First of all, when you are seated, your legs and your glutes are not active and cannot stabilize your hip. That means the upright sitting position is only held by your trunk and core muscles. At one point during your long trip they will tire, resulting in discomfort and probably a change of posture.
Moreover, sitting in the same position all the time will make you feel stiff and very uncomfortable. You actually want to switch positions frequently rather than being stiff and inflexible.
This doesn’t mean you are supposed to hunch over and curl up into a ball either. Instead, take a seat with a neutral spine. The position with a neutral spine should always be your default posture. That way you prepare and train your body to automatically maintain an aligned spine when you carry your heavy baggage later again.
When you start feeling discomfort or your body gives you the impulse to move, listen to it and move into another position.
You could shift your weight to one side of the body and cross your legs, lean forwards while keeping a straight spine and rest your elbows on your thighs, or let you butt scoot forward and round your back to give your trunk muscles a break.
Since there is no heavy load on your spine, you don’t have to always be cautious about maintaining neutrality. After another 5 to 10 minutes or so in that position, switch again. And keep cycling through different poses throughout your whole trip.
You can also experiment with different settings of the backrest, if possible. Changing the angle gives you more options to find new sitting positions.
Get up and move for pain relief
Sitting for many hours at a time is not good for you. Your body is designed to be active and move around. Rather than focusing on “the one perfect sitting position” – which does not exist in a multiple-hour time frame – you should try to minimize the time spent seated.
The best way to relief pain and discomfort during the trip is to get up and move around. Take a walk, stretch your body out and move your hips and lower back from side to side. The stiffness does probably not come from a bad sitting posture but from a lack of motion.
The extend to which you are able to move depends on the means of transportation. If you travel by car, you can control when to take a short brake and walk for a few minutes on a parking lot. On the train you can probably move along the train whenever you want to.
On the plane, you are not totally in control of when you are allowed to get up. So, when the seat belt signs are turned off and you feel uncomfortable, get up and walk. If you feel uncomfortable aimlessly walking around on the plane, just go to the bathroom. And chose the one that is the farthest away from your seat. Feel free to repeat this many times.
Lumbar support for travelling
Since your lower back will not be able to hold itself upright in a seated position for a long time, you can use any form of lumbar support to take away some of the workload.
You could be using a special lumbar support pillow, created for exactly that purpose but a normal, small pillow will do the job fine. You can even roll a towel or jacket and use it.
Place the lumbar support on the lower part of the backrest of the chair at a height to match the natural curvature of the lower spine.
Make sure that the pillow has the right size. It should be thick enough to give adequate support but not so big that your lower back is arched. The purpose of the pillow is to help your spine to be in a neutral position. Sitting with lumbar support should feel comfortable and natural.
Neck support for travelling
If you are going to nap or sleep while travelling, a neck support pillow might be very useful. You don’t want to wake up with your head resting on a stranger’s shoulder.
On top of that, it is very hard to get decent sleep, if your head keeps dropping to the side every time you are about to fall asleep.
There are many different types of travel pillows that offer neck support while being on a trip. Most of them will do their job well.
Posture corrector for travelling
In general, there are many reasons why wearing a posture corrector has more disadvantages than advantages. For travelling and prolonged sitting, the picture doesn’t really change.
Apart from all the other reasons, posture correctors only target the upper back. With long sitting, your weakest link will be the lower back, for which those devices offer no support.
As we discussed earlier, being stiff and rigid is not the goal here. Since they limit upper body mobility, they interfere with the ability to move into different positions.
Dealing with small airline seats
Especially for tall and big people, small airline seats can be a real pain in the neck (and back). If the standard seats are a huge discomfort for you and cause a lot of pain, consider upgrading to get a better seat.
While flying in business class is much more expensive, many airlines offer seats with more leg room at the emergency exits for a small extra fee.
At the end of the day, you have to consider how much you would benefit to sit in another chair and how much money this is worth to you. If you go on a relaxing vacation, not having backaches in the first days could have a high price tag.
Conclusion
Prolonged sitting is just uncomfortable. Sitting up perfectly straight for the whole duration of the trip won’t change that. Instead of being rigid and stiff, try to move around as much as possible and frequently switch your sitting poses.
The often overlooked but more risky part of travelling is not sitting wrong but lifting wrong. Whenever you lift and carry something heavy, do so with your spine in the optimal position.
