How much movement happens throughout your day? Are you a desk jockey spending 6-10 hours a day at your desk. Motion is a key component to life. Research is showing us that a sedentary lifestyle is one of the most unhealthy choices you can make. Sitting is the new smoking as they say.
There is a very simple test you can do to see if all that sitting is affecting your life in a detrimental way. It’s called the Sit to Rise Test (SRT).
Getting Up and Down Easily from the Floor is a Marker of Longevity
The SRT is incredibly simple. Sit down on the floor, and then get up, using as little assistance from your hands, knees or other body parts as possible. For each body part that you use for support, you’ll lose one point from the possible top score of 10.
“Application of a simple and safe assessment tool such as SRT, which is influenced by muscular strength and flexibility, in general health examinations could add relevant information regarding functional capabilities and outcomes in non-hospitalized adults,” the researchers noted.
For instance, if you put one hand on the floor for support to sit down, then use a knee and a hand to help you get up, you’ll “lose” three points for a combined score of 7. What do the numbers mean? They correlated strongly with participants’ risk of death during the study period of just over six years. For each unit increase in SRT score, participants gained a 21 percent improvement in survival. Specifically:1
- Those who scored 0-3 were 6.5 times more likely to die during the study than those who scored 8-10
- Those who scored 3.5 to 5.5 were 3.8 times more likely to die
- Those who scored 6 to 7.5 were 1.8 times more likely to die
While I wouldn’t take the results of this study as “gospel” and become distressed if you are 30 years old and score a three, it does provide an interesting perspective on the connection between mobility and health and can provide encouragement for many to get back in shape.
With the New Year upon us taking the time to gauge or overall health is key to helping us achieve our goals. If you are a 4 right now on the SRT then you have a clear goal that as you exercise, eat right and become more active you have an objective measurement of how you are doing.
By increasing flexibility and strength your also reduce your risk for injuries such as back pain, knee problems, headaches and other musculoskeletal disorders that can plague individuals and decrease quality of life.