Have you tried the Sitting Rising Test?

In 2002 a study was done on the link between being able to sit and rise from the floor and healthy longevity. It is called SRT (sitting-rising test) and it works like this:

In bare feet and comfortable clothes cross your ankles and sit on the floor without using your hands coming down and then stand up the same way you sat down. We all start with 10 points and then for every additional body part like a knee or hand that touches anything you subtract a point. You also subtract points if you wobble.

In the study a person’s score matched well with risk of death. People who scored zero to three were 6.5 times as likely to die during the course of the study, compared to people who scored from 8 to 10. Those who had scores of 3.5 to 5.5 were 3.8 times as likely to die as the high scorers — and those who scored 6 to 7.4 range were 1.8 times more likely to die than those with the highest scores.

If you can’t do it at first don’t be discouraged. We have been practicing this around FitMania and have found that many of us couldn’t do it at first but it didn’t take long to improve considerably. Of course the goal is to score a perfect 10 and I think most fit people can accomplish this with practice.

Here is a video of the FitMania Dream Team doing the SRT and showing a few modifications. Just click on the graphic below and enjoy!

http://cpr.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/12/10/2047487312471759.abstract