Could Learning To Fall Help You Live Longer?

Falls are inevitable, but new research proves that with practice, you can lower your risk of fractures and head trauma.

During a lecture on fall prevention, Jacob Sosnoff, associate dean for research and professor at the University of Kansas Medical Center’s School of Health Professions, asked the audience about their experiences with falling. A man in his 70s, leaning on a cane, raised his hand. He admitted he fell often, yet somehow never ended up seriously hurt. Sosnoff had to know his secret.

The man explained that he had the privilege of jumping out of an airplane for the U.S. Army when he was 19, and they had taught him to fall safely.

That comment stuck with Sosnoff. For years, experts have tried to eliminate falls in older adults—yet nearly one in four people over 65 still takes a spill each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Falls remain the leading cause of injury-related deaths among older adults and send about three million people to the emergency room annually. Yet, decades of prevention programs—such as balance exercises, strength training, and home safety modifications—have helped, but haven’t solved the problem. “We’re not getting rid of gravity,” Sosnoff says. “Falls are going to happen no matter what.”

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So, what if, instead of focusing only on prevention, we taught people how to fall safely? Sosnoff and other researchers are showing that with a bit of training, you can land smarter, boosting your chances of getting back on your feet without serious damage. Here’s how to build that skill, one move at a time.

Step 1: Practice in a safe space

The first rule of learning to fall: don’t start on your living room floor. Practicing on hard surfaces is a recipe for injury. Instead, you need soft landings—and expert supervision.

In Sosnoff’s lab, older adults gear up like athletes: foam helmets on their heads, hip protectors strapped tight. “We make sure that we teach them in a step-by-step, very progressive way—the way that you would teach any motor skill,” he says. They break the movement down into small pieces, then put it all together once those steps feel natural.

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Think of it like learning a tennis return: you practice the step, the pivot, the swing, and the follow-through separately and deliberately until they flow together in one smooth motion when the ball comes flying toward you.

“Each fall is different,” Sosnoff adds. “There’s not one technique that you can do on any given fall and it’s going to protect it,” so the goal is to develop muscle memory that adapts to real-world accidents.

Step 2: Lower your center of gravity

As soon as you feel yourself tipping, the best move isn’t to fight it—it’s to sink. “You’re going to lower what we call your center of gravity,” Sosnoff says. “Think of it as trying to bring your waist or your belly button closer to the ground.” The smaller the distance you fall, the less force you’ll hit with.

Practically speaking, that means bending at the knees and hips, “kind of like a football stance,” says Christina Pedini, assistant vice president of rehabilitation and neurosciences at University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Health, so you’re already halfway down when you actually make contact.

Step 3: Tuck your chin

When Sosnoff first shifted from studying college students to working with retirees, he noticed something alarming. “We’ve now found that older adults, when they fall, are three times more likely to hit their head,” Sosnoff says. That makes protecting your noggin the number one priority. As you fall, pull your chin toward your chest so the back of your skull never meets the ground.

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During the Falling Safety Training Trial, Sosnoff found that proper technique reduced participants’ number of head impacts and the speed of head acceleration during a fall.

Step 4: Protect your wrists

Our first instinct when falling is often the worst one: throwing our arms straight out to break the fall. That stiff, outstretched landing is a leading cause of broken wrists and forearms.

“You essentially want to be bendy,” says Sosnoff, which means keeping your elbows soft and your arms slightly bent, drawing them in toward your torso rather than outstretching them. Aim to let larger areas, such as the muscles of your upper arm, absorb the initial impact.

Step 5: Roll to disperse energy 

One of the worst ways to fall is to land all your weight on a single point—like a hip or shoulder—because the concentrated force makes fractures far more likely. The safer strategy is to spread that impact out over time. “Rolling is a martial arts-type move that can help reduce injury,” says Pedini.

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As you fall, try to rotate so your body meets the ground along a broad surface such as your side or glutes. Let the momentum carry you into a gentle roll across the back of your hip or shoulder so the impact is less targeted to one area.

Step 6: Take a beat before you pop up

Once you’ve landed, stay put for a moment. A quick systems check can save you from making a bad situation worse.

“If someone has lost consciousness and they wake up, they should call for help and not try to get up because they might have a more significant injury,” Pedini says. The same goes for any severe pain, bleeding, or head impact. Moving too soon can exacerbate a potential fracture or injury, especially if you have hurt your neck or spine.

Step 7: How to get back up

Recovering from a fall isn’t just about landing safely—it’s also about rising without risking another tumble. First, roll over and get into a crawling position on your hands and knees. From there, “kneel on your legs, then get one leg up—we call that a half-kneel—and use a chair, stair step, or something else for support,” says Pedini.

The half-kneel keeps your center of gravity low and your weight evenly distributed, so you’re less likely to wobble. It also lets you test each limb for pain before putting your full weight on it.

Once you’ve spent some time learning the technique, it tends to stick. Sosnoff runs an eight-week program and then brings participants back three months later to retest their skills. “Everyone that we’ve taught how to fall remembers how to fall safely,” he says. “It’s sort of like riding a bike.”