What is a good 5 Times Sit-to-Stand time for your age?

What the 5 Times Sit-to-Stand Measures

The 5 Times Sit-to-Stand, often written as 5xSTS or FTSST, times how long it takes to stand fully and sit fully five times in a row, arms crossed over the chest. The movement sounds simple, but rising from a chair is one of the most demanding everyday tasks for an older adult. Each stand lifts nearly the whole body weight using the quadriceps, glutes, and hamstrings, and it requires trunk control and balance to avoid pitching forward or backward. Because of that, the test works as a proxy for lower-limb muscle power, which is the quality that matters for stairs, tubs, and getting up from the floor. It also captures confidence: a person afraid of falling moves more slowly even with strong legs.

This test is often paired with the Timed Up and Go, and the two ask different questions. The TUG measures the whole journey of standing, walking, turning, and sitting. The 5 Times Sit-to-Stand isolates the hardest part of that journey, the rising itself, and repeats it five times so fatigue becomes part of the picture. That makes it more sensitive to leg weakness and power loss than a single stand would be, and it explains why times correlate so strongly with knee-extension strength in the Bohannon 2010 data.

5 Times Sit-to-Stand Norms by Age

Reference values below are based on Bohannon et al. (2010), who tested 181 community-dwelling adults aged 14 to 85 and reported mean five-repetition sit-to-stand times that rise steadily with age.

For older adults, Bohannon (2007) reported a mean of about 7.6 seconds in a smaller community-dwelling sample, and a 2006 meta-analysis of elders put the pooled value near 9 seconds. The wide individual range is why the 13.7-second cutoff matters more than your exact ranking.

Fall-Risk Classification

Whitney et al. (2005) validated the Five-Times-Sit-to-Stand Test in people with and without balance disorders and identified 13.7 seconds as the optimal cutoff for discriminating between the two groups.

Why 13.7 Seconds Is the Threshold

Researchers wanted a single number that separates people who can rise from a chair easily from those who cannot. Whitney and colleagues compared adults with balance disorders to healthy controls and found that 13.7 seconds best separated the two groups. Lord and colleagues (2002) added an important nuance: sit-to-stand performance depends on strength, but also on sensation, walking speed, balance, and even mood, which is why the test is such a broad health signal. In practice, a time under 13.7 seconds keeps you in the lower-risk group for most community-dwelling adults, while anything above it means it is worth strengthening the legs and re-testing in six to eight weeks.

What Your Result Means

The sit-to-stand movement recruits the quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes and demands trunk control and balance. A fast time reflects powerful, well-coordinated legs; a slow time usually tracks weakness, joint stiffness, or balance problems.

• Under 13.7 seconds: Lower fall risk, consistent with healthy community-dwelling adults.
• 13.7 to 15 seconds: Borderline. Increase sit-to-stand practice and leg strengthening.
• Over 15 seconds: Higher fall risk. Have a physical therapist assess strength and balance.

These categories track the published evidence, but the exact boundary is not magic. A person at 13.2 seconds and a person at 14.0 seconds are essentially neighbors. The useful questions are the direction of travel toward or away from the cutoff, and the pattern across the other mobility tests too, such as a slow Timed Up and Go or a slow walking speed.

A Worked Example: Reading Your Time

Consider a 68-year-old man who completes five chair stands in 12.4 seconds. That is under the 13.7 cutoff, so he stays in the lower-risk group. Bohannon 2010 puts the typical mean for adults in their sixties near 8.5 to 9 seconds, so 12.4 is slower than average but still below the danger line. The practical takeaway mirrors the TUG: watch the trend, not the single reading. If the same man re-tests three months later at 11.0 seconds after doing chair stands twice a week, he has real evidence the program is working. If instead his time climbs to 14.2 seconds, that is a signal to see a professional.

How to Improve Your 5 Times Sit-to-Stand Time

• Chair-stand drills: 3 sets of 10 to 15 repetitions, 2 to 3 times weekly, is the most direct training.
• Squats and step-ups: Build the quadriceps and glute strength the test demands.
• Explosive power work: Add fast, controlled "power stands" to train speed rather than just strength.
• Balance training: Tandem walking and single-leg stands improve the stability needed for smooth transitions.

See our functional mobility tests guide for a complete program and the mobility and longevity guide for how these metrics relate to survival.

How to Run the Test at Home

1. Use a standard chair with a seat height of roughly 43 to 46 cm, placed against a wall so it cannot slide.
2. Sit with your back against the chair and your arms crossed over your chest.
3. On the word go, stand fully and sit fully five times without using your hands.
4. Time from the instruction until you are fully standing for the fifth time.
5. Record the time. A single trial is typical, but averaging two trials improves reliability.

Keep your feet flat on the floor, roughly shoulder-width apart, and wear shoes with good grip so the floor does not become a variable. If you cannot rise without your hands, stop the test and mention it to a physical therapist rather than pushing through.

The Muscles Behind a Fast Chair Stand

Think about what a single stand involves. From a seated position with the hips flexed, the quadriceps must generate enough force to lift the body's mass against gravity, and they must do it quickly enough to avoid stalling halfway up. The glutes extend the hip as you rise, and the trunk muscles keep the spine stable while the center of mass moves forward over the feet. Lord and colleagues (2002) showed that quadriceps strength explains only part of the picture; ankle strength, foot sensation, and balance each contribute. That is why a person with strong legs can still test slowly if balance is poor, and why this test improves most with a mixed program of strength and balance work.

Why This Test Matters for Independence

Chair stands sit at the center of daily life. Rising from a toilet, getting out of a car, leaving a bathtub, and standing from a dining chair all use the same muscles and the same balance demands. When that pattern slows, every one of those tasks gets harder and riskier. This is why the 5 Times Sit-to-Stand appears in geriatric assessments alongside walking tests, and why improving it tends to improve real-world mobility rather than just a score. A time under 13.7 seconds is a reassuring sign that the legs can still do the work of independent living.

The connection to independence shows up in research on disability. Older adults who slow down on repeated chair stands are more likely to report difficulty with bathing, dressing, and household chores, because all of those tasks require repeated sitting and rising. The encouraging part is that this test responds to training at almost any age. Simple chair-stand programs in community-dwelling older adults produce meaningful time improvements after a few months, even in people in their eighties. Your starting number matters less than the direction it is moving.