Exercises on the horizontal bar are one of the methods to increase height. By straightening the spine, they allow you to grow a few centimeters - or rather, improve your posture and visually become taller. A particularly rapid effect is achieved when combined with stretching exercises.
According to reviews, regular exercise according to Berg's method helps increase height by a significant 15-20 cm in adolescence and by 5-10 cm in adulthood. In addition, you can become a little taller by changing your hairstyle and clothing style.
How to grow 5 cm - the main rules
By following the rules below, you will be able to grow (or, more precisely, “stretch out”) even into adulthood. To increase your height, it is enough, first of all, to regularly engage in exercises to straighten the spine, and also reconsider your clothing style.
Watch your health
A person’s height begins to decrease after 30 years - on average, in the period from 30 to 70 years, men gradually lose up to 2.5 cm in body height, and women up to 5 cm. In addition, after reaching the age of 80, height can decrease by another 2.5 cm .
// How to avoid decreasing height with age?
Straighten your back
Maintaining proper posture with melted shoulders and a straight back is a quick way to increase your height and stand taller. There are many effective posture exercises that can help you straighten your back—most of them come from yoga.
// Correct posture - what exactly forms it?
Strengthen your abdominal muscles
Constantly being in a sitting position (from working in an office to driving a car) leads to weakening of the core muscles and transverse abdominal muscles. In turn, strong abs will improve your posture and make you stand taller—allowing you to grow a few inches.
// Abdominal exercises - rating of the most effective
Do exercises on the horizontal bar
Developed muscles of the upper back and shoulders will not only make it easier to maintain correct posture every day, but will also lay the foundation for an athletic physique. At the same time, the best exercise for developing your back is pull-ups on the horizontal bar - they will straighten your spine and help increase your height.
// Exercises on the horizontal bar - do they help increase height?
Increase the amount of protein in your diet
Research shows that lack of protein in a child's diet is a key problem hindering their growth. Against the background of an excess of simple carbohydrates, weight gain can be observed, which negatively affects body proportions - and, ultimately, reduces the desire to exercise.
// How to gain weight - a 2500 kcal diet
Go swimming
Swimming is considered one of the best ways to increase body height and create an athletic figure. However, in order to significantly increase your height, you need to swim actively and regularly - at least 1-2 km per lesson, alternating crawl and butterfly styles.
// Swimming - what muscles work?
Dress correctly
Clothing can make a person visually taller or shorter. The best combination for increasing height is pairing light-colored jeans with a fitted T-shirt—in contrast, wide-leg jeans and a long, baggy top will make you look shorter.
Change your hairstyle
Hair raised up using styling gel will also help you visually stretch a few centimeters in height. At the same time, forget about the “wet hair” effect and use exclusively matte styling products in small quantities.
// Undercut - a popular men's haircut
But what about real methods of increasing height, do they exist?
Here we can give a clear example for athletes training in the gym. We know that in order to ensure muscle growth, it is necessary to select such a load to “injure” our muscle fibers. It is microdamage, no matter how strange it may sound, that helps muscles recover with the help of nutrients and subsequently grow in volume, replacing damaged areas with new cells.
We figured out a little about muscle hypertrophy. The same thing happens with bone tissue. It is microdamages (not to be confused with fractures) that ensure the growth of new bone tissue, which increases the length and width of the bones, increasing growth. Yes, yes, bone tissue also grows, it is also quickly restored, but it is also destroyed just as quickly due to nutrient deficiency.
How to increase height surgically?
The easiest way for teenagers to add 10-15 cm to their height is before the completion of the puberty cycle, while the growth zones of the body remain open. In this case, special exercises for stretching the spine, hanging on a horizontal bar and regular swimming will help you stretch out.
However, we note that adolescent training should not include heavy basic exercises with a barbell. Such exercises have a negative impact on growth, since the vertical load applied prevents the bones from growing. In addition, increased testosterone production closes growth zones.
Surgery to increase height
If growth is delayed in adolescence, the doctor may prescribe growth hormone injections, leading to enlargement of bones with open growth plates. However, this method is not suitable for adults who want to become taller. In their case, only surgical bone extraction will help to increase height.
