What is the sit to stand test and what does my score mean?
You lower yourself to sitting cross-legged on the floor and get back up, starting from ten points and losing one for each hand, forearm, knee or side of leg you lean on, and half a point for a wobble. A ten means down and up with nothing touching but your feet and your backside.
In 4,282 people aged 46 to 75 followed for a median of 12.3 years, 42.1 percent of those scoring 4 or under died of natural causes, against 3.7 percent of those scoring a perfect ten. One movement carries that much signal because it reads flexibility, leg strength, balance and body composition together.
A ten is the ordinary result for men up to about 25 and women up to about 40, and fewer than one person in twelve over 55 manages it. There is a separate chair-based version for older adults, normed from 60 to 94, which the two tests get confused with constantly.
Source: Araujo et al, European Journal of Preventive Cardiology 2025
Answered by the AskDoc Medical Team · Medically reviewed under our Medical Director, MBBS · How we review
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