Try this once you finish reading. Stand up, cross one foot in front of the other, and lower yourself to the floor without using a hand, knee or piece of furniture.
Then stand back up the same way.
You start with 10 points. Take away one point every time a hand, knee or other body part touches down.
Take away half a point for wobbling.
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That is the sitting-rising test. A large study published in June 2025 in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology tied the final score to how likely someone is to die over the next 12 years.
Researchers led by Claudio Gil Araújo of the Exercise Medicine Clinic in Rio de Janeiro scored 4,282 adults aged 46 to 75 on the test at the start.
They then tracked them for a median of 12.3 years. In that time, 665 died.
Deaths clustered heavily at the low end of the score.
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Among those who scored a perfect 10, 3.7% died. Among those scoring 8, that figure rose to 11.1%. Among those scoring 4 or lower, 42.1% died.
After adjusting for age, sex and body mass index, low scorers were about 3.8 times more likely to die of natural causes than top scorers.
Their risk of dying from heart disease and stroke was roughly six times higher.
What one movement actually measures
A single motion pulls in several fitness qualities at once.
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The study authors point to muscle strength, power, flexibility, balance and body composition as the components of non-aerobic fitness most closely tied to mortality.
Aerobic fitness, meaning how well the heart and lungs handle sustained effort, is already known to track with longevity.
What the sitting-rising test adds is a way to check the rest.
"It’s common sense that aerobic fitness is important for survival, but we [have to] start to look that other things related to fitness that are also important," Araújo told TCTMD.
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Prashant Rao, a cardiologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, was not involved in the research.
He told the same outlet that the score does not favor one sex.
"One thing I quite like about the score is that there's no real sex difference because while men might have more strength, women make up for this in terms of greater flexibility," Rao said.
How to try it safely
Harvard Health Publishing recommends doing the test on a carpet or yoga mat with a partner nearby.
Skip it if you have hip, knee or spine arthritis, or any joint pain that flares with squatting.
A low score is not a diagnosis. Araújo has stressed that the movement is a screening tool, not an exercise, and should be run by someone trained in the protocol.
Where to put the work in
If you needed several supports, train the components the test picks up on.
Those include leg and hip strength, hip and ankle mobility, and standing balance.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity a week for older adults, such as brisk walking.
It also calls for muscle-strengthening work on at least two days plus balance activities like standing on one foot.
Chair sit-to-stands, squats and step-ups build the leg strength the test asks for.
Yoga and mobility routines open the hips and ankles. Standing on one leg while brushing your teeth trains balance every day.
This article is made and published by Ida-Marie Palm Varbæk, who may have used AI in the preparation.