2 Bad Sitting Postures that are Harmful to Your Knees and Body, and 3 Simple Exercises for Healthier Knees

To sit comfortably, we have developed many wrong sitting postures! Among them, Crossing Legs and Crossing Ankles are the 2 most popular yet damaging ones. 

After sitting for a prolonged period of time, the wrong postures will be a contributing factor to knee pains, backache, low back pain, and spinal numbness! In worse cases, even causing lumbar muscle strain and lumbar disc herniation.

Bad sitting posture 1: Crossing Legs

Sitting with overlapping legs, which is a bad sitting posture. 

Bad Sitting Posture 2: Crossing Ankles

Sitting with your ankles crossed, which is a bad sitting posture.

Under the influence of these two sitting positions, the inappropriate angle between the thigh and the calf leads to a change in the position of the knee joint. Maintaining such sitting position for a long time will easily cause the cartilage in the knee joint to wear down, and it will become more and more serious as we age.

Is bad sitting posture harmful to our body? Yes!

• It causes poor blood circulation, reducing the amount or speed of blood returning to the heart and brain. This can affect brain and heart functions, and easily induce high blood pressure, heart disease, etc.
• It causes leg muscle damage, resulting in unequal lower limbs,
• Compression of blood vessels in the legs can easily induce phlebitis and varicose veins.
• It also causes pain in the cervical spine and back, and may even deform the spine, in worse cases, Scoliosis. (a sideways curvature of the spine that most often causing shoulder / back pains.)

If your knee only makes an occasional "clicking" sound, when walking, going up and down stairs, running and jumping, or you are experiencing knee pain caused by standing or sitting for a long time, now is a good time to pay attention to your body and start correct exercises to prevent further damages.

3 Simple Exercises That Make Your Knee Healthier!

Lying down and slowly raise your legs

(The picture is accelerated, the actual action can be slowed down)

Coach Maggie demonstrates this exercise as shown in the video above. After lying down, lift your heels, straighten your legs and slowly lift them up to the limit you can bear, and then slowly fall down (you don't need to fall back to the bed/ground during the process). Repeated lifting and lowering slowly, at a constant speed, until some soreness and fatigue, you can stop and put your legs down.

Lying down and slowly perform a bicycle motion in the air

(The picture is accelerated, the actual action can be slowed down)

Coach Maggie demonstrates this exercise as shown in the video above. After lying on your back, lift your feet up, simulating the action of stepping on a bicycle in the air, alternating your legs back and forth. The process is uniform and slow, and when you feel sore and tired, stop and rest.

Sit firmly and place weights on ankles, then slowly raise your legs

(The picture is accelerated, the actual action can be slowed down)

Coach Maggie demonstrates this exercise as shown in the video above. Sit on a chair, hook up your toes, place a sandbag on your ankle (you can use a bag of 500g salt instead of a sandbag), and then slowly lift your calf and lower it slowly (no need to land). Evenly and slowly, stop and rest when you feel sore and tired, and fall back to the ground.

To make your knees "stronger" and more "wear-resistant", these exercises on a daily basis are recommended.

Last but not least, as a friendly reminder, if you often need to sit for a long time, please be sure to get up and move around regularly, find time to practice the above exercises, always remind yourself to maintain correct sitting and standing postures to protect your knees and overall health!