A simple test that looks at how easy — or difficult — it is for you to sit down on the floor and then get back up may help predict how long you’re going to live, a new study shows.

Middle-aged and elderly people who needed to use both hands and knees to get up and down were almost seven times more likely to die within six years, compared to those who could spring up and down without support, Brazilian researchers reported Thursday in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.

Doctors have long used the chair test — where a person stands up from a sitting position — to determine leg strength and lower body fitness of seniors. But the new test is more difficult and can be used with a younger group, said cardiologist Dr. Kathryn Berlacher, an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.