My Journey – From 5’9 to 5’11

Can your height really be changed?

A quick introduction about myself. I’m 24, male, and until recently measured slightly over 5 foot 9  (around 177cm for you metric folks). Now a quick Wikipedia search suggests that’s bang on average here in the States, so you’d think I’d have been pretty comfortable with my height, right?

Well, I don’t know about your perception of things, but being average doesn’t exactly feel satisfying. Maybe I’m slightly self-obsessed, but I always found myself comparing my height with other guys around me, often ending up with feelings of inadequacy. It’s not the really tall and uncommon 6’2+ guy that bothered me, but all those guys floating around the 5’10 to 5’11 mark who I was just shy of.

Being over 5’9 is outside ‘manlet’ territory, and there are plenty of successful guys around the mark (Johnny Depp, Mark Wahlberg, Robert Downey Jr, Matt Damon, the more recent John Boyega, the list goes on…) but if I’m conscious about my height, I should at least try and change it, right?

Well, that’s exactly what I sought to do a couple of months ago. My initial belief (and one that most people hold) was that height is almost completely genetically determined. Unlike muscle or fat, which few people dispute as being able to change, a human’s solid bones appear to be set in stone.

But doing some online research, it appeared that some people were having success through height increase training. There’s a lot of bull**** you find online, especially when it comes to increasing the size or length of certain things (you know what I mean), but in this case there was enough stuff out there to make me doubt my own understanding of human height.

The Short Answer

The short answer is yes. I say this because I’ve personally managed to add 1 and a half inches to my height in two months, bringing me to 5 foot 11. That may or may not sound incredible to you, but there’s no other way of putting it – the difference between being 5’9 and 5’11 is incredible.

On the internet you’ll find a lot of ‘grow taller guides’ that claim to have the secret sauce to help you gain upwards of several inches. I’ve actually gone through some myself, and I have a pretty hard time believing getting anything over 3 inches is possible, although I don’t exactly have proof to show it isn’t possible.

But anyway, if you’re genuinely interested in making yourself taller, and aren’t coming in with unrealistic expectations of growing 7 inches taller, read on.

Posture, Posture, Posture

I think it’s fair to say that posture has the most immediate potential to make you grow taller. In the extreme case, just go and ask a hunchback to stand straight and you’ll find they immediately appear a few inches taller.

Your posture is largely determined by how your muscles are in balance. If you try and ‘stand tall’ you will find yourself standing taller, because you tense up your muscles surrounding the bone and end up straightening up the alignment of your bones.

The problem is, the other 99% of the time when you’re not consciously trying to stand tall, your muscles return to their natural position, and you’re back to your normal height.

However, your musculature can be changed. You might have come across things like posture training vests, or exercises with a foam roller which relax and stretch muscles. Over time, these can correct various muscle imbalances, and you will naturally retain a much better posture.

My posture has improved considerably, and no doubt this has played a part in increasing my height. Personally, I had a mild case of anterior pelvic tilt, which is basically a result of sitting on my ass for too long. To put it simply, my core (abs), glutes and hamstrings were relatively weak compared to my other muscles, meaning they couldn’t keep my hips from tilting forward, and consequently my whole alignment was out of whack. Strength training these weaker muscles groups was the solution to my dreadful posture.

Inducing Cartilage Growth

Here’s an interesting little fact: cartilage accounts for between 20-25% of your adult height. Cartilage is the connecting tissue that sits between all your joints and allow more flexible movement than the much harder bone tissue.

Unlike bone, cartilage is slightly more adaptable. If you’ve ever noticed that older people are shorter than they were in their younger years, it’s mostly down to their cartilage being worn down. Of course, conditions like osteoporosis can also reduce their bone density, further decreasing their height.

As well as wearing down, cartilage also exhibits the ability to grow. Studies have shown that the dominant arm of baseball pitchers and tennis players are around 2, if not more, centimeters longer than their other. That is a significant amount, especially as the amount of cartilage involved in the arm is limited to the shoulder, elbow and wrist.

Prolonged stretching will gradually induce cartilage growth, as the body adapts to being under increased stress. For increases in height, the cartilage in your knees, but primarily the inter-vertebral discs that lie between all 33 of your vertebrae (bones in your spine), are where the potential gains lie.

Inducing Bone Growth

When you’re growing, your growth plates are not fused (full closure typically occurs anywhere between 20-26 for an adult male) and there is an opportunity to increase the length of bone that is grown.

This is possible through higher levels of human growth hormone (HGH) in the body, and sometimes it is prescribed to children or young adults who have growth deficiency.

Nowadays, HGH gets a lot of bad rap and is generally not accessible to the average person. It’s not only extremely costly, but there are possible complications if consumed in large quantities under no supervision.

Instead, nowadays a whole market has opened up involving products which stimulate natural production of HGH. You won’t see quite the same changes in your growth hormone levels, but some natural HGH ‘cocktails’ have shown to substantially increase levels, meaning more growth is achieved.

However, even after plates have fused, bone density and bone size are able to increase. Russian sports scientists have had measured success in making athletes whose plates are closed taller, through boosting growth hormone levels alongside other bone-strengthening key minerals such as Calcium, Vitamin K, Niacin and Glucosamine (traditionally used for treatment of bone degeneration).