Will Stretching Exercises Really Make You Taller?
Friday, February 27th, 2009We know how easy it is to be sceptical of much of what you hear online. Wild claims and broken promises litter the internet like candy from a busted pinata. You may have heard about these claims before and thought they were nothing but nonsense.
Though it’s hard to believe, it is actually true, and we have methods you can test yourself detailed below to prove it. Stretching can and will increase the length of the targeted area, and when targeting the proper areas, increase height.
A good starting point for these claims comes from Major League baseball, where studies have shown that the repeated effort and stretching of the arm that comes with throwing thousands of baseballs a year, has stretched out the throwing arm of most pitchers by 1-2 inches more than their other arm, which is quite a lot.
Even non-pitchers like most of us will find that our dominant arm is longer than our other arm by about half an inch, through the simple additional tasks that we give to it over the other arm. Measure your arms and see if these results aren’t true, or simply hold your arms straight out in front of you and then bring them together, meeting at a point in the center of your body.
Arm length of course has nothing to do with height, but it’s a good starting test to demonstrate the reality of these concepts. For height gain we’ll need to target mainly the legs and the spine.
Your spine is composed of a number of discs sandwiched between vertebrae. By targeting the spine with stretching exercises, these discs can be strengthened, and the space between each vertebra lengthened, increasing height.
Now comes another test to demonstrate this. Through your daily routine, whatever it may be, the forces of gravity are constantly at work on your body, and this is most noticeable in your spine, which actually compresses from this pressure throughout the day, and decompresses while you sleep.
With that trusty tape measure in hand, measure your height just before you go to bed one night, and then again the next morning when you awake. You should have gained an inch in height from the previous night. Without exercise this cycle will continue on, but with the proper training, you can see some permanent height increasing effects in your spinal area.
Hopefully you’ve enjoyed these tasks, which are proof positive that the proper stretching exercises can result in a permanent increase in height, no witch doctors necessary.