What Does The Sitting Rising Test Predict?

This “sitting-rising” exercise was designed to predict mortality in middle-aged and older people. The test was devised by a team led by Claudio Gil Araújo, a Brazilian physician and researcher in exercise and sports medicine, and published in the European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention in 2012.

You may have heard about the Sitting-Rising Test for Mortality. This test is said to predict your mortality based on how well you perform the task of sitting down onto the floor and rising back up to standing.

“Musculoskeletal fitness, as assessed by the Sitting-Rising Test, was a significant predictor of mortality in 51 to 80-year-old subjects.” In an interview with the European Society of Cardiology, Dr. Araújo explained:

Sitting-rising test. The sitting-rising test is an easy-to-administer test which provides a significant and efficient prediction of mortality risk in elders. It was initially developed in the 1990s.

Even after the SRT results were controlled for age, gender and body mass index, results suggest that the sitting-rising test score is a significant predictor of all-cause mortality.

And because factors such as the height of the arms on a chair or a clinician’s speed with a stopwatch can vary, the results could also be unreliable. So he and colleagues developed an alternative, which they call the sitting-rising test, or SRT.

He and his research team at the Clinimex Exercise Medicine Clinic in Rio de Janeiro asked 2,002 male and female adults between the ages of 51 and 80 to perform the sitting-rising test. The researchers followed up with the study subjects for several years, and 159 subjects died during the research.

What is sitting rising test?

The sitting-rising test is an easy-to-administer test which provides a significant and efficient prediction of mortality risk in the elderly. It was initially developed in the 1990s.

The maximum possible score on the SRT is 10 points: a possible total of 5 points for sitting down, and 5 points for rising from the floor to a standing position. Use of a hand, forearm, knee, or the side of the leg to press up from the ground—or bracing a hand on the knee—each result in a deduction of one point.

Why do we sit on a chair?

When we sit on a chair, we often slouch, or use the back of the chair to support us, thus robbing the back muscles of a chance to do the work of staying strong. Sitting on a chair also means we tend to keep our legs together, which in turn means that our hip sockets start to shrink-wrap to this reduced range of motion.

She credits her years of yoga practice for this. Yoga incorporates a move that in itself may help us to improve that SRT score: sitting on the floor more often, which naturally involves getting down and getting up more often as well. Compared to our common practice of sitting on chairs, sitting on the floor is healthier.