Ah, you’ve finally discovered the greatest sport ever made. Wrestling Bodybuilding! If you’re a bodybuilder, your muscles definitely get taller. But can bodybuilding make you taller?
Unfortunately, no, bodybuilding cannot make you taller. Although, many myths saying bodybuilding stunts your growth are completely false. Truthfully, it’s generally just based on genetics. However, bodybuilding naturally forces you to have better posture, which can make you look taller!
Let’s cover this more in-depth.
Look, I’m Sick of Being Bullied. Can Bodybuilding Make You Taller?
No. I get it though, I’m only 5 foot 8 at the ripe old age of 18. I wish there was some way to make me taller, too.
As Chaz always says, “Tommy, you’re invisible to women since you’re under 6 feet tall”. Well, jokes on him, that means more time I can spend at the gym!
But truthfully, bodybuilding can’t make you taller. While the sport is great for growing muscle and developing your body in general, it cannot actually make you taller.
Your body has growth plates that grow to a certain length. Most of this is genetic. However, some factors such as malnutrition or injuries can result in these growth plates being injured severely.
While spending your time in a gym is fun, and lifting heavy weights and seeing your muscles grow is fun, this has no impact on your actual growth plates.
Bodybuilding Hypothetically Can Lead To A Better Posture
So, if you spend enough time working out, you naturally get a better posture.
This is because in order to do most lifts or machines you need a good posture to make sure you aren’t going to injure yourself.
For people with even the worst posture, you’ll learn the hard way. Do a lift with bad posturing and you’ll feel severe pain, and you’ll learn the proper way.
Regardless, after even doing a beginner’s program like Greyskull LP, it will straighten you out.
The truth is, what you do in the gym does transfer to the outside world. If you sit there and consistently practice good form in the gym in between sets, it will transfer over to the rest of your life.
It’s Incredible How Much Posture Can Change Your Height
I worked with this one girl named Lexy a few years ago. Anyways, we were working in the grill and I said, “Lexy, do you know what scoliosis is?”.
Honestly, it looked like her spine was bent from how short she was and how she walked.
Instantly, she rose up and gained nearly 4 inches of height on me and said, “Yea, I just have bad posture.”
It’s really easy to underestimate how much height having good posture can give you.
And practicing good form in the gym, leads to better posture naturally.
Growing Muscle Makes It Harder To Have Bad Posture
When you start growing more muscle as a bodybuilder, it becomes way harder to have bad posture.
When your chest muscles grow, traps grow, side laterals grow, etcetera, it makes it harder to slouch over or walk around with bad posture.
This is because well, your muscles are taking up so much room, you naturally have to have a wider stance when walking. If you try to walk closed in- it will literally start to hurt/feel incredibly uncomfortable.
So? Just keep building your upper body, eventually, you won’t be able to slouch down as easy.
Bodybuilding Does Help a Little Bit, But Not Anything Significant
Any exercise is known to produce higher levels of testosterone and HGH. These hormones are critical in the growth phases of your body.
Unfortunately though, exercising- while it produces these- does not produce enough to make any significant difference.
Assuming the best-case scenario, you could be looking at potentially an extra inch to your height by the time you’re 20. But, that’s rare, and not likely.
If you are very concerned about your height, see a doctor that could prescribe medication that can make you grow a little taller. (Although, this usually comes with bad side effects)
In general though, this is largely ineffective.
Bodybuilding Can Also Prevent You From Getting Shorter
How about we rephrase the question from, ‘can bodybuilding make you taller?’ to ‘can bodybuilding stop me from being shorter?’.
Yeah, that made more sense in my head before I typed it out.
But truthfully, bodybuilding can help prevent you from getting shorter.
Bodybuilding is a sport that FORCES you to have a good diet. Sure, you can do sports like soccer and not have a great diet. The results aren’t pretty, but in bodybuilding, there is no middle ground.
You just simply won’t be able to exert yourself and may even get sick. The number of muscles you break down without repair of protein will eventually lead you to hospitalization if you don’t eat properly.
With a forced good diet and frequent routine exercise, you can prevent your body from not reaching its’ growth limit- if that makes sense.
If your body wants to grow but it doesn’t have the nutrients required, it just won’t grow.
We see this happen in places like North Korea, where they are on average nearly 5 inches shorter than their friends in South Korea. This is because of a lack of nutrition.
Your body constantly having good food fed to it will lead to good gains, both muscular and height wise.
No, Bodybuilding Does NOT Stunt Your Growth
There is no proof that bodybuilding stunts your growth. If you want a lot more information about that, I wrote this big 3,000 article titled: 5 Reasons Why Lifting Won’t Stunt Your Growth
Conclusion of Can Bodybuilding Make You Taller?
Ultimately, no. But it can prevent you from accidentally screwing up your growth plates or being malnourished. Plus, exercise, in general, is good for your health and can promote growth, but, ultimately: it’s going to be up to your genetics.
I do feel you though, I’m not a 6’5 monster, I’m a lowly 5’9. Oh well. It just means I can deadlift more 🙂
