Get up without help even at the age of 80 - and how yoga can help make that possible

The Sitting-Rising Test – a way to gauge our fitness?

When it comes to measuring how healthy we are and to determine our life expectancy, tests such as the EKG stress test, or treadmill test, is often the best choice for doctors. What if we could test our fitness in a simple, efficient way from the comfort of our own home?

Unfortunately, it's not that easy to achieve such comprehensive results as you would get through a doctor's examination. That being said, there is a simple test that can be carried out at home, without any medical knowledge or equipment that can help you to gain some basic understanding of your own range of motion and strength. This is an especially interesting option for people between the ages of 51 and 80. It is also a fun little challenge for any yogi looking to test their limitations and to improve their strength and mobility.

This simple test is known as the Sitting-Rising test (SRT). In a study conducted by Dr. Claudio Gil Araújo and his colleagues with a group of 2,000 patients, he was able to prove that this test would be suitable as a diagnostic tool in obtaining basic information about a person's physical condition. In order to maintain the most meaningful results, patients were eliminated from the study who either had clear limitations in movement or otherwise could not perform the SRT, and, anyone who had been an athlete or participated in sports competitions. The test is great because it takes less time to conduct than the stress EKG, and it is cost-effective. For these reasons, this test has been used over the years in numerous practices such as Dr. Claudio Gil Araújo's.

Here's how it works:

Patients between the ages of 51 and 80 were asked to sit down on the ground from an upright position and to get up again. They should have as little support as possible. Each of these two movements (i.e. getting up and sitting down) are valued with a maximum of 5 points when they are completed. The result is an ideal 10. It seems easy to do, but it is actually much easier to lose points than you might think. For example, 1 point is deducted for each use of support (i.e. hand or knee). If the person is generally unstable, 0.5 points are deducted.

Probiere den Sitting-Rising Test selbst aus

Hier steht was zum Punktabzug führt.

Results- what do they mean?

Over the period of the study, 159 patients died, resulting in a mortality rate of 7.9%. The majority of the patients who had died had had low SRT test scores, between 0 and 3. Only two of the deceased had achieved the maximum score. Here it is more interesting to look at the overall ratios as opposed to individual cases. For example, those patients who received a SRT score of less than 8 points (basically meaning that they needed more than one hand to get up) had a higher chance of mortality over the next six years than those with higher results. Patients whose SRT scores were 3 or less were 5 to 6 times more likely of dying in the same time period.

Concretely, this means that if a person can get up and sit down without help it can be assumed that the person has above-average fitness allowing them to have good command over their posture and mobility of their limbs. From a statistical point of view, those who can perform these movements can presume a higher life expectancy than those who cannot.