This article has 71 testimonials from our readers, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 2,, times. If you've ever wished you were taller, there are a few things you can do to increase your height.
Although genetics largely determines how tall you'll become, you can make dietary changes that help you grow to your full height potential, especially if you're under Once your bones have stopped growing and fusing, stretching and improving your posture can help you appear taller. Try to do the stretches after you've been sitting since the discs in your spine compress, which makes you look shorter.
Tip: If you can't reach your toes, don't worry! You'll become more flexible if you stretch every day, so give yourself some time. Tip: To tell if you're standing straight, stand against a wall so your feet are a few inches in front of you. Your back, shoulders, and bottom should all be flat against the wall. Then, step forward to see if you can still stand straight.
Tip: Milk and yogurt are high in calcium, which is important for building strong bones. To get other sources of calcium in your diet, eat broccoli, canned salmon, beans, and almonds. To get taller by stretching, do a few stretches every morning right when you get out of bed. Try bending over and touching your toes, lying on the ground and doing a bridge stretch, and doing a yoga cobra pose.
You can also get taller by doing exercises that stretch your body, like swimming and pilates. On top of stretching every day, eat a balanced diet and make sure you're getting hours of sleep to help your body grow.
Also, avoid things that can stunt your growth, like alcohol and tobacco. To learn more about how to maintain good posture from our Personal Trainer co-author, keep reading the article!
Did this summary help you? Yes No. Log in Social login does not work in incognito and private browsers. Please log in with your username or email to continue. No account yet? Create an account. Edit this Article. We use cookies to make wikiHow great.
By using our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Cookie Settings. Learn why people trust wikiHow. Download Article Explore this Article methods. Tips and Warnings. Related Articles. Article Summary. Method 1. Touch your toes every day to strengthen your lower back and improve flexibility. Help your spine decompress by stretching it daily.
Stand straight with your feet shoulder-width apart and bend your hips forward so your arms drop down. Keep bending until you feel tension and hold your hands down for 10 to 30 seconds. Try to do 5 to 30 bridge exercises a day to stretch your lower back. Lay flat on your back and keep your feet on the floor with your knees bent. Place your arms flat at your side and squeeze your lower abdominal muscles. Lift your hips while you keep your back on the floor and hold this position while you take 3 big breaths.
Then, lower your hips to the ground and repeat the exercise at least 4 more times. They stretch your hip flexors, which can decompress your spine so you're able to sit or stand a little taller.
Include hip flexor stretches in your daily workout. Sitting throughout most of the day can push down on your lower back and hips. To stretch yourself out, especially after you've been sitting at a desk, put a cushion on the ground and bend 1 knee onto it.
Keep your other knee in front of you so your leg is bent at a degree angle. Then, lean your hips forward until you feel a stretch in your thigh and hold the stretch for 30 seconds. If you have a hard time kneeling, stay standing and slide 1 of your legs forward until it bends slightly. Then, repeat this for the other leg.
Practice the cobra pose to relieve back pressure and stretch out your spine. If you find yourself hunching your shoulders forward, take a minute to do a yoga pose that stretches your back out. Lie flat on your belly and keep the palms of your hands flat on your sides. Slowly lift your chest up while you straighten your arms and breathe deeply. Don't tense up the muscles in your lower back or bottom. Instead, relax to decompress your spine. Exercise throughout the week to maintain your flexibility.
There's not a specific sport or exercise that makes you grow taller. Instead, exercising regularly encourages your body to release human growth hormones and repair itself. Being physically active also helps you stay flexible, so it's easier to stretch out. National Institutes of Health Go to source Choose sports or activities that you enjoy so you're more likely to do them regularly. For example, try swimming if you want a low-impact form of exercise that also helps you stretch your arms, legs, and back.
Looking for a quick way to get rid of your double chin? Here are top 10 effective exercises to get that sharp jawline. Looking to jumpstart your chest and triceps workout? Click to know more!
Resistance Band Exercises Videos - Resistance bands are great for those who want to exercise at home. Here're 10 resistance band workouts that you can do at home. All the wonders you seek are within yourself. Men Women. Kids Seniors. Family Animals. Start a Sport Return to Sport. Get fit Injury Recovery.
