Here is a good test to see how mobile you are.
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Here is a great channel my wife uses every day to keep mobile.
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Yeah! I scored a 10. Easy-peasy. I guess I’m good for another 10 years.
DB2
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That is great!!!. I scored a 9. I had to put down a hand. I guess I need to work on my core more. My legs are strong enough but my core is lacking. More setups.
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My core is not, shall we say, one of my strong points. The key is to be relatively slender and keep your center of gravity over your feet. So if you’re sitting cross legged, lean forward until you’re over your crossed feet and then use your leg muscles.
DB2
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I can’t do this test in the prescribed “cross-ankle” way because I tore the Posterior Tibial tendons in my ankles. (Ouch!)
I do this test by lowering myself to the floor with one hand and then by using one hand to lever my (ample) derriere into a squat from which I stand straight up for a total score of 8.
I’m still in cardiac rehab recovering from the extreme weakness after my open-heart surgery last November. Yesterday, I did the 30-second chair stand test, which is recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to assess physical performance in older people. I did 18 (after my rehab session so my legs were tired). A woman my age (71) should be able to score 10 or better so I seem to be recovering. I still don’t feel 100%. I did a wobbly shoulder stand last week – pathetic. I still have a ways to go.
Wendy
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Here is my favorite core exercise, suitable for an old wife like me. It won’t injure your back like sit-ups can. Do it slowly to avoid tearing your shoulders.
Lie on a mat on your back.
Take a 5 pound weight in each hand. Slowly curl into a fetal position with shoulders and hips lifted off the mat.
Slowly extend your arms and legs straight out until they are fully extended.
Slowly bring them back into the starting fetal position.
Repeat 15 times. Do 15 diagonal curl ups on each side. (too complicated to explain) Then do another 15 extended curl ups.
If 5 pound weights aren’t enough, use 8 pound weights.
Wendy
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Past 80 it gets difficult to do it from the floor. Recently I saw a video that talked about standing up and sitting down without help with the hands. There was another video about walking properly, erect, without shuffling, and using heel to toe rolling steps. It emphasised keeping these things in mind so as not to fall into bad habits. The article stressed that walking properly reduced the change of falling. Falling kills people! Even if you stay alive hip replacements are painful and expensive. My immediate family had three hip replacements (I inherited the cane).
I took the advice seriously because I was falling into bad habits, specially walking down stairs. I suffer life long from vertigo. I used to force myself to climb masts to try to get over it. Porto has a special problem, many stairs are unsafe, the steps being far too tall, too narrow, or both. Combine it with vertigo and you don’t want to step too far out which creates a real problem, your heel hits the higher step and that can cause a fall in the worst scenario, at the top of a long staircase, deadly for sure! This made me require handrails. After watching the above mentioned presentations I stared walking down safe staircases without the help of handrails,
Balanced Stair Ergonomics - Overview Tab
The Captain
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For greater insight…and to see if the results of the study actually coincide with the claims of the authors in the press release, here you go…
https://academic.oup.com/eurjpc/advance-article/doi/10.1093/eurjpc/zwaf325/8163161
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Like you, Wendy, right now I cannot perform this sit to stand exercise…and I’m feeling like it’s something that, as a party trick, will be joining the sub-50 minute 10k as something I’ll be viewing in the rear biew mirror 
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My non-aerobic fitness (using the description from the study) has taken a real spanking since my 2nd lapiplasty at the beginning of last year. Working with a personal trainer on whole body strength and conditioning has helped no end but the small gains from my hard work are quite tenuous.
I had a horrible upper respiratory infection at the start of May and was under the weather for a couple of weeks…enough to need a break from training. Once again, my body has demonstrated the truth of the adage that you grow up…and then you grow old. Just like it says in the exercise physiology books, the decline in fitness becomes exponential with each passing decade if you let it (or are forced to)
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I have never been able to pass that test. Hope it’s wrong.
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There are a number of ways of looking at a test like this. First one…most obvious…is to use it as something to assess your non aerobic fitness in the here and now. In other words, how frail are you? Is it possible to identify the limiters and work to improve them…and are you willing to. In my case I’m adopting the mindset that, even if I can’t regain the strength, stability, flexibility to once more perform the party trick, the efforts to do so are what’s of benefit to my health and well-being.
