ADL#12: How to Get Up From the Floor Without Help

What if knowing how to get up from the floor without help didn't feel impossible, but empowering?

The truth is, if you can't get up right now, it's not because you're fragile, you're just out of practice. 

In this post we'll show that it's possible and how step-by-step to make it happen... Just like Glennis, one of our champion seniors clients has done.

Meet Glennis: Daily Practice Builds Confidence

So before we discuss the how-tos, listen to one of our grandma strong warriors, Glennis, who at 88 still knows how to get up from the floor without help, and proves that it's never too late. Watch video below.

CLICK HERE if you'd like to listen to Glennis' FULL story?

You'll see in the images below that Glennis at 88, has still got it... she practices this everyday!!!

"It's easy to get on the floor, but to get up isn't easy, and I know a lot of people can't get up unless they're hanging onto something. That's what you have to do. You have to be able to get up without holding onto anything."
Glennis

Watch: Get Back Up - Reclaim Your Freedom (13mins)

[Glennis' part-story is from 00.24 to 01.32 in the YouTube video below]

Why Knowing 'How to Get Up From the Floor Without Help' MATTERS at Any Age

Look, getting down on the floor is such a wonderful life skill. It's one of these skills that helps us to stay independent at home.

• Could be that we want to play with your grandkids.
• It could be that something's rolled under the bed, and we just need to get down to the floor and get it, but also we need to be able to get back up again.
• Perhaps you've had a fall and there is no immediate assistance, so you'll have to do it yourself. 
• Maybe you just want to maintain the independence of being able to get down and clean the floor, or sit on the ground and garden.

So let's have a look at:

1. Being able to get up and down, or down and up off the floor, both assisted and un-assisted.
2. And then we're going to be doing some exercises, both on your bed and standing up that will help you to achieve those skills that you need to stay strong, to be able to get up and down.
3. Then provide you with additional 'how to get up from the floor without help' resources, from our various GrandmaSTRONG libraries.

Step-by-Step: How to Get Down & Up Assisted

So we're going to look at being able to get down to the floor, and then how to get up from the floor, with the assistance of a chair. 

1. We're going to put our hands on the chair, coming down with one knee, then down to the other knee, and then rolling over onto your bottom.
2. As long as none of these exercises movements causes you pain, then that's fine. Otherwise, just down onto your bottom here.
3. Now, when we are down, there's a number of ways that you can get up. Obviously, the easiest way to get up is to come over onto your knees, crawling wherever you need to be, coming up onto a chair, or a pile of books.
4. Look, you may not have a chair there, but you've got a pile of books, so you can pile them up and be pushing up. Obviously not as stable as a chair, but when we can come from here, taking one leg up and the other leg up.

Step-by-Step: How to Get Up Un-Assisted

To practice this how to get up from the floor un-assisted movement, get back down on the floor, use the assisted method above if needed.

1. Let's assume for whatever reason you've ended up on our back. So from here, we need to be able to roll onto our side. 
2. Now, some of you will be able to roll onto your side with just taking those knees over. But if you can't, you may want to take this top leg all the way over. As you bring that leg over, it almost rolls your body onto the side.
3. So from here, we're going to try and come up onto our forearms. Now, from here, we're going to try pushing our hands back. And from this position, there's two main ways that people get up.

1. Instead from the all fours position come up into a bear crawl position. And if we can get this bit of upper body stronger, then this, to me, is the better way to do it. I've done it with many clients, people in their 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.
2. Taking that bottom up, and then walking yourself all the way up until you're upright again. Now, failing that, obviously. Now, I know some people's knees do not like being on the floor.  
3. But if it's life and death, obviously coming to a chair and standing up.

Get up Strengthening With Chair Based Exercises

Now we're going to be looking at breaking those movements down and how to do some exercises that'll help to get us strong enough to be confident to get down and then how to get up off the floor, do some dusting under the bed, whatever it may be, but that we're confident enough to get downed and up again.

So let's have a look at:

• some standing strength exercise with and without a chair, 
• and then we're going to go down onto our bed or onto the floor to do some floor work.

So these are some of the ways that we can strengthen so we can get down and up off the floor. Obviously, a large part of this is our core and our upper body.

So if you've got a chair, you can just come over the top of a chair, just lean forward over that chair, have a slight bend in those arms, and holding over the top.

So you can be holding these for maybe up to 30 seconds, having a break, come back and do it again, do about 10 of those.

The other things that you can be doing is over the top of a chair, just bending these knees. So you're going to hold the belly button into the spine first, you've got your tongue on the roof of the mouth, and we're just going to drop these knees in so that we're now working a bit more of our core.

You can feel that core happening to work while you're holding here. You can obviously do these on the floor if you're a little more advanced, but this will really work that core. 

Another thing you can be doing is nice and straight and bringing one knee in and the other knee in. So one knee and other knee. Holding that core on the whole time and tongue on the roof of the mouth because that neck is doing quite a bit of work as we lean forward. So repeating all of these, I like to go 30 seconds or so, do them, or you can do them to fatigue.

