
What it’s good for | Strengthening the muscles that let you bend and straighten your legs. Daily examples include:
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How often to do it | Daily |
Equipment you’ll need | A solid kitchen chair, no arms |
- Sit at the front of the chair
- Place your hands at the sides of the chair and your feet fully on the ground as close to the chair as they will go, knees pointing forwards
- To stand up, gently pull in your lower abs (belly button) and push off
- Straighten up fully, and stand still in balance for a moment
- Shuffle back until you can feel the chair against your legs (don’t turn round to look at it!)
- Pull in your lower abs (belly button) and push your bottom backwards and downwards to lower you down again slowly, without using your hands
- Keep your eyes looking forwards while you sit down
- Rest for a couple of seconds then shuffle forwards, ready to start again.
Aim to repeat the exercise 10 times
Cannot do this at all? If you are finding this impossible, click here for an alternative.
Varying the exercise for more challenge
Once you can sit and stand 10 times easily, you need to make the exercise a bit harder to continue strengthening your muscles. Work through each of these progressions in turn: once you can do the first one 10 times comfortably, move on to the next one.
The progressions
Progression 1: Push off from thighs
Instead of pushing off with your hands at the sides of the chair, place your hands on your mid-thighs to push off
Progression 2: No hands
Let your arms hang by your sides, so you are pushing off without using hands, just legs alone
Progression 3: Arms crossed
Cross your arms across your chest as you stand and lower down
Progression 4: Slow motion descent
Stand up without using hands. Then sit down again in slow motion, so it takes a slow count of 5 from standing to sitting again
Progression 5: Half-sit and hold
Stand up without using hands. Then start sitting down again until you get half-way. Stop there, counting to 3 while you keep your lower abs (belly button) gently pulling in, then carry on sitting down
Progression 6: Half-sit with longer hold
Same as 5, but count to 5 instead of 3 when you stop half-way down
Able to do all of these? You are ready to move on to squats and lunges.
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