Exercises to Help Get Up From the Floor Women 50+

In this Video...
If you're struggling with knowing which exercises to help get up from the floor are right for you, Coach Sheree breaks it down step-by-step so you can rebuild strength and independence. Ideal for women over 50. Includes chair drills, planks, sit-stands, and progressive floor-to-stand movements.

Floor Skill |  Beginner Friendly  |  Step-by-Step

Exercises to Help Get Up From the Floor: Readable Version

Let's look at exercises to help get up from the floor. I would start with doing some simple chair exercises first and then we'll have a look at being able to go down on the floor and how I even trained a client just a couple of days ago who's 62. She struggled to get up off the floor. She could get down okay but struggled to get up.

Plank for Core and Arm Strength

So we'll have a look at how I showed her and then what you can be doing to break that down into small areas. But some of the moves I would do in a chair is making sure that chair is against a wall so it's not going to push over. I would have my hands either on the sides of the chair or on the chair itself and just do a plank.

So I try and get that core nice and strong. I pull in from the belly button to the spine. Hold there for about 10 to 20 seconds.

Have a break. Do it again. Do maybe 8 to 10 to 12 reps of that and just start to get those arms strong for being able to push up off the floor because we're going to need those arms when we get down there.

Leg Strength and Side to Side

And also obviously being able to get your sit stand good. So we want to get those legs strong as well. So the plank that we just did then is getting those arms strong.

Then we're getting these legs strong. And then from here you can come forward to the front of the chair and if you did have some weights you can be pushing up a weight or just reaching up side to side.

So we're kind of shifting our weight into one bum cheek, shifting it over to the other bum cheek in order to be able to get up off the floor.

We need to get this core a little bit stronger. You can even take those elbows side to side just so we can feel these abdominals doing some work and get them all stronger. Now I'm going to show you some ways if you can get down on the floor or at least on a bed.

Hinge and Tap Progression

These are some ways that I would practice so you can get up off the floor much easier than probably what you can at the moment. Let's have a look. Now you may need a pile of books for this first bit if you can't get your hands down to the floor.

So if you can't reach your hands down to the floor with a bend of the knees and just touch the floor and come back up, you might need a pile of books. Just making sure you're not trying to push forward. You're just going to tap your hands down.

So we're going to hinge forward. So I'm going to bend forward from these hips, hold my belly button into my spine and I'm just going to tap down. I'm just going to put some weight into those hands and coming back up.

Coming forward again, my belly button is on, my tongue is on the roof of my mouth and I'm just going to come forward. If you feel unstable you may want to try this on your chair first. So just coming forward onto your chair, coming up, forward onto your chair, coming up.

But if you can come down you may need to pile up the books. Just maybe make sure the books are against a wall. But we're just going to come down here because this is some of the way that we're going to be getting up from the floor in the end.

And all things that we do are about chunks of movement. Just one chunk, another chunk and another chunk. So this is a way you can get those arms stronger and start to get some mobility back through these legs.

So it will help you with exercises to help get up from the floor when it's time. 

Getting Down Safely

Now what I would like you to do, I'm going to remove those books, and the next phase in our 'exercises to help get up from the floor,' is to get ourselves down to the floor.

So whichever way you can get onto the floor, I like to, if your knees are not good, you may just want to come down here, get your hands down. Or if you've got a small stool, just plonk down however you can. You may come down to the knees and then straight onto your bottom.

If you've got sore knees, making sure you've got a cushion there. Now from here, there's some little chunks of movement that you can do to get up from the floor. So from here, and this can be done on your bed if you prefer.

Rolling and Elbow Support

So I like to go from here, just coming up onto one elbow. I would have the opposite knee up, but you can have both knees, but probably just the opposite knee. We're just trying to come up onto one elbow.

If you can't even come onto that elbow, you can't come over there far enough, then you can just start with rolling. Just rolling side to side. That might be the very first thing you do.

Roll to Knees and Push-Up Technique

When I can do that okay, then I know this can be a problem for some people with sore knees, but it can be that we get really good at this and hardly need to be on our knees at all. So from here, I'm going to roll over. So this could be something you could practice as well.

If you can't get over, we're just going to roll over from one side back and then over here onto our knees. Now this is where those strong arms comes in handy because when we're on our knees, we then need to curl the toes under. Now you may start with the first time you do this having some books here.

So curl my toes under. I'm going to poke my bum up as high as I can and then now if you've got your hands on some books, you're going to walk your feet in. But I train, so the way I trained my client last week, she was down on the floor.

Poke and Walk Technique

I got her here. So rather than doing the lunge out, that becomes really hard for quite a few people. So I get them here.

This is where we want the strength in our hands. Curl the toes under, poke the bum right up and then we simply bend those legs and walking ourselves all the way back. So go over that again, again.

Practice and Progression

Take chunks of that if you can't do it. Maybe start in the chair if you really lack strength and then start to make your way down the floor. And even if you're on the bed, first of all, have a play around with it because when you get that move, when we can get down onto the floor, I train all my older clients this way and they get up well and can walk themselves up.

And when you keep practicing, practice, practice, practice makes perfect. And whatever we can't do well, we should do more of. And I always teach my older clients that when you do know and practice how to get up from the floor, this is what you should be doing every single day because if you can't do it well, we need to do more of it.

So I hope that these 'exercises to help to up from the floor,' helps you and I hope you can work your way through some of those moves and eventually get yourself up off the floor far better than what you are at the moment. Have fun with it.