Prepare to sit and stand

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What it’s good for Conditioning your muscles to the point where you can safely get in and out of a chair, using just your arms and legs to help you. Once you have achieved this, you’ll be ready to move on to the exer­cise Sit and stand
How often to do it Practise one getting-​up and one getting-​down drill up to 10 times every day. If it is too tir­ing to do all 10 at one go, do as many as you can man­age, then rest and do the same num­ber again later in the day
Equipment you’ll need A solid kit­chen chair with arms
A table or wall
Edge of a sink, win­dow sill or rail

If you struggle to get up from a nor­mal kit­chen chair without lean­ing on some­thing to help you push off, it means your leg strength is very poor and you really need to start improv­ing it. Click here to read more about why this mat­ters. Here are some ways to help you start prac­tising safely

The aims

The drills here give you dif­fer­ent ways to prac­tise the bend­ing and straight­en­ing move­ments of stand­ing and sit­ting. Choose the ones that are most prac­tical for your own cir­cum­stances at home and which work best for you. Choose a couple (one get­ting up, one get­ting down) that seem to help the most, and then keep at it, work­ing on these every day, each time try­ing to get just a bit farther than the day before. It may take a couple of weeks before you start to feel it’s get­ting easier but do not give up! When it starts to feel easier to do, move on to a dif­fer­ent drill or have a go at the full Sit and stand exer­cise.

Practice for get­ting up

Drill 1: use the arms of the chair to push you up

  • Shuffle your bot­tom to the front of the chair
  • Place your feet in front of you, toes and knees point­ing for­wards
  • Slide your feet back a little way so that your heels are closer to the chair but still firmly on the ground
  • Place your hands on the arms of the chair
  • Gently suck in your lower abs (belly but­ton)
  • Count to 3 then push your­self for­wards and upwards
  • If you get all the way up, straighten up tall and try to stand in bal­ance for 5 to 10 seconds before sit­ting down
  • If you don’t man­age to get all the way up, go as far as you can, try to stay there for a second, then care­fully lower your­self down
  • Rest and try again.

TIPS
♦ As the drill gets to feel easier, reduce the amount of pushing-​off with your arms, mak­ing your legs do more of the push­ing up work instead.
♦ To make your legs work harder, place a small rolled-​up towel or soft ball between your knees, squeez­ing it as you rise from the chair
♦ If you are wor­ried about top­pling for­wards, sit at a sturdy table, just far enough away to allow you to stand up prop­erly. Having the table in front of you should make you feel safer to stand.

Drill 2: Use a rail or edge of a sink to help pull you up

If you can’t get up just by using the chair arms, try this:

  • Position the chair to face the rail or sink edge that you are going to hold (check that the sink edge is dry and not slip­pery), quite close up
  • Shuffle your bot­tom to the front of the chair
  • Place your feet in front of you, toes and knees point­ing for­wards
  • Slide your feet back a little so your heels are closer to the chair but still firmly on the ground
  • Place your hands on rail or sink edge
  • Gently suck in your lower abs (belly but­ton)
  • Count to 3 then push your­self for­wards and upwards
  • If you get all the way up, straighten up tall and try to stand in bal­ance for 5 to 10 seconds before sit­ting down
  • If you don’t man­age to get all the way up, go as far as you can, try to stay there for a second, then care­fully lower your­self down
  • Rest and try again.

TIPS
♦ At first you may need to pull with your arms as well as push­ing off with your legs. But with every attempt, try to pull less and push-​off more, until you are really just touch­ing the rail or sink for bal­ance rather than pulling on it.

