Stand up sit down keep moving

[nineveh_uk]

It is 11pm. I am supposed to be in bed. Instead I am pyjama-clad and in my bedroom but experimenting in how to get up off the floor without using knees or hands. To be precise I'm wondering why almost all the examples imply that the only way to do this is crosslegged, rather than via a squat. It turns out I can do it crosslegged, but only easily by rolling myself backwards first to gain momentum and leap up in a cartoon ninja move. I can't help feeling that there may be a teensy bit fo different body shapes and proportions, centre of gravity differences going on in this even before flexibility and strength come in to play.

ETA. Oh wait, I've worked out how to do it. The people in the videos have their feet far back towards the hips and the sides of the feet on the floor. You go up on those.

ETA 2: Got it. It's about finding the starting position that allows use of the thigh muscles as well as the core. If my legs are too flat, their muscles aren't in the right plce to provide the necessary force, if they are more upright, my centre of gravity is in the wrong place (overcome by the ninja move). Whereas the squat technique lets me use all relevant muscles easily and move my weight forward.

ETA 3: No, that's not really what I'm doing. Well, I have worked it out, anyway!

ETA 4: This is ridiculous. I locked myself in the stationery cupboard at work to try again (successfully). Now I cannot. Though possibly this is because I've just had dinner.

Comments

[ruric]

I applaud your commitment to late night research!

[nineveh_uk]

I am supposed to be committed to an early night! I have failed comprehensively.

[ruric]

I know that feeling!

[antisoppist]

I applaud your dedication.

There is no way I could get up off the floor without using knees. I just tried and I cannot even imagine how there is any bit of my body my brain could tell to do anything that would make that happen. It is the same as Yoga with Adriene's insistence on doing things from sitting cross-legged. The only way I can do anything from sitting cross-legged is first stop attempting to uncomfortably sit cross-legged.

What position are you starting off from? I can't envisage it from your description.

[nineveh_uk]

I found doing it cross-legged really counter-intuitive, and even though I can do it physically it took forever to work out how. It seems to have currency as a fitness test and predicting longevity, and it seems to me like saying that someone will starve to death because they fail the test of cooking a perfect fluffy omelette, rather than whether they can cook an egg. I bet that you could get up without knees if you tried the way toddlers do it, which I found in this video, which uses hands. This is the ninja move except to really get the momentum it needs to be done much faster.

I admit that my description is a bit rubbish. This video shows the basic sit down and stand up. The trick is definitely to position your legs so you can swing the trunk forward, and to use the sides of the feet more than a student athlete does! But I don't think I'm going to be bothering to perfect it.

[antisoppist]

Nope. Going down I can get much lower before I fall over if I do it as a squat without my ankles crossed but I still have to just fall over at the end. Going up, I can't see how you get from your weight being on the sides of your feet cross-legged, to it being on the soles of your feet to enable you to stand up.

It's like when Adriene says to sit cross-legged and now smoothly rock onto all fours. I can't see how you get your legs to go from in front of you to being behind you without crushing your ankles and why would you do that when you can swing your knees round and kneel up.

I'd only heard of this kind of thing as a test to see if you would be left lying on your floor for days when you are old and fall over and I thought I was fine because I can get up off the floor, without hands if necessary, but this is more demanding as a fitness test. It is this kind of thing that is why I am doing 30 Days of Yoga again.

[nineveh_uk]

I am going with clanwilliam's brother saying it is a stupid test.

I have just eaten dinner so I can't do it again at all now, even though at work I went and experimented in the stationery cupboard and managed it (it is a narrow, carpeted room, not an actual cupboard). However I have just experimented in smoothly rocking to all fours, and well yes, it can be smooth, but it certainly isn't comfortable!

[marginaliana]

My ankles would murder me when trying to do that. The way you're putting all the weight on the side of the foot, I think, would be the real issue.

[caulkhead]

I just can't put that much force through the sides of my feet, it hurts too much.

[antisoppist]

This. Yes. This is where I'm getting cross with the yoga video woman who keeps saying "now relax in a nice easy cross-legged position" and I'm going "ow, that makes the sides of my feet hurt against the floor".

[nineveh_uk]

I have to say, a fitness test with a significant risk of injuring oneself doesn't seem a fantastic idea to me!

[azdak]

Oh, now I get it! I didn't realise this was a Thing (with videos and everything), so when I saw a mention of "get up without using your knees or hands" online, I just stood up from my chair and wondered what the fuss was about. But having read your post, I have now tried to get up off the floor from a cross-legged position and I can do that easily - I'm very tall, though, so I get plenty of leverage from just leaning forwards, and yes, I use the sides of my feet. It isn't elegant at all!

[nineveh_uk]

It is definitely not elegant! I have now worked out how I personally need to sit and lean forward to do it, but it has been as much an intellectual exercise as a physical one in order to work out how, and I still find it a lot harder than just putting my feet on the ground hip-width apart but not crossed, which was how I instinctively did it having seen it as a Thing, but not seen a video/the cross-legged part mentioned. I think I shall just stick to my NYR of remembering to have good posture at my work desk!

[caulkhead]

I was bemoaning my own inability to do this* to my brother over Christmas. My brother the chartered physiotherapist and stupidly fit ultrarunner. He can't do it, and he regularly runs 50 miles over boggy mountains (interpret 'stupidly' however you like...), and deadlifts more than I like to think about.

And I quote: "It's a flexibility issue. That's it. It's completely pointless as a fitness test. If you can get up from the floor on your own, that's what matters, not how you do it."

*I want to be able to do it so I can do sit spins one day, but we were talking generally.

[antisoppist]

Please thank your brother. That is what I thought just being able to get up off the floor was about.

[caulkhead]

He's also very big on being able to get up from chairs in the right way (which I can do but cannot possibly describe), rather like azdak was doing.

[antisoppist]

That is a good thing to emphasise. My mum now gets stuck in chairs - rocking backwards and forwards to build up enough momentum to propel her onto her feet - and last time she was at mine enterprisingly got up from The Wrong Sort of Chair by tipping herself onto all fours on the floor and crawling to haul herself up by the sofa. I couldn't help her up without wrecking my back. This is why I started doing online yoga last year because I don't want to be in the same position when I'm 80. I'm just aiming to get generally more flexible, more coordinated and vaguely stronger as a starting point.

[nineveh_uk]

Does the right way of getting up from a chair involve using the arms or not using the arms?

[caulkhead]

You keep your back straight and go up from your thighs/glutes without tilting your upper body forward.

[nineveh_uk]

Sit spins are an impressive goal!

I would say that your brother is wise, except that he is an ultrarunner. So I will say instead that he has what sounds like good professional expertise and I am happy to accept his view.

[caulkhead]

I wouldn't have thought they were within reach, but I saw somebody who is older than me and not much more flexible (though a much better skater) doing one for the first time a few months ago so...maybe?

I can do a very very rough catchfoot spiral, which I thought was reserved for six year olds and Olympians. This makes me ludicrously happy.

[carbonel]

I tried this back when it was making the rounds some time ago, despite the fact that correlation between the ability to get up without using arms and lifespan is definitely not causation.

I am fat but reasonably fit, but not terribly flexible, and totally failed at the attempt. Also, my knees are fine, but it hurts me a lot to put weight on kneecaps, so I've always been awkward about getting up from sitting on the floor unless I have something other than knees to lean on.

I appear to have a body that was purpose-designed for sitting in chairs.

[castiron]

Okay, I have now tried this multiple times, and I can get up without using my hands, but without using my knees is not happening.