Lose Weight Improve Performance. Sport for mental health Winter Real time Short on time. Podcasts Coming soon. Advice Stories videos Ambassador. No more growing. That's it. Here is a picture of the epiphyseal plates of the distal tibia and fibula in an ankle:.
You can easily see the dark line above both "ankles" or malleoli. These are the epiphyseal plates you are looking for. Here is a picture when the "growth plates" are "sealed":.
You can see the white line on both sides of the knee, known as an epiphyseal scar. The white line means the area is more dense, whereas the dark line from before means it is the less dense, growing cartilaginous tissue. If the white line exists, it means the epiphyseal plate has "closed" and no additional bone will grow from the cartilage. Your height actually decreases slightly through the day. In between your spinal discs there are fluid sacs.
When you stand up, your head and shoulders put axial pressure on your spine and cause these sacs to compress. This isn't a big deal, though there are several sites out there than claim otherwise and claim that they can create extra space between your spinal bones. Additionally, there are claims that stretching and hanging can increase your height. This is a quarter true. Hanging and stretching can reverse the compression, making you slightly taller until your spine compresses again.
In tall people this can be as much as a half inch. For this same reason, astronauts can be as much as 2" taller in space. There's not enough gravity putting axial pressure against their spine to compress it. When they come back to earth, they return to their normal height over the course of months [6].
Because of the growth plates, and the fact that your spine can compress, people got the idea that weightlifting and high impact sports could cause you to not grow as much. They're not quite right. There has been no evidence that weightlifting can stop your growth [7]. The origins of weightlifting being a thing that stunted your growth came from a couple of places, most recently a s study of Japanese child laborers.
The children that did work all day ended up shorter than average [8]. The truth behind the stunted growth is, of course, malnutrition. Child laborers worked long hours and didn't make much money, not nearly enough to feed themselves well.
Another reason people used to think weightlifting was bad for children was they didn't develop muscles like you do as an adult. Children don't have enough hormones yet for muscles to develop properly, but what weightlifting can do for them is put stress on the bones, encouraging them to grow as well as help them develop their central nervous system, allowing pathways to be created for them to do more work as they go into adulthood.
A lot of lifting weights is in the head. Recent studies have shown that weight lifting at any young age can help build bones and stave off obesity for children leading into their adulthood. Weight lifting at a young age has also been shown to prevent injuries and osteoporosis into old age.
Sports have a tendency to self select. I've seen so many questions: Can basketball make me taller? Can swimming make me taller? These questions are based on the fact that professional baseball players are tall and well known swimmers are tall. The well known players are tall because being tall gives them a distinct advantage in these sports.
I swam for fifteen years, all through my growing years. I'm 5'7". It doesn't work like that. Further, basketball is pretty high impact. Short sprints, stops, starts, jumps.
If someone thought weight lifting would stunt your growth, basketball would too for the same reasons. Every time you jump, you put several times your body weight against your muscles and bones. Much more than you would be weightlifting at that age. The same thing goes with gymnasts. They're not short because the sport makes them short, they're short because it's easier to be a great gymnast when you're short.
But it's not quite as simple as that, either. Studies on female gymnasts revealed that in their youth, they show slowed height growth, primarily in their legs.
When they stop doing gymnastics, they are able to reach their full potential. Gymnasts who start young have decreased bone age compared to people who start later, when they quit, their spine height and legs grow more and fully catch up to where they are predicted to be based on genetics within eight years of quitting.
Men did not experience this at all. Through out their entire growth within the sport, they don't suffer from abnormal bone ages or strange growth patterns and actually end up being as tall as they should be based on genetics even while continuing the sport [10]. The gymnasts they analyzed reached their full genetic height under the conditions analyzed. Most of them were actually just supposed to be short, their parents were short.
It's mainly a correlative link between the sport and the height, possibly connected to nutrition. Several other studies relating to particular sports ballet, wrestling, distance running link to height issues.
0コメント