Can you sit to stand without your hands?

The ability to sit down and stand up from a surface is essential for full participation in the community. I often see people stop going to places because “the booths are are too hard to get in and out of,” “the seat is too low,” or “I’m afraid I’ll get stuck.” Unfortunately, the common fixes—avoiding those places or using elevated seats and lift-assist chairs—usually leave people weaker and more limited in their ability to interact with their environment.

So what should you do? I highly recommend working with a physical therapist or qualified exercise professional to build strategies and capacity that bridge the gap between what you can do now and where you want to be. Exercises we commonly use include pushing up to stand with your hands, and practicing sitting down with no hands to improve control and increase time under tension for the involved muscles. Our ultimate goal is to keep daily activities from feeling like exercise so they become easy, automatic parts of life.