By Emily Socolinsky
Coach Emily is the Owner and Head Coach of Fivex3 Training in Baltimore, Maryland.
“When you’re down on the floor, don’t let anyone else pick you up, pick yourself up.”—Marco Pierre White, British chef, restaurateur and television personality
Do you struggle to get down to the floor? Do you struggle to get up OFF the floor? Have you ever fallen and NOT been able to get up without assistance? If you answered yes to just one of these questions, this article is for you. While we rarely think about this topic, being able to get down to the floor and get back up is a skill that many of us take for granted. That is until we find ourselves unable to actually perform this simple everyday task.
Here at Fivex3 Training, we do a lot of getting down and getting back up. A lot. Being able to get down to the floor and get back up is an important skill for health and longevity. And over the past 13 years, it is just routine for me to work with many lifters over the age of 60 on this exercise. Getting down to the floor and getting back up is a drill I take very seriously. Some of my clients do this exercise during every training session, while others have joined when they drop in with their adult children who are members of the gym.
Like most older trainees, the three women I’ll discuss in this article have faced different issues with this exercise.
First, meet Claire. She is 58 years old and has suffered from cerebral palsy her entire life. She began strength training with us once a week at the end of August 2018. Prior to her joining us, she had fallen at work on at least two occasions and had no idea how to get back up. Her husband had encouraged her to start training with me on more than one occasion. After her second fall, she decided to give us a try. On Day 1 of her training, we started to work on getting down to the floor and getting back up. We worked together from August 2018 to November 2021 before she and her husband moved out of state. The video in the link above shows her progression from Session 2 to Session 14.
Second up is Mona. Mona is 86 years old and had a knee replacement in 2021. An online client of mine (she lives in New Jersey), she is also the mother of one of my gym members. I had the opportunity to work with Mona in person the first time we met. She was concerned about her knee and told me she did not feel confident to go up and down stairs or get down to the floor. And she was very afraid that if she ever fell, she would not be able to get back up. I asked her if she wanted me to teach her how to get to the floor and get up. She immediately said yes. We went over to the area of my gym with my gym mats and I walked her through the routine I use with my clients. After showing her how to get down onto the floor and get back up—and she succeeded—her eyes lit up!
“I thought my body had given up on me,” she said. “It hasn’t.”
A month later, she contacted me and told me she wanted to start strength training. This was May of 2023. She is still training twice a week with me as of this article.
And then there is Linda, the third lifter in the video, who was in her mid-80s when I worked with her. She, too, had undergone a knee replacement. Linda lived by herself and was very concerned about falling at home and not being able to get back up. So we spent time working on the routine and giving her the confidence she needed.
In December of 2012, a Brazilian study was published in the European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention.1 The study was performed by Dr. Claudio Gil Araújo and colleagues at the Clinimex Exercise Medicine Clinic in Rio de Janeiro. According to their study, “a simple screening test of musculoskeletal fitness has proved remarkably predictive of all-cause mortality in a study of more than 2,000 middle-aged and older men and women. The test was a simple assessment of the subjects’ ability to sit and then rise unaided from the floor. The assessment was performed in 2002 with adults of both sexes and with ages ranging from 51 to 80 years. The subjects were followed from the date of the baseline test until the date of death or 31 October 2011, a median follow-up of 6.3 years.”
As Dr. Araújo stated, “If a middle-aged or older man or woman can sit and rise from the floor using just one hand—or even better without the help of a hand—they are not only in the higher quartile of musculoskeletal fitness but their survival prognosis is probably better than that of those unable to do so.”
A video on Dr. Araújo’s YouTube channel demonstrates the Sitting-Rising Test (SRT), “a simple tool for the assessment of non-aerobic fitness, including its main components—muscle power, flexibility, balance and body composition.”
Eleven years after the Araújo study, another study titled, “The Biomechanics of Healthy Older Adults Rising from the Floor Independently,” was published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.2 As stated in the abstract, “A third of older adults will fall each year and many will not be injured. Getting up from the floor in a timely manner is important, however it is unclear what technique older adults use to get themselves up off the ground unassisted, whether there are differences between men and women in getting up and what functional joint kinematics are used to rise from the floor.”
Having the ability to get up and down independently from the floor with as little help as possible from your hands/arms is an important skill to strive for, and I know how frustrating it is for some of my new clients who are unable to do this… just yet. Of course, you can always just practice getting down and getting back up. But that is just the beginning. Getting stronger while also practicing this important function is the real key to becoming more independent.
My job as a strength coach is to make people stronger as well as move better. I watch people move every single day. I teach them how to squat, press, bench, and deadlift. I help them learn more about their bodies and rediscover their bodies’ capabilities. The stronger my older clients become, the easier it is for them to climb stairs. The stronger they become, the easier it is for them to drive, shop, travel, and simply enjoy their lives more. The stronger they become, the more their posture improves. As they continue to get stronger, they take less and less time to set up for an exercise. They need less and less assistance with certain exercises—all from just performing a few basic exercises. They may not realize it, but they are prolonging their lives by strength training. Being stronger helps us move better. Being stronger helps us require less and less assistance. Being stronger helps us be more confident in our bodies and our abilities. Everyone can get stronger and build muscle at any age. And the older we get, the more we need resistance training, not less. Having more strength will enable you to live a healthy and more productive life as you age.
If you struggle to get off the floor or are nervous about being able to get down to the floor because you are afraid of not being able to get back up, learning how to get down and get back up is a must. And being stronger will give you the confidence to practice. Get Down and Get Up isn’t just an exercise or a drill. It is a skill for life.
Watch Coach Emily’s “Get Down, Get Up” exercise.
Sources
- Brito LB, Ricardo DR, Araújo DS, Ramos PS, Myers J, Araújo CG. Ability to sit and rise from the floor as a predictor of all-cause mortality. Eur J Prev Cardiol. 2014 Jul;21(7):892-8.
- Burton E, Hill KD, Davey P, Ng YL, Williams SA. The Biomechanics of Healthy Older Adults Rising from the Floor Independently. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Feb 16;20(4):3507.
