Introduction to Height Increase

Part I – Spine Stretching Exercise

Height increase is the idea that one can perform exercises or other methods (other than limp lengthening surgery) to induce physical increase in one’s height naturally, even after puberty age.

The height increase exercise that is most often mentioned is the spine stretching exercise. Spine stretching exercise essentially is a spinal decompression process that aims specifically to elongate the spinal column.

The rationale behind spine stretching exercise is that since the earth exerts gravitational pull on everything that rest on it which obviously includes your body, thus by offsetting this gravitational pull one can restore his/her natural height. Gravity pulls down the natural gaps between each spinal disc of your spinal column and can decrease your natural height up to 1-3 inches. It is a known fact that when you wake up in the morning, you can be about 1-3 inches taller. This is because the laying down position of sleeping throughout the night has relaxed the spine in such a way that the decompression from gravity has been neutralized. Unfortunately, within a few hours of being upright (include in both sitting and standing position) the spinal compression from gravity would you shorten again.

The spine stretching exercises focus on training your spine to resist this gravity pulls by constantly helping your spine to relax and to restore the natural fluidity within those spinal column gaps between the discs.

There are many activities that are known to be effective for spinal decompression. The most common spine stretching exercise is hanging on a bar with your body suspense in midair. This is typically done with a traditional pull-up bar. The concept is simple which is utilizing the strength of your arms and shoulder to support your entire body weight. This way your body is being pulled down by gravity but unlike normal upright walking, your feet do not counteract against the gravitational pull. So instead of decompression of the spine, you got a relaxed spine that is being pulled straight downward. It is recommended that hanging to be done on daily basis and with each session lasting at least for 1-5 minutes. The duration for hanging sessions tend to be quite short due to the demanding arms and shoulders strength. But this should be improved over time as the arms and shoulders got stronger from repetitive training.

One great debate that has been ongoing is whether the height obtained from stretching is permanent. There seems to be evidence for both scenarios. A good number of people who experience immediate gain from spinal stretching such as hanging have reported that height increase has been lost after abandoning the stretching routine. One explanation for height loss from lack of maintenance is that those individuals lack physical activities, in particular with their core muscle around the spinal column. When the core muscles are not strong enough, the gravity would eventually take back the height gain. For those reports that height increase was permanent, those tend to be individuals who are physically active and have a strong core that can maintain the loosened state of the spinal column.

That is why it is not enough to merely stretch out the spine regularly, but also to build strength around your core to ensure the height increase would be permanent. Core muscle training is the solution.

Stay tune for next part on core muscle training.