Christopher EllisCEO Dynamic Physio Therapy

Sit to Stand for Range of Motion

16 Sept 2026 · 1 min

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1:02

In this instructional video, Christopher Ellis demonstrates a simple, chair‑based exercise designed to improve knee flexion after total knee replacement. He begins by recommending a warm‑up of 10‑15 normal squats using a standard chair. Then, while standing, the participant slides the foot progressively farther back on the chair before sitting down, repeating the movement to incrementally increase the knee’s flexion demand. Ellis emphasizes moving the foot back a little more with each rep to gradually enhance range of motion. He concludes with a safety caution: if the movement causes significant pain or forces the back to shift forward, the exercise is being performed beyond a safe limit and should be stopped.

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This is how you can use a chair to improve your range of motion, your flexion of your knee following a knee replacement. So grab a standard chair, pretending like this is a standard chair, and for this example, let's pretend this knee has just been replaced, so I'm missing flexion of this knee. So first you would just do some squats, just normal squats to warm it up. And then what you'd want to do after maybe, say, 10, 15 reps, Is you get this foot further back. So you can bring it all the way back, stand up, sit into it. All right, and then each rep, try and move that foot back a little further. So do it— actually do it in standing, slide it back, and then slowly go down. All right, each time a little further back. You can see it's increasing the demand for knee flexion. The one thing I would caution against is if it's too painful and you're off-shifting your back, avoid that. Then you've gone too far.