Another question to ask, though, is what features do folk who are low scorers on these types of tests tend to share, and oftentimes over an extended period, that makes them susceptible to premature death…particularly from cardiovascular disease (per the study) although cancer and respiratory diseases were up there too. Looking through all the statistical jiggery-pokery in the study, it looks to me like excess weight and poor body composition were the top candidates.
So, rather than be disappointed with not scoring a 10, just avoid the sub 4 lifestyle (too much eating and sitting)
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A good point. The statistical power of a number of studies like this depends upon the strong response of the extremes (either high or low).
DB2
I wasn’t so much thinking about that, although they’re certainly confounders. More along physiology lines, and what actually goes into being able to perform “well” on these tests that’re supposed to correlate with longevity (usually the lifespan part) More to the point, does short term training/lifestyle changes to improve a score give a person the boost to increased mortality that I fancy a lot of folk might infer.
VO2MAX is oftentimes cited as a longevity predictor and the folk who’re involved in this line of research naturally portray it as superior. Peter Attia has quite a few of his podcasts devoted to this parameter…and with the similar sort of discussion. Here’s a snippet from one that’s behind the usual paywall but such discussion as is viewable maybe sheds a bit of light on what I’m trying to explain.
The thing about VO2MAX as a predictor is that it’s not very easy to “game” a VO2MAX test score. Genetics aside, it’s a good measure of “organic” healthy lifestyle/fitness choices routinely over the long haul, rather than a burst of training over a few weeks…or even months.
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@iampops5 considering the age you have already attained that test is already wrong. 
As @VeeEnn described in detail the sit-to-stand test (whether from the floor or from a chair) is a way to quickly measure physical abilities that directly impact your ability to function independently and not get hurt. These tests were designed for elderly people (like us). Many people over age 60 are sedentary and lose their physical fitness. Only 5% of Americans over age 60 get the equivalent of 20 minutes of walking per day. (120 minutes per week.)
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If you fell would you be able to get up? I know at least two elderly people who fell while living alone and couldn’t get up. It took over a day for someone to miss them and find them in order to help them up.
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Are you frail? Do you have enough heart and lung capacity to get up each day, get dressed, make food and eat by yourself?
As @VeeEnn said, it’s much harder to retain muscle strength at our age even if we try very hard. The sit-to-stand test from a chair is recommended by the government and is more realistic for us than sit-to-stand from the floor. Practicing this test every day will make us stronger in important ways.
Wendy
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The sit-to-stand from the floor with crossed ankles specifically requires high core strength. It makes a point statistically but isn’t practical because many older people have foot, ankle, knee and hip problems that interfere.
The sit-to-stand from a chair requires high leg and hip strength and high aerobic capacity but not high core strength. The latter is recommended by the CDC.This is a practical, functional test. Everyone needs to be able to get up from a chair.
The worst distress I had after my open-heart surgery was not the pain but the extreme weakness. This was most obvious in the weakness I felt standing up from a chair. I’m still doing exercises to strengthen these specific muscles by doing lunges to the back and front. I have to be very careful not to tear my posterior tibial tendons again.
My goal is to be able to do a handstand again.
Wendy
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Before my first lapiplasty which was in October 2021, I embarked on about 3 months of a sort of supercompensation level of conditioning (unaware of my cardiac status at the time) One of the variations on the sit to stand began with the chair and progressed through weighted, increasingly lower, single leg etc until I was doing pretty much pistol squats. The value of this came after surgery when I could get myself up off the toilet seat one legged and change my underwear unassisted too.
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Maybe I’m in better condition than I thought. I spent about 10 hours walking around a theme park yesterday. Sure, there were breaks and time spent sitting. And I was tired. But I feel fine this morning. No aches or pains, aside from the usual ones, of course. My phone says it was 16,000 steps, although I don’t fully trust that count.
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That is huge. Almost 8 miles.
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@ptheland glad to hear you had such a nice time and felt fine after 16,000 steps. For long-term physical fitness the key is consistency. If you can find a nearby park and walk 5,000 to 10,000 steps every day consistently you will maintain your health for the long term.
Wendy
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