Not necessarily.
The ability to get in and out of a chair is more than just lifting weights for sets and repetition. It’s a genre of exercise known as functional exercise, or exercise that mimics daily activities of living (ADLs). Corrective exercise is a method of exercise closely associated with functional training, as it identifies imbalances that make ADLs more difficult. In the realm of getting up out of a chair, let’s break it up into what the body needs to do.
1 – If you are sitting back in a chair, the first thing you need to be able to do is shift weight forward, so you are able to stand up out of a chair. This shifting weight forward is a result of abdominal strength first. Being able to perform a sit up will help the person crunch forward into a chair.
2 – Next, identify your push and pull. Usually to help someone get out of a chair, there is one arm doing a push (such as off an arm rest) and a second arm performing a pull (such as a person pulling them forward). This progression eventually turns into no push or pull, or just a push.
3 – As you perform a push and pull, the movement should be up AND forward. Going straight up without performing a “nose over the toes” movement will simply cause someone to fall backwards into the chair. The weight shift must be from the butt to the feet forward, not just going up.
4 – Once weight has been shifted to the feet and the person has successfully pushed/pulled themselves out of a chair, this is where we identify lower body strength. If the person is unable to adequately straighten their knees and utilize their hips and butt to straighten themselves out, but more so shift their body weight and position until they straighten out, then yes, this is where we focus on lower body strength. If the person can adequately straighten themselves out into a straight position, then the focus should first be on functional weight shift forward to get out of a chair, and then on leg strength.
Breaking up a broad task such as getting out of a chair into smaller tasks is called chunking. It is performed at the lowest level such as this example, up to identifying a professional athlete who has suddenly lost their technique and form. By identifying each part of the task, and seeing where the dysfunction is, we can better design a program that identifies both goals as well as needs.
