Taller after posture correction

Posture correction can indeed make people taller, but this "gaining height" is not the secondary development of bones that lengthens the bones, but the complete release of your height that was originally hidden by bad posture. Most people can obtain a net height increase of 2-5 centimeters through systematic correction. People with severe spinal deformation can even adjust the real height difference of more than 7 centimeters, which is by no means an optical illusion.

Two years ago, I took care of a girl who had just entered college. She measured 162 after taking off her shoes during the physical examination. She said she had measured 165 when she was in high school. She thought she had shrunk because of her age. She came to me with a sad face and said that she applied for the civil aviation interview card of 165 and was afraid that she would not be able to pass. At that time, we evaluated her and found that her shoulders were rounded, her head was extended forward by almost 4 centimeters, her pelvis was tilted forward and her knees were hyperextended, and the entire line of force was twisted like a twist. On the spot, she loosened her tense chest muscles and hamstring muscles, adjusted her pelvic position, and then measured 164.5, which was 0.5 centimeters short of the line. She shouted out on the spot. Later, she practiced the back muscles and lower limb alignment for more than two months. Finally, she was measured at 166cm for the final interview and passed smoothly. Now she often sends me photos of her flights. Her back is very straight.

Nowadays, the industry has always had different opinions on the operation of the body heightening effect. Friends who do sports rehabilitation always tell me that bone-setting methods such as "raising 3 centimeters on the spot" are just hooligans. If your joints are adjusted back, your muscle strength cannot keep up, and you will return to the original shape within two days, which is a waste of time. They prefer to start from the balance of muscle strength. For example, rounded shoulders are caused by tight chest muscles and weak back muscles, forward head extension is caused by weak deep neck muscles, and forward pelvic tilt is caused by weak core iliopsoas muscles. If these unbalanced muscles are adjusted back little by little, the force lines will be correct, and the height will naturally be stable and will not rebound.

But I also know a master who has been doing bone setting for more than ten years. He always laughs at the "efforts" of the rehabilitation practitioners, saying that many people's small joints in the thoracic spine are stuck tightly, and the entire spine is "shrunk" together. You can't pull the misaligned joints just by training the muscles. After half a year of training, the effect of three twists is not as good as his. He recently adjusted a designer who had been sitting for 10 years. Six small joints in his thoracic spine were disordered and the physiological curvature was almost completely gone. After the adjustment, the height was 3.2 centimeters. He said that as long as he doesn't sit on the sofa and play with his mobile phone all the time, he won't lose too much.

In fact, I have been adjusting my posture for so long, and I feel that these two ideas are not contradictory at all. If the joints are seriously stuck, loosening the joints first, and then practicing muscle stabilization is the fastest way. The designer I mentioned just now came to me for three months of rehabilitation training. Now the 3-centimeter increase has been stable for almost a year. The cervical spine that used to hurt every day after get off work is now fine.

When many people hear "correction can help you grow taller", their first reaction is "How can I grow taller when my epiphyses are closed?" This is really a big misunderstanding. Think about it, if you measure your height when you get up in the morning, and if you stay up late and work overtime at night, it’s normal to have a difference of 2 or 3 centimeters, right? It's not that you grow taller in the morning and shrink back at night. After a day of weight-bearing, the intervertebral discs in the spine are compressed, and the muscle tension pulls the whole body into curling up, and the height is naturally shorter. Bad posture is equivalent to keeping you in a "curled-up state after get off work" for a long time. You think you are standing straight, but in fact your spine, pelvis, and knees are not in the correct alignment. The bones are "stacked" together and are not fully stretched. The height of these stacks is the height you can get back through correction.

Of course, not everyone can increase a lot. For example, if your parents have been watching your sitting posture and standing posture since you were a child, and you exercise regularly, you may have a positive body line, and may only adjust it by 1 centimeter at most, or even have no change. But if you always lower your head to check your phone, sit with your legs crossed for a long time, always slump to one side when sitting, or already have problems such as rounded shoulders, high and low shoulders, scoliosis, etc., then 3 cm is basically the base. The one I have seen the most is a 17-year-old high school student with 22-degree scoliosis. After more than half a year of correction, the scoliosis dropped to 8 degrees. His height increased by 6 centimeters. He used to sit in the third row in the class, but now he sits in the fifth row.

I would also like to remind everyone not to blindly follow the online tutorials and practice randomly. I met a girl before who had an anterior pelvic tilt. She followed the "Standing on the Wall Tutorial" on the Internet and tightened her belly and straightened her waist against the wall. After standing for half a month, her lumbar discs protruded, which was not worth the gain. There are also those small shops on the street that charge 50 yuan for a bone setting to increase your height by 3 centimeters. If you go up and crack it, the joints will become more dislocated and you won’t even have time to cry. If you really want to adjust your posture, there is nothing better than asking a professional to do a comprehensive physical assessment to figure out where your problems lie, and then choose a plan that suits you.

To be honest, the happiest thing for many people after the adjustment is not the extra few centimeters, but the fact that the whole person can stand up straight without any effort, can hold up even when wearing clothes, and has no back or neck pain. This is much more cost-effective than the gain in height.