Drill 3: Change the pos­i­tion of one leg to help you push off

You may find this way of get­ting up is easier if, for instance, one leg is much stronger than the other, or if you have a weak side, or if one knee won’t bend very far. But pay atten­tion to good pos­ture, as this will encour­age the weaker side to work harder

  • Shuffle your bot­tom to the front of the chair
  • Place your feet in front of you, toes and knees point­ing for­wards
  • Bring one leg for­wards and the other foot back (but try to keep it fully on the ground)
  • Place your hands on the arms of the chair
  • Gently suck in your lower abs (belly but­ton)
  • Count to 3 then push your­self for­wards and upwards, tak­ing care to avoid lean­ing or twist­ing over to one side as you go
  • If you get all the way up, straighten up tall and step your back foot for­wards in line with your front foot, so you can steady your­self in bal­ance
  • Try to stand in bal­ance for 5 to 10 seconds before shuff­ling care­fully back­wards so you can feel the chair against the backs of your legs, ready to sit down
  • If you don’t man­age to get all the way up, go as far as you can, try to stay there for a second, then care­fully lower your­self down
  • Rest and try again.

Drill 4: hold and hover

If you simply can­not push up to stand­ing at all, try this. You will need either a sink edge /​rail, or place a second chair firmly against a wall, with the chair back dir­ectly in front of you.

  • Sit at the front of your chair, close to a rail, sink edge (make sure it’s dry) or the back of a second chair in front of you
  • Place your feet in front of you, toes and knees point­ing for­wards
  • Slide your feet back a little so your heels are closer to you but still firmly on the ground
  • Place your hands on rail, sink edge or chair-​back
  • Gently suck in your lower abs (belly but­ton)
  • Count to 3 then pull for­wards, push­ing your legs down to lift your bot­tom off the chair
  • Stay there for 1 to 2 seconds, then lower down
  • Rest, then try again.

Repeat this exer­cise as many times as you can until you tire, at least twice a day. Each time, try to push your bot­tom up a little fur­ther away from the chair. After a couple of weeks, try one of the full getting-​up drills above, to see if they are any easier now.

Practice for sit­ting down

Drill 1: Use your arms to help lower you

  • Stand in front of the chair, ready to sit
  • Shuffle back until you can feel the chair against the backs of your legs (don’t turn round to look at it!)
  • Pull in your lower abs (belly but­ton) and push your bot­tom back­wards and down­wards, bend­ing your knees as you lower down slowly
  • Keep your eyes look­ing for­wards
  • when you feel you can’t lower any fur­ther, let your hands go to the sides of the chair and use your arms to help you fin­ish lower­ing down.

TIPS
♦ Try to do the drill 10 times at one go, or until your legs feel too tired to con­tinue
♦ To help your legs work harder, place a small rolled-​up towel or soft ball between your knees, squeez­ing it as you lower
♦ Try each time to lower a bit fur­ther before you use your hands to help
♦ Don’t be alarmed if your knees creak, this is quite com­mon
♦ Once you can get nearly all the way down without hands, move on to the full Sit and stand exer­cise

Drill 2: hold on and hover

  • Stand in front of a sink edge (make sure it is dry) or rail, with your chair just behind you
  • Stand with toes and knees point­ing for­wards, and lightly hold the rail or sink edge
  • Gently pull in your lower abs (belly but­ton), push your bot­tom back and lower a little way
  • Stay there for a slow count of 5, then use your legs to straighten you up again
  • Repeat 10 times or until your legs get too tired to con­tinue.

TIPS

♦ To help your legs work harder, place a small rolled-​up towel or soft ball between your knees, squeez­ing it as you lower and hold
♦ Each time you lower and hold, try to grip less tightly, mak­ing your legs take more of your weight
♦ When it gets a bit easier, just use your fin­gers on the sink edge to help bal­ance you, so your legs do all the work of lower­ing and hov­er­ing.

Drill 3: Hold, hover, lift and lower

  • Stand in front of a sink edge (make sure it is dry) or rail, with your chair just behind you
  • Stand with toes and knees point­ing for­wards, and lightly hold the rail or sink edge
  • Gently pull in your lower abs (belly but­ton), push your bot­tom back and lower it down a little way
  • Stay there for 3 seconds, then lower down a bit more
  • Stay there for 3 seconds, then come up just an inch or two
  • Stay there for 3 seconds then lower down a frac­tion
  • Push all the way up to stand­ing and shake out your legs.

TIPS

♦ To help your legs work harder, place a small rolled-​up towel or soft ball between your knees, squeez­ing it as you lower and hold
♦ As the exer­cise gets a bit easier, try to reduce your grip, so your legs are doing more of the work.

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