Estimate your physical performance age
Lower-limb power and standing balance both decline measurably with age, and both are measurable at home with a chair and a phone. This battery compares your results against published age-normative data and returns the chronological age your performance most resembles.
What you need. A firm chair without arms, pushed against a wall so it can't slide. Seat height around 43 cm — a normal dining chair. Two metres of clear floor. Shoes on. If you feel at all unsteady, have someone stay in the room.
What this is, and isn't. Both tasks are standard clinical measures, but this specific tool is not itself a validated or diagnostic instrument. Results are for interest and self-tracking only, and cannot detect or rule out any medical condition. This test involves physical exertion — stop immediately if you feel chest pain, dizziness, breathlessness or sharp joint pain.
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Before we start · 1 of 2
These decide whether it's sensible for you to do the tasks unsupervised. Answer honestly — nothing here changes your score.
We're stopping here
The chair stand is a genuinely useful measure, but it's designed to be run with someone present who can steady you. Ask your GP, physiotherapist or a practice nurse to do it with you — it takes them under a minute and their result will mean more than ours would.
If you've been having chest pain, dizziness or falls, that's worth raising with a clinician on its own, separately from any test.
Before we start · 2 of 2
We need your age to show your result against it. It does not influence the tasks or the scoring in any way — the estimate is computed purely from how you perform.
Task 1 of 2 · Lower-limb power
Sit in the middle of the chair, back straight, feet flat and shoulder-width apart, one foot slightly ahead of the other. Cross your arms over your chest, hands on opposite shoulders.
On the beep, stand all the way up — hips and knees straight — then sit all the way back down. Repeat as many times as you can until the final beep. Full stands only; half-rises don't count.
Keeping your arms crossed is the part that matters most. If you push off your thighs, the number stops being comparable to the reference data. Do one or two practice repetitions first.
Prop your phone where you can hear it. You won't need to touch it until the end.
Task 1 of 2 · Running
Task 1 of 2 · Your count
Count only the repetitions where you came all the way up and sat all the way back down. If you were halfway up at the beep, don't count it.
Task 2 of 2 · Balance
Stand near a wall or worktop you can grab if you need to, but don't lean on it. Hands on your hips, phone in one hand. Lift one foot a few centimetres off the floor — whichever leg feels steadier — without resting it against your other leg.
Tap to start, then tap the screen the moment your raised foot touches down, your standing foot shifts, or you reach for support. The clock stops at 45 seconds.
Rest for a minute after task 1 first. Tired legs balance worse, and that would push your estimate the wrong way.
Task 2 of 2 · Eyes open
Task 2 of 2 · Optional
That's the top of the scale for the eyes-open version, so it can't tell us much more about you. The eyes-closed version has a much steeper age gradient and will sharpen your estimate. It takes up to 30 seconds.
Same position, same rules — but close your eyes as you tap to start, and tap again the moment you touch down. Stand next to something solid. Most people last under ten seconds, and that's normal.
Your result is ready
Enter your email to reveal your estimate and the full domain breakdown. We'll email you a summary of your results, and you can download the full PDF report on the next screen.
This is an educational estimate for interest and self-tracking — not a medical or diagnostic test. It cannot detect or rule out any health condition.
Your email is processed to send your report and updates. Everything else in this tool stays in your browser.
| Domain | Your result | Performs like age |
|---|
For each task we hold a reference curve of the average result at every age from 18 to 95, sex-specific where the published data allows it. Your estimate is the age at which the average person scores what you just scored — read straight off the curve, with no adjustment for your real age.
The two tasks are then combined by precision: whichever one pins your age down more tightly counts for more. The likely range is retest uncertainty — where your estimate would probably land if you did the whole thing again tomorrow — derived from each task's published test–retest reliability, not from how spread out the population is.
Sources. Chair stand, ages 18–80: Barros-Poblete et al., 30 Seconds Sit-to-Stand Test: Reference Values for the Chilean Population (Rev Med Chil, 2025; n=499), used as published regression equations rather than banded medians. Above 80 the curve follows Rikli & Jones, Functional fitness normative scores for community-residing older adults (J Aging Phys Act, 1999; n=7,183), shifted to join the first curve continuously. Single-leg stance: Springer et al., Normative values for the unipedal stance test with eyes open and closed (J Geriatr Phys Ther, 2007; n=549).
Why one source rather than the best source per age band. Published chair-stand averages for adults under 60 disagree by a wide margin — one US study of 18–35 year olds reports about 33 repetitions where the reference set used here reports about 20. Protocol differences (seat height, encouragement, rest between tests, how a part-finished repetition is counted) account for much of that. Stitching the most flattering source onto each age band would manufacture decline that isn't there, so this tool runs a single curve across the adult range and grafts on the older-age data at one documented join.
Known limits of this version. Below about 35 the reference curve is nearly flat, so the test can't separate a fit 22-year-old from a fit 34-year-old — strong young results sit at the top of the scale rather than being resolved. Chair height, footwear, floor surface, fatigue and how strictly you kept your arms crossed all move the number by more than a year's worth of ageing.
Not a medical device. This is an educational, unsupervised self-test built on published age-normative trends, not a diagnostic assessment or a validated instrument in its own right. A single session is a noisy measurement. It cannot detect, screen for or exclude frailty, sarcopenia, falls risk or any other condition. If you're worried about your strength, balance or falling, speak to your GP or a physiotherapist.