The essence of the operation is that staples with knitting needles are installed on each leg, inserted into the surface layer of the bone; then the threaded rod is carefully extended approximately 0.25 mm four times a day. The operation adds 6-7 cm of height, but takes up to 12 months, most of which the patient spends on crutches.
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Regular exercises to improve posture (including the Berg technique), pumping the abdominal muscles and doing yoga can increase height, straighten your back and visually help you grow. At the same time, choosing the right clothes and styling your hair with gel can also add 3-5 cm to your height.
To clarify contraindications, consult a specialist.
Scientific sources:
- Child growth: Can you predict adult height?, Jay L. Hoecker, MD, source
- Average height around the world, source
- North Korea after Kim Jong Il, The Economist, source
Features of leg pumping
Before starting to pump up their legs, a teenager must become familiar with their structure. Understand how muscles function. This will allow the teenager to pump them more effectively.
Features of the structure of the legs
The muscles located in the human legs are responsible for different processes:
- The muscles located on the calves are responsible for bending different parts of the leg. Both feet and legs.
- The quadriceps is needed so that a person is able to flex and extend the entire leg as a whole. Particularly in the knee area.
- The muscles located in the buttocks are used by the body to rotate the hips. And also move them in different directions.
- The hamstrings are used by humans to bend their legs. And also for rotating both hips.
To build up your legs, a teenager needs to exercise regularly. While doing strength exercises. And gradually increasing the working weight.
Binge eating
Overeating is characterized by uncontrolled eating, accompanied by feelings of shame and guilt. Unlike people with bulimia, teenagers who suffer from binge eating usually do not compensate for overeating by fasting or doing anything else.
Teens with binge eating tend to be overweight. They feel that they cannot cope with their behavior and eat in secret.
Signs of overeating may include:
- eating an unusually large amount of food over a period of time (within 2 hours),
- rapid absorption of food,
- eating food in secret because they feel embarrassed about how much they eat,
- eating during stress
- a feeling of lack of control over the amount eaten and self-loathing after overeating.
Most physical signs and symptoms associated with overeating are long-term, including weight gain often leading to obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, irregular menstrual cycles, skin conditions, and heart disease.
External factors
Many teenagers say that lack of body acceptance begins with ridicule or even bullying from peers about their appearance. Whether it comes under the guise of an innocent nickname within the family or severe bullying from peers, shame is a powerful factor in the development of an eating disorder . In particular, conversations around the topic of “fat” and discussions of the body in a negative context often lead young women to eating disorders.
Families can play an important role in preventing or stopping these problems early by being proactive in these conversations and taking the issue of bullying seriously and being willing to help the child.
An approximate algorithm for bodybuilding classes for teenagers:
12-16 years old: it’s too early for you to start working with serious weights and exercises with weights, so your priority should be exercises with your own weight - pull-ups, push-ups, dips, crunches and hyperextensions, squats without weights, swimming, running, lifting rope, etc. You may think that you are already mature enough to move on to barbell training, but believe me:
- By doing exclusively the exercises listed above, it is quite possible to build a beautiful figure for a teenager!
- Health is more valuable! Don't get me wrong - working out in the gym is not dangerous if you have experience, have developed the correct technique for doing the exercises and have a formed skeleton. Otherwise, you can easily get injured, which, at best, will delay your desired figure for many months, and at worst, ruin your health forever.
17-19 years old: you can gradually introduce heavy exercises with a barbell, start training according to a simplified “adult” training program. If you were involved in fitness at an earlier age, then the transition will go smoothly and without trouble, and your body will transform before your eyes from a child’s to a man’s!
Diagnosis of curvature
The signs of scoliosis are quite characteristic, and identifying them yourself is not at all difficult. First, ask your child to stand up straight and lower his arms along his body. Look at your back: in a normal state, the spine is straight and located exactly in the center, the shoulder blades have the same shape and are at an equal distance from the spine, the shoulders are in the same line. Next, ask the child to bend forward: the vertebrae should all stand out equally, and the back should remain symmetrical.
Signs of scoliosis
If one side of the back is more convex, the shoulder blades are different in shape or are turned at different angles, the spine has an arched shape - these are obvious symptoms of curvature. Having discovered at least one of them, you should take the child to an orthopedist for a more detailed examination. The doctor will determine the degree of curvature and select the most optimal treatment method, including a set of exercises.
Degrees of curvature
