I know I could do a post about the emotional baggage we carry around, but this is about the physical bags we carry around. However, I do have this super fun short film about emotional baggage you can watch.

When walking on the camino, about a week in I had an interesting physical experience. My lower cross syndrome/ hip anterior tilt started to correct itself from the weight of the pack. Lower cross syndrome is very common and usually people with feel pain or tightness in their low back and the quads will get tight as well. To fix this we use a combination of massage on those tight areas and a recommendation of going to a personal trainer to strengthen the core and glutes, sometime hamstrings. But the action of wearing a heaving backpack that tractioned my back for 2 weeks made a real difference on my back. And now that I’m not wearing the pack but throwing on a fanny pack, I’m noticing it coming back. Because it is not just about what you do to fix it, but you have to also stop doing what is causing it. So I have been swinging my fanny packs to the side of my hip or sometimes on my fanny. I have found that the utility belts that are getting popular on etsy to be more balanced than I traditional fanny pack I have for my dog walks. I posted a link below of my favorite creator.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/TalismanaDesigns?ref=shop-header-name&listing_id=247882511

I have noticed for me the best option is really pockets. More and more clothing has pockets for women. I make sure I sew them into the clothing I make. Leggings now have pockets. You can go crazy and get cargo pants, thos have lots of pockets! Women have had bad choices for pockets for awhile now. Barely fitting a lipsticks or worse fake pockets! For disney I plan on making a pocket with a zipper for my costume. Not all outfits work with having things bulging out of pockets. Plus men will often put their wallet in their back pocket which is even worse when you sit on it. Instead of an anterior tilt you can have a fun hip uplift!

Although fanny packs are getting more popular, purses are still the go to bag. Plus people also carry around laptops and such on their shoulders. For the cross the body bags and “fanny packs” (which don’t even make sense to me), these are ok as long as you switching back and forth. Otherwise you and depressing one shoulder and creating and imbalance. A backpack would be better option as it would share the weight between both shoulders. However even a backpack will often have us roll our should forward to keep on the bag and argivate an upper cross syndrome or head forward posture. You will notice that some backpacks have a waist strap and chest strap to stop this imbalance.

Then we have the shoulder strap purses. If you are wondering why one shoulder is higher than the other this is often a culprit. Switching back and forth doesn’t help much either. Then you just have two tight upper traps in your shoulder. It puts strain on the neck too. Clutches are too small to create any imbalances and are a fine but I struggle to not loose mine and they are so small everything would just fit into a pocket. Purses you hold are easy to switch back and forth between hands, but we all know it’s frustrating to be without a hand.

So my final thought it to think about what you do everyday. When you get a massage, I help counteract an imbalance for one hour. Then maybe you workout an hour a day. Then if you spend all day making the imbalance worse, progress will not happen. You have to stop doing what is causing the issue for real results! Sometimes it cannot be helped because of our jobs. However there is a reason as massage therapist we spend so much time on body mechanics so we don’t injury ourselves. If only all physical jobs came with that training!