Can You Get Up from the Floor Without Using Your Hands? The Sitting-Rising Test and Longevity

A simple sit-down-and-stand-up move can reveal much more than your flexibility — it’s a window into your life expectancy.

• The Sitting-Rising Test (SRT) is a scientific method designed to assess musculoskeletal health and predict mortality risk.
• The test involves sitting on the floor cross-legged and standing back up without using hands, knees, or any support.
• You start with 10 points: each time you use support (hand, forearm, knee), you lose one point.
• A low score (0–3) is strongly correlated with a significantly higher risk of mortality compared to higher scores (8–10).
• It doesn’t just measure strength — it evaluates a mix of balance, coordination, and joint mobility.
• A poor result isn’t a sentence — it’s a signal to start working on hip mobility and core strength.

A Simple Movement That Predicts Your Future Health

There’s something deeply primal about our relationship with the floor. As kids, it’s our kingdom — where we play, build, and learn. Then, as we grow up, we drift away. We rise onto ergonomic chairs, plush couches, and heated car seats. The floor becomes distant, cold — almost hostile.

And yet, the ability to get down there — and more importantly, get back up without looking like a creaky crane — is one of the most powerful indicators we have of how well we’re aging. We’re not talking about doing splits or circus tricks here, but about a precise clinical protocol: the Sitting-Rising Test (SRT).

Created by Brazilian physician Claudio Gil Araújo, the test stemmed from a simple observation: many older patients didn’t struggle with walking or running, but with vertical transitions — getting up and down. And science has shown us that these struggles sound the alarm far earlier than we think.

The Sitting-Rising Test: How to Do It and Score Yourself

Forget the shoes — and your pride — for a minute. All you need is a bit of open space and comfy clothes. The concept is disarmingly simple. The execution? Not always.

Here are the rules of the game (and treating it like a game helps):

1. Start: Stand upright, relaxed.
2. Descent: Cross your legs and sit on the floor.
3. Ascent: Stand back up to your starting position.

Sounds easy, right? The key is in how you do it.
You begin with a full 10 points — 5 for the descent, 5 for the ascent.

You’re the judge (or have a friend help). Subtract points every time gravity wins over your muscle control:

• Minus 1 point if you use a hand.
• Minus 1 point if you use a knee.
• Minus 1 point if you use a forearm.
• Minus 1 point if you push off your knee or thigh.
• Minus 1 point if you lean on the side of your leg.
• Minus 0.5 points if you visibly lose balance or wobble.

If you sit and stand like a ninja — smooth, no supports, only your feet and seat touching the ground — you score a 10. If you use a hand to go down and push off your knee to rise, that’s an 8. And so on.

What Your Score Means (Strength, Mobility, Balance)

If you scored low, don’t panic — and definitely don’t start booking every specialist in town. Breathe.
The original study, published in the *European Journal of Preventive Cardiology*, involved over 2,000 adults between ages 51 and 80. The results were clear: people who scored between 0 and 3 had up to a fivefold higher mortality risk within the following six years compared to those who scored 8–10.

But why? The test isn’t magic. It’s simply a brutal snapshot of your movement efficiency.
To sit and rise hands-free requires a rare combo of factors:

• Explosive leg strength to overcome inertia.
• Hip mobility for deep sitting and crossing legs.
• Core stability to avoid collapsing like a house of cards.
• Balance and coordination to manage your shifting center of gravity.

If even one of those is missing, your body compensates: a hand here, a knee there. Each “cheat” is a signal that part of the chain isn’t pulling its weight.

Can’t Do It? Don’t Worry — Here’s How to Improve

If your score was a 4 or 5, welcome to the club — that’s most sedentary folks. The good news? Unlike your DNA, this score is changeable.
Often, the issue isn’t raw strength (you might crush it at the gym), but stiffness. Hips locked from years of desk-sitting are the Sitting-Rising Test’s worst enemy.

To improve, don’t just keep redoing the test. Work on the components:

1. Hip Mobility: Think deep squats, dynamic stretches, and openers.
2. Core Stability: Not just abs, but control — keeping your torso upright while your legs do the work.
3. Functional Strength: Lunges and step-ups build the independent leg power needed to stand up fluidly.

Think of it as a free monthly check-in to track your progress.

Longevity Is About Movement — Not Just Years

At the end of the day, the Sitting-Rising Test teaches a deeper truth that goes way beyond the number. Longevity isn’t just adding years to life — it’s adding life to those years. Being able to get up from the floor means independence. It means playing with your grandkids on the rug. It means tying your shoes without groaning.

It’s a physical competence marker — just like grip strength, which we’ve talked about before. These are small clues your body gives you. Listening to them means realizing that the best retirement plan might not be just financial — it might be having a body that still knows how to move through space, defy gravity, and maybe even smile doing it — or at least, not need a hand getting off the floor.