Balance is the first thing age takes, and the last thing anyone checks. We check our blood pressure. We check our weight. We might check blood sugar. We check the smoke alarm batteries. But the skill that keeps us out of the emergency room - the one that decides whether a stumble is a story or a hospital stay - gets ignored until the day it fails.
Falls Prevention Awareness Week starts September 21, and the best way to prepare for it takes thirty seconds and a kitchen counter.
Here is what I have learned the hard way, in my own kitchen, in my own time: you do not need to be afraid of falling to check your balance. You need three one-minute tests, no equipment, no app, and no audience. By the time you finish this article, you will know where you stand - literally - and exactly what to do with the answer.
Why a test, and not more exercises
The health series on this site has been building your toolkit: the toe lean that trains your feet to catch you, the floor rise for the day you end up down there, the push and the squat that build the muscle underneath it all. What the series has never given you is a way to know where you stand before you start.
A test is different from training. Training changes where you are. A test tells you where you are. Both matter.
Here is the thing about the question “am I at risk of falling?” - most of us would rather not ask it. Asking it out loud feels like admitting something. But the fear of the answer is what keeps people from starting, and not starting is the actual risk. So let us take the fear out of it. Thirty seconds, a number you can write down, and a starting point that fits you. That is the deal.
The rules of the kitchen tests
Three rules, and they are not negotiable:
Rule one: the counter is your safety corner. Stand close enough to the kitchen counter that you can put a hand on it in a heartbeat. Use your fingertips to get set, then let go for the test. The counter is not cheating. It is the same safety corner idea from Don’t Fall - the worst thing that can happen is that you steady yourself against it.
Rule two: bare feet or flat shoes, on the kitchen floor. No socks on a slippery floor, no slippers. You want the same surface you walk on every day.
Rule three: stop if it hurts or makes you dizzy. This is screening, not a workout. If a test makes you dizzy, sit down. If you have had a fall recently, or you take medicine that makes you dizzy, check with your doctor before you start - and tell them you are doing these.
Test one: the one-leg stand
This is the one you have heard of, and it earns its reputation.
Stand beside the counter, feet together. Lift one foot a few inches off the floor. Count the seconds until you put it down. Use your fingertips on the counter to get set, then let go. When you wobble, touch down and note the number. Then switch legs.
The number that matters is ten seconds. In 2022, researchers in the British Journal of Sports Medicine tested 1,702 people aged 51 to 75 and followed them for seven years. The people who could not balance on one leg for ten seconds were nearly twice as likely to die of any cause during the study. Nearly twice. Balance is not a party trick. It is a window into how the whole system is doing - your legs, your feet, your inner ear, your nerves, all working together.
Now the honest benchmarks, so you know what “normal” looks like. In the studies, healthy people in their sixties average about half a minute on the one-leg stand. People in their seventies average about fifteen to twenty seconds. People in their eighties average about five to ten. Those are averages, not report cards. Your job is not to beat your neighbor. Your job is to know your number - and to notice which side is weaker, because there is always a weaker side.
If you cannot hold ten seconds, read this twice: it is not a verdict. It is information, and it is the most common reason people start the balance work at all. You are in exactly the right place to begin.
Test two: the chair stand
This one measures the muscle that keeps you independent.
Use a firm chair with a straight back, pushed against a wall if you can. Sit in the middle of the seat. Cross your arms over your chest. Now stand up - no hands, no pushing off the armrests, no rocking. Sit back down. That is one.
The test is simple: can you stand up once, cleanly, without using your hands? If yes, you have passed the gate. If you want a number, do the thirty-second version - how many full stands can you manage in thirty seconds? In the studies, most people in their sixties manage a dozen or more. People in their seventies, ten or more. People in their eighties, eight or more.
Why this test matters so much: getting out of a chair without your hands is the single best predictor of whether you stay independent. The Strength After 60 article says it plainly - the counter squat is this exact movement, trained on purpose. If you rock and roll to get up, or you need the armrests, that is not a failure. It is the starting point, and the squat is your first exercise. You will feel the difference in weeks, not months or years.
