Timed Up & Go
The time to stand from a chair, walk 3 meters (10 feet), turn, walk back and sit down. It combines strength, balance and walking in one number and is used in fall-risk screening.
How to do the Timed Up & Go at home
- Chair with arms against a wall; a mark 3 meters (10 ft) in front of it.
- Sit back in the chair. On 'go', stand, walk at your normal pace to the mark, turn, walk back and sit down.
- Time from 'go' until you are seated again. Use your usual footwear and walking aid if you use one.
- 12 seconds or longer flags higher fall risk in CDC screening.
Norms by age
| Age | Mean seconds (healthy adults) | 95% CI |
|---|---|---|
| 60–69 | 8.1 | 7.1–9.0 |
| 70–79 | 9.2 | 8.2–10.2 |
| 80–99 | 11.3 | 10.0–12.7 |
Source: Bohannon 2006 meta-analysis of healthy older adults (21 studies, sexes combined), PMID 16914068. Screening cut-offs: 12 seconds or longer flags higher fall risk in the CDC STEADI algorithm; Shumway-Cook et al. 2000 found 13.5 seconds separated fallers from non-fallers in a small sample, PMID 10960937. TUG alone is a modest predictor of falls in community-dwelling adults, PMID 24484314.
Why it predicts survival
TUG combines the strength, balance and gait speed that the survival studies track separately. As a fall-risk screen it is moderate rather than decisive on its own, PMID 24484314, which is why the program tests all five measures rather than one.
What a real improvement looks like
1.0 second faster or more. Day-to-day scores wobble; the program counts an improvement only when it clears a published threshold for change (chair stand +2.0–2.6 reps and TUG 0.8–1.4 s from an anchor-based physiotherapy trial, PMID 21335930; gait speed 0.10 m/s "substantial change", PMID 16696738). Single-leg stance uses a program convention of +5 seconds because no published threshold exists.
Twelve weeks of the right training moves these numbers: aerobic training raised VO2max by 3.78 mL/kg/min in a meta-analysis of sedentary older adults, PMID 25901000; resistance training raised leg-press strength by about 29% in adults over 50, PMID 20385254; balance training improved balance measures with the best results at 11–12 weeks and three sessions a week, PMID 26325622.
Train the number
Stronger for Longer is a free 12-week walking, strength and balance program that tests this measure at weeks 0, 6 and 12. No supplements, nothing to buy.