Which Muscles Do You Use for Sitting and Standing?
Updated on July 31, 2025
Sitting, standing, and moving between the two seem almost involuntary, but your body's muscles are working hard to make these motions happen. Your skeleton has over 600 muscles attached, and many of them play vital roles in seemingly simple motions you do multiple times per day.
The chief muscles used for sitting and standing are your leg and hip muscles, your abdominals and other core muscles such as the muscles in your back, and often, some muscles in your upper body.
Your Leg Muscles Push You Up and Lower Your Down
The largest muscles of your upper legs are your quadriceps and hamstrings. The quadriceps are the five muscles in the front of your thigh, including:
- Vastus lateralis
- Tensor of the vastus intermedius
- Vastus intermedius
- Vastus medialis
- Rectus femoris
The quads let you flex your hip, such as during a squatting or sitting movement, or extend your knee when you're standing up.
Your hamstrings, on the other hand, are three muscles situated in the back of your thigh. These include:
- Biceps femoris
- Semitendinosus
- Semimembranosus
They help you bend your knees, support the glutes (more below) in helping you propel your body out of a chair, and lower your body to sit down.
As well as these large muscles, your gastrocnemius muscle, which forms the majority of your calf muscle, is also active while standing upright to provide balance. The calf muscle also allows you to lock your knee. Together, your leg muscles are responsible for lifting, flexing, and straightening out your body as you sit and stand.
Your Lower Torso Muscles Keep You Stable When Standing Up
Your lower torso consists of large muscle groups, including your abdominals, obliques, and lower back. The rectus abdominus sits at the front of your stomach and forms the “six-pack,” the obliques are the muscles on the sides of your waist, and the erector spinae supports your lower back.
A strong core is central to maintaining good posture, protecting yourself from back injury, and stabilizing the spine and pelvis during daily activities, including standing and getting out of chairs. They're also a central player in limb movements.
The glutes, or your butt muscles, provide additional support and stability to the core. Crucially for standing up out of a chair, they help to control the position of your trunk over the pelvis and keep the pelvis stable during shifts in your center of gravity.
Additional Muscles at Work
Using your arms to help you push from a seated to a standing position or to support you as you lower into a chair will engage your biceps and triceps. The biceps are on the front of your upper arm, whereas your triceps are in the back of your upper arm. If your arm is bending at the elbow, such as at the bottom of a motion of lowering yourself into a chair, you'll be putting your triceps to use.
Other muscles that may engage in your upper torso are your deltoids, which are situated on the top of your shoulder, and your latissimus dorsi, which are your upper back muscles. Deltoids support the extension of the arm backward, meaning you may engage them if you're pushing off from the back of a chair.
Depending on the angle you're sitting or standing from, your pectoral or chest muscles might also kick in. They connect the arms to the walls of the chest, providing strength and support for pushing motions.
Your Choice of Seat Can Change Things
Variables such as seat height and the presence (or absence) of armrests affect the biomechanics of a sit-to-stand movement.
For example, the lower the seat height, the more challenging sitting and standing movements become — your muscles have to work harder to bend and extend your hip and knee joints through the greater range of motion, especially in positions where your leverage isn't always optimal. Studies have shown that the quad muscles engage more when getting out of a lower seat than a higher seat, as do the upper back and spine muscles.
People with reduced mobility might use furniture risers to raise their couch, as this means they don't have to engage as many leg muscles to stand up.
Additionally, the presence of armrests affects the extent of the required extension movement. These variables may engage additional muscles in your arm or upper torso but allow you to relieve pressure from your lower body muscles.
EDITORIAL SOURCES
Everyday Health follows strict sourcing guidelines to ensure the accuracy of its content, outlined in our editorial policy. We use only trustworthy sources, including peer-reviewed studies, board-certified medical experts, patients with lived experience, and information from top institutions.
Resources
- Muscles. Cleveland Clinic. Janury 23, 2024.
- Thigh muscles. Cleveland Clinic. April 11, 2025.
- Rodgers CD et al. Anatomy, Bony Pelvis and Lower Limb, Hamstring Muscle. StatPearls. April 1, 2023.
- Hamstring Muscles. Cleveland Clinic. March 23, 2025.
- Are your hamstrings working double duty? Harvard Medical School. January 1, 2019.
- Ferri-Caruana A et al. Gastrocnemius Neuromuscular Activation During Standing Explosive Acceleration. Life. October 26, 2024.
- A Guide to Your Core Muscles, from a PT. Hospital for Special Surgery. February 12, 2024.
- Core strength: why is it important and how do you maintain it? Heart Research Institute UK.
- Got glutes? Part 1 — The role of the gluteus maximus and healthy activation patterns in core stabilization. Mayo Clinic. October 10, 2023.
- Tiwana MS et al. Anatomy, Shoulder and Upper Limb, Biceps Muscle. StatPearls. January 30, 2024.
- Deltoid muscles. Cleveland Clinic. September 24, 2021.
- Shin E et al. Gender-based analysis of muscle activation while in a sedentary work posture. Technology and Health Care. May 31, 2024.
- Baig MA et al. Anatomy, Shoulder and Upper Limb, Pectoral Muscles. StatPearls. August 28, 2023.
- Al Amer HS et al. Electromyographic Analysis of Thigh Muscle Activity in Arthritic Knees During Sit-to-Stand and Stand-to-Sit Movements: Effects of Seat Height and Foot Position. MDPI Healthcare. March 11, 2025.
- da Silva Bertolaccini G et al. The influence of seat height, trunk inclination and hip posture on the activity of the superior trapezius and longissimus. Journal of Physical Therapy Science. May 31, 2016.
- 5 tools to help you stand up on your own. Harvard Medical School. September 1, 2019.
Meet Our Experts
Allison Buttarazzi, MD
Medical Reviewer
Allison Buttarazzi, MD, is board-certified in internal medicine and lifestyle medicine, and is a certified health and well-being coach. In her primary care practice, Dr. Buttarazzi...
Andrea Sigust
Author
Andrea Sigust began her professional writing career in 1994 developing user-friendly manuals, reference guides, and information sheets in a hospital environment. She is a freelance...