Test three: the tandem stance
The one nobody knows, and the one that catches what the others miss.
Stand near the counter. Put one foot directly in front of the other, heel touching toe, like you are on a balance beam. Arms at your sides. Hold it for ten seconds. Then switch which foot is in front.
That is the whole test, and ten seconds is the whole benchmark - because it is the CDC’s number. The CDC’s own balance test flags older adults who cannot hold heel-to-toe for ten seconds as at increased risk of falling. Harvard Health says the same thing: if you cannot hold the position for ten seconds without support, it is worth a conversation with your doctor or a physical therapist.
Why it matters: the tandem stance is the narrow base. It is the closest of the three tests to what walking actually asks of you - your feet nearly in a line, one step at a time. The one-leg stand tells you about your foundation. The tandem tells you about the moments in between steps, which is where most real-life wobbles happen.
What your results mean
Three tests, three different things. The one-leg stand is your foundation - ankles, feet, inner ear. The chair stand is your engine - leg strength, plain and simple. The tandem is your control - the narrow-base balance you use every single time you walk. Together they give you a map.
Here is how to read yours:
- Wobbly on the one-leg stand? Start with Don’t Fall. The toe lean trains the catch - the reflex that grabs the floor when you start to wobble. It takes two minutes a day, in a doorway, in your pajamas.
- Hands needed for the chair? Start with the two exercises in Strength After 60 - one push, one squat, five and five. And keep Get Off the Floor in your back pocket for the day you sit down low.
- Tandem is the hard one? Same balance work as the one-leg stand, and mention it at your next checkup. The CDC treats a failed tandem as a talk-to-a-professional flag, and that conversation is worth having. One sentence to your doctor, and you have a plan.
The good news, and I mean genuinely good news: balance is trainable at any age. Earlier this year, Penn State researchers had 97 adults with an average age of 74 do four minutes of simple exercises a day - wall push-ups, chair stands, and a couple of others. Twelve weeks later, they could stand on one leg longer, get up from a chair faster, and do more chair stands. Four minutes a day. Not forty. The dose is small, but it has to be daily - that is the whole secret, and it is the same secret the strength article teaches.
One honest note before you start: the tests tell you where you are, and the exercises change where you are - but they are different jobs. Don’t Fall makes the point better than I can: falls do not happen when you are standing still. They happen when you are moving - stepping off a curb, turning too fast, reaching for something. So the one-leg stand is a test here, not the training. The training is the toe lean, the squat, the floor rise, done daily. Test first, then train.
The week that makes this timely
Falls Prevention Awareness Week is September 21 to 25 - the nineteenth annual, run by the National Council on Aging, with a free toolkit of handouts and videos anyone can use. The week’s entire point is that most falls are preventable, and preventing them starts with knowing where you are.
You can do the whole self-check this afternoon and walk into that week with a number in your pocket instead of a worry in your head. That is the difference this article is here to make: not another exercise to feel guilty about, but a baseline you can actually see.
What to do now
- This afternoon, run the three tests. Thirty seconds each, counter within reach, one at a time. Ten seconds on the one-leg stand, one clean chair stand, ten seconds heel-to-toe.
- Write down your numbers. One-leg time on each side, chair count, tandem pass or wobble. That is your baseline - and baselines are how you notice change three months from now.
- Pick your starting article from your weakest result. The links are above: Don’t Fall for the wobble, Strength After 60 for the chair, and a sentence to your doctor if the tandem was hard.
- Mark September 21 on the calendar. When Falls Prevention Awareness Week arrives, you will already know where you stand.
You do not need to be afraid of falling to check your balance. You just need thirty seconds and a kitchen counter. And once you know your number, the work - the small, daily, doable work - can finally start. That is the whole point of knowing.
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor. I am a grandmother who has had to figure this out the hard way - the falls, the stiff mornings, the chairs that got harder to get out of. Check with your doctor before starting anything new, especially if you have existing health conditions or take medicine that makes you dizzy.
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