Grip And 'Sit To Stand' Tests Can Predict Your Longevity After 60

You might already know that a person’s grip strength correlates strongly with their overall health, ageing status, strength, bone density, cognitive ability, sleep, and more.

A new paper published in JAMA Network Open, which involved over 5,000 women aged 63-99, looked at how both grip strength and a “sit-to-stand” chair rise correlated to mortality. 

After eight years of follow-up, they found that women who did well in both tests were less likely to die in the years after the first tests. 

How did they measure both strength tests? 

The grip strength test was measured in kilograms. The more pressure you apply to an object – like a tool called a hand dynamometer – when you squeeze it, the higher that kilogram figure is. 

For every seven extra kilograms in the grip test, participants had a 12% lower mortality risk on average. 

The unassisted sit-to-stand chair raises involved getting up from a seated position in a chair to standing without assistance, eg, leaning on something or pushing against an object, as quickly as possible. 

They tracked participants’ speed in seconds for five unassisted sit-to-stand chair raises.

“When it came to chair stands, moving from the slowest time to the fastest time in 6-second increments, researchers saw a 4% lower mortality rate,” the University of Buffalo, whose researchers were involved in the study, said.

Why might strength be so linked to longevity? 

“If you don’t have enough muscle strength to get up, it is going to be hard to do aerobic activities, such as walking, which is the most commonly reported recreational activity in U.S. adults ages 65 and older,” the study’s lead author, Dr Michael LaMonte, told the University of Buffalo.

“Muscular strength, in many ways, enables one to move their body from one point to another, particularly when moving against gravity... When we [can] no longer get out of the chair and move around, we are in trouble.”

Interestingly, the benefits of greater strength seemed to hold even when participants didn’t meet exercise guidelines for 150 minutes a week. 

“We also showed that differences in body size did not explain the muscular strength relationship with death,” Dr LaMonte said. “When we scaled the strength measures to body weight and even to lean body mass, there remained significantly lower mortality.”

How can I stay strong as I age?

The research suggests that maintaining strength as we age is key to better health outcomes. 

“Healthy ageing probably is best pursued through adequate amounts of both aerobic and muscle-strengthening physical activities,” the researcher said.

You don’t need to pump iron daily to reap the benefits, Dr LaMonte suggested: “Even using soup cans or books as a form of resistance provides stimulus to skeletal muscles and could be used by individuals for whom other options are not feasible”.