Time five chair stands tonight. Beat it Monday.

Three glute moves, about 12 minutes a day, scored with the stopwatch on your phone.

This weekend is for hips that lock up after a long sit. You take a test tonight, train the muscles behind your hips for three days, and retest on Monday morning.

⚡ 10-Second Pulse

After an hour in a chair, how do your hips feel when you stand?

🙂 Loose 😕 Stiff for a few steps 😢 Stiff and sore

Physiotherapists call it the five-times sit-to-stand test. Sit in a firm chair with no armrests, cross your arms over your chest, then stand up fully and sit back down five times as fast as you safely can. In one pooled analysis of healthy adults, the average was 11.4 seconds in their 60s, 12.6 in their 70s and 14.8 in their 80s.

Your glutes, the muscles of your buttock, drive most of each stand. Hours of sitting leaves them idle and holds the hip flexors at the front of the hip in a shortened position, which is the stiffness you feel in the first few steps out of a chair. A Cochrane review of 10 trials linked hip exercise to less pain and better function in hip osteoarthritis.

timed stands

moves by Sunday

12 min

a day, at most

Three days won’t add much muscle. In the first days of strength work, the nervous system learns to recruit the muscle you already have, and that may show up as a quicker Monday time. Write tonight’s number on the fridge.

Same chair, same shoes, same hour. A softer seat or a different time of day changes your score on its own, so keep both tests identical. If you need your hands to push up, use them both times and note it. Stop if a stand causes sharp pain in the hip or groin, and get it checked.

✅ The 3-Day Fix

Friday. Time your five stands. Then do 2 sets of 10 glute bridges: lie on your back, knees bent, feet flat, squeeze your buttocks and lift your hips until you form a straight line from knees to shoulders. Hold 2 seconds, lower slowly.

Saturday. Bridges again, plus 2 sets of 10 side-lying leg raises per side. Top leg straight, toes pointing forward, lift to about knee height. This works the muscle on the outside of the hip that keeps your pelvis level when you walk.

Sunday. Both moves, plus a half-kneeling hip stretch: one knee on a cushion, other foot in front, tuck your tailbone and shift forward until you feel the front of the hip. 30 seconds per side. Finish with a 10-minute walk.

Monday morning. Retest in the same chair and compare.

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More Hip Wins

●	Stand every 30 minutes. Set a repeating phone timer. When it goes off, stand, squeeze your glutes for 5 seconds, and sit back down.
●	Pillow between the knees. If you sleep on your side, it stops the top thigh dropping across your body, which strains the outer hip overnight. Put one on the bed tonight.
●	Put your socks on standing. One hand on the kitchen counter, lift a foot and pull the sock on. It trains hip bend and balance in under a minute a day.

Quick Vote

Where will you do your bridges this weekend?

🧘 On the floor

🛌 On the bed

From the Mailbag

“I had a hip replacement two years ago. Are these moves safe for me?”

Margaret, 67

Glute bridges and side-lying leg raises are standard in many hip-replacement rehab programs, Margaret, because they load the hip without deep bending. At two years out, most surgeons have lifted the early movement limits, but your surgeon or physio knows your approach and your hip. Ask them about the kneeling stretch before you do it; that is the one with the most variation in advice. For the side raises, keep a pillow between your knees and start with a small lift.

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P.S. If you can’t get out of the chair without your hands, practise extra stands this weekend with a firm cushion on the seat. A higher seat means less hip bend per stand. Take the cushion away for Monday’s retest so the two times compare.

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Time five chair stands tonight. Beat it Monday.

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