Here’s What To Know If You Ever Sit With Your Legs Crossed

Sitting back and relaxing, or sitting at your desk, are mindless movements, but how you sit (and how long you sit) can impact your health.

Many people tend to default to certain seated positions, and one popular posture is crossing one leg over the other (seen here) ― not like a pretzel, but with one leg draped over the other knee.

The position is casual enough to be done at baseball games yet formal enough to be done at job interviews. It’s a posture many people find themselves in for much of the day.

Physical therapists said there is nothing wrong with sitting this way, and there is a reason it’s so appealing. But there are a few things you should keep in mind if you often find yourself sitting with your legs crossed. Here’s what to know:

According to Valerie Rogers, a physical therapist at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, this position “gives you a little bit of support.”

“So that when you go and lean forward, as you’re looking at a computer or something like that, you don’t have to use quite as many muscles to still keep you upright,” Rogers said.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is a less active posture than simply just sitting up straight with your feet on the ground, she noted.

If you sit this way consistently and for long periods of time, it could “eventually make your postural muscles not quite as strong,” Rogers explained. “But you can still sit in those positions with an engaged posture, too. So, it kind of works both ways.”

When you repeatedly sit cross-legged, you can create a bit of a pelvic imbalance, said Ethan Triplett, a physical therapist with Orlando Health in Florida.

“When you cross your legs, your body is naturally going to go into a little bit more of a slouched posture all the way up from the back, even up into the neck,” Triplett explained. “Putting one foot over top, you can obviously see how that’s going to push one pelvis side up compared to the other, and so that’s going to put a little bit of different pressure on your glutes.”

If you are constantly tilting to one side, your body has to compensate, he added.

“So, a lot of times, people will start to see that muscular discomfort, which is why we often tell people to change [their position] pretty frequently,” Triplett noted.

“There’s not a ton of robust research looking at this — what we do know is there is a temporary rise in blood pressure,” said Alex Hill, a pelvic health and oncology physical therapist and owner of OncoPelvic PT in Florida.

It happens in the moment when you have your legs crossed, which is why doctors and nurses have you put your feet flat on the floor when taking your blood pressure in healthcare settings, Hill added.

“But … it’s not that having your legs crossed every day is going to cause hypertension or cause a chronic blood pressure issue,” Hill said.

Sitting in a legs-crossed position for extended periods is particularly not recommended for those who have lymphedema.

“There are some considerations, also with crossing your legs that could increase the pressure on the lymphatic and the blood vessels, so it can temporarily reduce fluid drainage efficiency,” Hill said. “With lymphedema, it is recommended to avoid crossing the legs for extended periods of time because it does occlude those vessels for that temporary time period.”

“The phrase that I always tell my patients is, ‘your best posture is your next posture,’” Triplett said. Posture problems can be a big contributor for discomfort and pain.

“I don’t think sitting in any one position more than 30 minutes is good for the body,” said Ryan Galvin, a physical therapist with UofL Health in Kentucky.

Galvin recommends that folks set a timer for every 30 minutes or so to remind themselves to get up and move around.

“The reason you want to create variability in your positions and your postures is so your body doesn’t get accustomed to one position and mold into that one position,” Galvin noted.

This is how “tech neck,” a forward head posture, happens in people who look down at computers or phones a lot, he said.

“If you spend too much time in one position repetitively, your body ends up creating a new posture,” Galvin said.

It’s easy to forget to get up and move if you work a desk job or are tuned into a particularly good Netflix binge, but if you aren’t getting up to move, it can become problematic, no matter how you’re sitting.

“Those muscles can get weak, they can get tight, including those hip flexors, your hamstrings, your core stabilizers, and so over time that can lead to issues,” Hill said. “But sitting one day with your legs crossed isn’t the end of the world.”