Uncross my legs

October 6, 2015 8:19 AM

I love to cross my legs in this style while I'm sitting (all day) at my desk. It seems to be bad for circulation. In fact I've been experiencing leg numbness while walking. Not to mention the crossed legs are bad for the knees. Knowing the harm, I CAN'T STOP sitting that way because it's so comfortable. How do I condition myself to sit well?
posted by nologo to Health & Fitness (12 answers total)

Can you put a small foot stool beneath your desk? I do this, too (and, worse, put my feet on the dash when riding passenger, which is super dangerous). I'm pretty sure it's because I'm short with short legs.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:29 AM on October 6, 2015 [7 favorites]

Get a footrest to elevate both your feet and see if that helps.
posted by fingersandtoes at 8:30 AM on October 6, 2015

Yep, footrest.
posted by girlpublisher at 8:33 AM on October 6, 2015

I keep an ottoman under my desk so I keep my feet up all day.
posted by clone boulevard at 8:35 AM on October 6, 2015

I changed the height of my desk & chair so that there was only room for uncrossed legs. I would still find my legs trying to SQUEEZE into crossed legs all the damn time, but the SQUEEZE gave me a chance to wake up and consciously put my feet back on the ground. Very annoying to have to maintain constant surveillance on your own body for mutiny, and weird to actually find it over and over again (LEGS what are you DOING?), but what can you do.

Note - the big thing that allows this to work is this otherwise horrible keyboard thing under my desk that takes up most of the space where my dumb legs want to have cross leg party. I'd see about rigging something to take up that space at your desk vs lowering it.

Hopefully motivating: Having at least significantly decreased the habit, my knees don't hurt when I run anymore. It is glorious.
posted by skrozidile at 8:59 AM on October 6, 2015 [5 favorites]

If it's an option for you to use a stability ball for your chair, that's one way of making very sure you keep both feet on the ground while you're sitting. This isn't for everybody, but I use one in my home office and I love it.

If that's not an option for you, you can also get a stability disc (aka "wobble cushion," "seating disc," etc.) that you could put on top of your chair as a seat cushion, but I've never tried that so I can't comment on how close to the stability ball experience that is.
posted by jessypie at 9:14 AM on October 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Get a footrest and if you still can't stop sitting improperly, get ankle weights. It will feel all wrong and is almost impossible to sit cross-legged with even the lightest ankle weights. You won't need them very long.
posted by DarlingBri at 9:33 AM on October 6, 2015

This is kind of silly, but I have a friend who really had to worry about this when she was having circulatory problems in her legs, and she duck taped 2 tennis balls to velcro braces and strapped one to each knee so she literally couldn't cross her legs. It looked silly and may or may not be possible depending on your workplace and how they would regard such a thing (she'd unstrap them for meetings and such, but people did still see them) but within a couple of weeks, she had broken the habit and didn't have to wear them anymore.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:05 AM on October 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

If it is physically uncomfortable for you not to cross your legs and you have a tendency to hunch over, part of the problem might be that you tuck your pelvis.

I am a habitual leg-crosser and found that if I stick out my bum more (and make a physio-therapist-approved curve to my lower spine) while making sure my stomach muscles are doing their job, it suddenly becomes unpleasant to cross my legs. Also, my back is much happier.
posted by brambory at 10:45 AM on October 6, 2015 [4 favorites]

Seconding the desk/chair space reduction. I have a desk like that at work AND at home. It worked! Duct tape a pizza box down there if that's what it takes.

I did, however, find that my feet just want to go up on *something*. At work i threw an old dead desktop PC down there that was the right height(it's a large desk), at home i got one of those desks that has a little foot-rest bar.
posted by emptythought at 12:02 PM on October 6, 2015

The thing that helped me without me realizing it was strength training and gaining some muscle. After doing weight lifting for the first time in my life my legs stopped splaying all over the place and it became comfortable to sit with legs uncrossed.
posted by GregorWill at 8:15 PM on October 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's so good you asked this. It's absolutely worth retraining yourself, for your safety! I had a DVT (blood clot) in my calf as a young healthy woman due to my stupid workday ergonomics. Obviously it didn't kill me, but DVTs are really dangerous and, in any case, can cause weeks of pain and issues if you don't respond to the medication fast enough (daily deep stomach injections and blood draws). Good luck with your unlearning!
posted by kalapierson at 8:53 PM on October 6, 2015