The 30 Sec Sit To Stand Test: A good measure for functional fitness in older adults
There are multiple tests you can use to assess the functional capability of older adults. One of the most important attributes that an older adult needs to prevent falling is strength. Falling is extremely dangerous for older adults, so this is the number one thing we need to train for to prevent. The 30-second sit-to-stand from a chair test assesses functional lower body strength for older adults. In this article, I’m going to talk about how to perform the test, the benefits, the results, and how to improve yourself on this test.
The 30-second sit-to-stand has a couple of different variations. The harder one is from the floor, and the modified version is from the chair. If you would like to challenge yourself, try it from the floor! Most of the time, when performing this test, it will be from the chair. To perform this test, you need a fold-up chair approximately 17 inches tall with no armrests, a wall, and a stopwatch. The chair is placed open against the wall to prevent it from sliding, and the coach is holding the stopwatch set at 30 seconds. The participant starts sitting down tall with the arms crossed and feet on the floor. When the coach says GO! The participant stands all the way up and sits all the way down as many times as possible within the 30 seconds. If the participant is more than halfway up when the time ends, this still counts as one! If they use their arms, it doesn’t count.
There is an average number of sit-to-stand reps for a healthy individual that we can compare to. Here it is: ages 60-69 is 12 reps, 70-79 is 10 reps, 80-89 is 8 reps, and 90+ is 4 reps.
When looking to improve on this test, we can do a lot of different exercises specific to the chair get-up. There are two aspects that we can improve on this lift: our power and our strength. When looking to improve power, which is the speed to get off the chair, we can do a rock-back to stand up with weights in our hands. This works on the fast-twitch muscles! I would do this for 5 reps and take a break.
Strength is next in the workout that we focus on. Getting up off a chair is a full-body exercise that requires leg strength but also core strength and arm strength. I’m going to focus on three different exercises that will directly benefit this sit-to-stand.
The first one, which is probably the most obvious, is the squat. A great way to regress or make it easier is by reducing the depth of the squat by adding a box and pads. As we get better and stronger, we will slowly reduce the pads.
The core plays a huge role in keeping our chest up and not falling forward when we are sitting down. So, we want to work on isometrics of the core in many different ways. A Pallof press hold is a great exercise to work on anti-rotation isometric, which will indirectly help the standing.
Lastly, improving range of motion is super important for getting more comfortable in a lower squat position. Here, I let her use the wall to reduce the limitations, which allowed her to get lower and more comfortable in this position.
The sit to stand is a great test for assessing functional strength of the lower body. I would suggest 2-3 days a week of full body strength training incorporating these exercises to improve this test.
Author: Coach Matt Stevens
Certified Personal Trainer
Certified Strength and Conditioning Coach