Have a break and come back again at some other time in the day. I think that if you're doing it for fatigue, then you're doing it the hardest that you can, and you're really pushing yourself to try and get that. We don't work through pain, so being careful that you don't work through pain.

1. The other thing that we'll be doing is squats. So just over a chair, we're actually going to, if you can, try not to use your arms with this. We're trying to use our legs here and trying to push up without using our arms.
2. So just going to come forward, pushing up through those heels and standing up, coming back down again. So lean forward, pushing up through the heels and coming down. Obviously, when we're on the floor, we're in a very bent position and we're trying to come up off the floor.

1. So this will help to get those legs just that little bit better coming up and coming down. Now, if you can, you can even be doing a one-legged, working on one leg a little bit more.
2. So you can have a toe on one side and the whole foot on the other and see if you can come up with one leg because it's always good if we can work one leg more than the other.
3. So when we've got one full foot down, one toe up, or you can have a heel up. If you need some balance with a mop stick or a broomstick, feel free, or the wall beside you, but it's actually good to make one leg work because what if we've broken the other leg? 

Remember, we always workout both legs,  

Get up Strengthening With Bed Based Exercises

NOTE: If you're confident doing these 'how to get up from the floor without help' bed exercise movements on he floor, do that. Otherwise use the bed as a starting point.

Now, so this is my pretend bed on the floor. Now you cannot beat being able to get down on the floor.

So get down on the floor if you can, and we'll do some of these exercises. But if not, get on your bed or on a firm couch or even a firm coffee table that you know is going to hold your weight. Otherwise a firm couch or a firm bed, and we're going to be trialing some of these things to make ourselves get stronger, to be able to get up off the floor.

So from here, I want you to think about that roll to the side. So you can either have a knee up and we're going to roll. Let's just take our knees up actually.

1. Let's just roll to the side. So we're just going to practice rolling side to side. So you're going to roll that whole body all in one go.

Now, if you find that you can't roll that whole body all in one go, then try the straight leg trick. 

1. Lying on your back with knee up
2. Bring leg up, 
3. Bring it over and rolling.
4. Repeat. Come back, bring it over and roll.

Your idea is to really try and roll that whole body. So we're actually going to practice doing that on our bed or on the floor. If you can though, rather than taking that leg over, take both legs together, or you can even have those legs straight and practice rolling.

When you can, go roll side to side rather than just on one side because this core is working really hard. 

1. Now from here, I like to take a leg up and then from here,
2. We're just going to practice rolling 
3. And then coming up onto an elbow.

Come back down again, roll over onto that side, coming up onto an elbow. Maybe have 10 to 12, 8 to 12 goes on that side. And then obviously we're going to go over to the other side and come up on an elbow.

Now, when you've done that 10 to 12 each side, you can be coming from here. So we rolled over, we've come up onto our elbow and then being able to come up onto that elbow, pushing up. 

1.  Roll to the side.
2. Come up onto an elbow.
3. Up onto a hand.

You might do a number of moves in that same way. So we come down onto that elbow, back onto our back. We roll, we come back, we roll, come up onto an elbow, come up onto hand.

Now, if you're doing all this elbow, hand on one side, remember to do it on the other side. You never know if you've had a fall, what injury you're going to have. So it's good to be able to come up on both elbows, both arms.

So just in case I've broken my main arm, this arm here, then I need to be able to do it on my other side so I can just support that fractured area that I've got or hurt area that I've got. 

1. And then from there, practice coming over.
2. So practice coming onto your side. 
3. Coming over onto your front, all fours
4. Repeat. Back onto your side and back onto your front.

And then from the hands and knees position, 

1. We may decide to just walk our hands in,
2. Take that bum up in the air 
3. And come back down again. 

So you can see that all movement is made up of progressive moves. So if we're trying to get up off the floor, then there's nothing better to get down on a low, whether it be the couch or bed and start doing that. So over here, walk our hands back, come up with there and back down again.

And then from there comes, and you'll probably need to have your feet off the bed and I'll show you how to do that. So if we've gotten good at this and you've been able to come up to there, then try taking those hands. You'll obviously want your feet on the floor for this one. You'll take your feet on the floor and you may just walk your hands out, walk your hands back.

1. You'll obviously want your feet on the floor for this one.
2. Walk your hands back. 
3. Then walk your hands out. 
4. Then walk your hands back, and stand up in between and squeeze those butt cheeks.

Remember, core is on, so belly button's pulled into the spine. We're going to walk these hands out, hold for a moment and walk these hands back up.

And they will all help you to be the best you can be if you have a fall or you need to get up off the floor.

SO... Give these a try!

Just be confident knowing who you are, knowing that you now know how to get up from the floor without help, safely. The clients that I've had come in the door and I've shown them how to do it, they've been staggered that they hadn't done it for 10 years or so.

So try it out, keep practicing, keep strong. It could be something that will really help you with your life. Have fun with it.