Why Does My Hip Hurt When I Cross My Legs?

The short answer is that crossing your legs squashes the hip into its most demanding position, so it is the movement that complains first when something in there is irritable. It is not a sign you have been sitting badly, and it is not usually a sign of anything sinister. It is a useful clue, and where exactly you feel it tells me a great deal.

This is one of the most common questions I get asked, often almost apologetically, as though it is too small a thing to mention. It is not. Hip pain crossing legs is frequently the very first symptom people notice, months before anything else changes, and that makes it worth understanding properly.

Why that particular position hurts

When you cross one leg over the other, you are asking the hip to do three things at once: bend, pull across the midline, and rotate. Anatomically that combination closes down the front of the joint and simultaneously stretches and compresses the tissues on the outside of it. Almost nothing else you do in a day loads the hip like that.

The figure-four position, ankle resting on the opposite knee, does the same thing even more aggressively. If you are avoiding that to put your socks on, that is worth telling me about.

Where you feel it matters most

Deep in the groin

Pain felt in the front of the hip or deep in the groin, sometimes with a hand cupped around the side in a C shape, points to the joint itself. In people under 40 this often means femoroacetabular impingement, where the shapes of the ball and socket pinch at end range, sometimes alongside irritation of the labrum, the cartilage rim around the socket. In people over 45 or 50 the same location more often points towards early hip osteoarthritis.

Osteoarthritis alarms people far more than it should. It is extremely common, it does not mean the joint is crumbling, and it responds well to strengthening and load management. Research consistently supports exercise therapy as a first-line treatment, and NICE guidance recommends it before anything more invasive is considered.

On the outside, over the bone

Pain on the outer hip, over the bony point you can feel through your trousers, is a different animal. That is usually gluteal tendinopathy, sometimes called greater trochanteric pain syndrome. Crossing your legs pulls the tendons tight across that bone and compresses them, which is exactly why it hurts.

Two other giveaways: it hurts to lie on that side at night, and it hurts to stand with your weight shifted onto one hip. If you recognise all three, you probably have your answer. Importantly, the treatment here is nearly the opposite of what most people try. Stretching into the sore position and rolling the outside of the hip on a foam roller both increase compression and typically make it worse.

In the buttock or spreading down the leg

Pain in the buttock that travels, particularly with pins and needles, may be coming from the lower back rather than the hip at all. Referred pain is a genuine impostor, and I have assessed plenty of people treated for months for a hip that turned out to be a lumbar spine problem. If that sounds familiar, my page on back pain is a better starting point.

So should I stop crossing my legs?

No. Crossing your legs does not damage your hips, does not cause arthritis, and is not a posture crime. Plenty of people cross their legs all day for decades with no trouble at all.

What it does is act as a sensitive test. When the hip is irritable, that position finds it. So use it as information rather than something to eliminate: if it has started hurting recently, note it and take it seriously; if avoiding it lets an angry tendon settle for a few weeks, avoid it temporarily and then reintroduce it.

The one thing I would discourage is spending months contorting your daily life around the symptom while never actually addressing why it started.

What actually helps

Strength, in the right direction. For gluteal tendinopathy that means isometric holds first, then progressive loading in neutral positions: bridges, sit-to-stands, side-lying abduction with the hip in line rather than crossed. For hip osteoarthritis and impingement it means building the glutes and quadriceps and restoring what range you comfortably have.

Load management. Reduce the positions that compress an irritable tendon for a few weeks. Sit with knees apart rather than crossed, avoid hanging on one hip when standing, put a pillow between your knees at night if side-lying hurts.

Movement, not rest. Hips stiffen quickly when protected. Walking, cycling and swimming are usually well tolerated even when the hip is grumpy.

Time and consistency. Tendon problems respond to loading over months, not days. That is frustrating but it is also reliable.

When to see a doctor

Get medical assessment promptly if you have hip pain with fever or feel generally unwell; if the hip gave way after a fall and you cannot weight bear; if you have unexplained weight loss or a history of cancer; if there is significant night pain that nothing eases; or if you develop numbness in the groin or saddle area, or new bladder or bowel changes. Sudden severe groin pain in a child or teenager also needs same-day medical review.

Getting it looked at

A hip that has started complaining is far easier to sort at six weeks than at six months. An assessment takes about an hour: I test the joint through its range, screen the lower back, look at how you stand, walk and get out of a chair, and work out which structure is actually generating the pain. Then you get a programme aimed at that structure rather than a generic hip sheet.

I see a lot of hip pain across Liverpool and Merseyside, particularly in autumn when people either ramp up training after a summer off or become considerably more sedentary as the evenings draw in. Both routes lead to the same place. You can read about how I work in musculoskeletal physiotherapy, or about physiotherapy in Liverpool more generally.

Home visits across Liverpool and Merseyside are £90 a session and online video consultations UK-wide are £60, evenings Monday to Friday, plus Saturday and Sunday daytimes, with no GP referral needed. Book at /portal/book or call me on +44 7443 357020 and let's find out what your hip is actually objecting to.