Author Archives: Senior Researcher

Theories And Ideas On How To Reopen The Fused Epiphyseal Growth Plates

One of the basic ideas that people have thought about on how to grow taller was to reopen the fused epiphyseal growth plates. We learned very early on that the growth plates get thinner and thinner until they disappear from endochondral ossification. The hyaline cartilage turns into bone and there is no elastic material to expand and lengthen the bone anymore. If we can figure out a way to recreate or reopen the growth plates, then we can start growing again.

The body will go through the process of cartilage to bone ossification naturally. There is no problem there. The problem is how to get the cartilage back. Here are a list of ideas that either I or other people have thought about on how to reinitiate the plates.

1. Create a small distraction in the long bones and place in an implantation of stem cells that can then differentiate into the chondrocytes needed to proliferate.

2. Create a small distraction in the long bones and place in an implant of chondrocytes

3. Create a small distraction in the long bones and place a piece of hyaline cartilage that the body is willing to accept

4. Create a small distraction in the long bones, add a fixator and use Low Intensity Pulsed Ultrasound (LIPUS) to speed up the healing process.

5. Create a small distraction in the long bones, add a fixator and use Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Therapy to speed up the healing process.

6. Create a small distraction in the long bone and implant a mixture of chondrocytes and stem cells.

7. Inducing micro fractures and/or fractures and getting stem cells from the medullary cavity to reach the micro fractures and differentiate into chondrocytes.

8. Inducing micro fractures and/or fractures and implanting stem cells into the locations to differentiate into chondrocytes.

9. Inducing micro fractures and/or fractures and implanting chondrocytes in the fracture locations to proliferate.

I wanted to make a note to the reader that one can not medically reopen the epiphyseal growth plates per se since the growth plates have already transformed through ossification into bone. You can not reverse the process of going from cartilage to bone, at least not that I know of. What I meant by reopening the plates is how to we get the right materials back in the located of where the old growth plates used to be.

If you happened to think of some other way to get the right materials back in the right places again to reinitiate the lengthening of bone, please don’t hesitate to send me an email so I can edit and add to this list of theories and ideas. Thank you.

The Reasons You Should And Should Not Go Through With Limb Or Leg Lengthening Surgery

Of all the methods and techniques that are proposed to increase one’s height, the only one that will clearly work is the surgery where one get their legs cut open, separated, and slowly using metal screws increased in length while everything is held together. When it come to trying to manipulate and mold the human bone, anything beside blunt force and knife incisions will have little effect. There are many height increase ideas being developed currently like using low frequency ossilating pulses, implants, stem cells, and DNA manipulation, but the limb surgery is still the one method that has worked and will continue to work as long as it is allowed.

So we know that it does work. However, the complications involved with the surgery, the pain, the expense, and the emotional and mental effort one has to put in makes the surgery a very controversial subject and decision. If you have ever considered the idea of going through with the surgery and told your family or friends, the most likely reactions are confusion, anger, shame, and fear.

Your mother might start crying and say something like “You are perfect the way you are. Why would you want to put yourself through such a painful and horrifying experience jus tot gain a few inches?”

Your father might get angry and start shouting and try to argue with you to change your mind with “Are you crazy? Or stupid?! Do you realize that you will have to give up your schooling or work for at least 6 months-1 year to go through with this cockamaney idea! Who put this in your mind?”

Your brother might be confused and state “You are crazy for going through with this…Is it because you are worried you can’t find a girlfriend/boyfriend because you are short? I am only slightly taller than you and I am fine with my own height”

Your friends would try to understand but also concerned about you and go with something like “Wow, I can’t imagine ever putting myself through that type of pain and hell. It is your life and body and you will ultimately have to choose what you want to do. I wouldn’t recommend it. Can I help in some way?”

All of them have their own reasons to act and react the way they do. All of their concerns and fear are well founded. If they try to convince you to reconsider or get out of the idea of limb and leg surgery they are doing it out of real caring for you.

So the main question is…

“What are the main real reasons you have for why you have decided to go through with limb lengthening surgery?”

right after this question is answered, the logical next question is

“Is the reasons you gave on your desire really valid and good enough to justify going through such a painful process which will affect all the rest part of your life?”

So let’s look at this issue really deeply. I personally wanted to go into my own psyche to figure out the real WHY? and the other question sS IS IT REALLY WORTH IT?

Here is my own list of reasons that would be good enough to justify why I decided to purposely cut my own leg in half to only reattach it slowly back together in what can only bedescribed by most people as a most painful manner.

1. I want to be taller so I can have a better chance at meeting someone who can like me without worrying about the size difference.

2. I want to be taller so I don’t have to suffer through the emotional and mental pain of feeling like I am not worthy.

3. I want to look at myself in the mirror and be happy with what I see

4. I want to get other people to stop teasing about my short stature

5. I want to be taller so that people will stop rejecting me as a potential and immediately citing my height as the main reason they won’t even give me a chance.

Now, here are my own list of reasons that would not be worth it. At least for me. (For men mostly)

1. I want to be tall enough to be able to play in professional basketball

2. I want to be taller so that my coworkers would start respecting me instead of making fun of me.

3. I want to be taller so that the girl who had rejected me can look at my changes and regret not going out with me

4. I want to prove to other people that I am just as good as them.

5. I want to be tall enough so that my girlfriend can now wear high heels.

6. I want to be taller so that I can get all the girls to find me attractive

7. I want to be tall so that other men can find me more intimidating

If we look at the reasons which make sense, and the reasons which don’t make sense, we can kind of guess what what really makes a reason valid. If the reason you want to go through the surgery is from an intrinsic internal source of desire to make yourself feel happier about yourself, go do it. However if you want it so that you can satisfy the desires and expectations of other people and the rest of the world, you shouldn’t. You can never be able to make everyone happy, keep everyone satisfied.

If your reason is so the external world will stop judging you on your height and to remove the constant teasing and ridicule you get for this state, go do it. If however your reason to ge the surgery is to show off your new body and invalidate the beliefs and opinions of others, don’t. There is no way you can truly change the thoughts and feelings of other people. In conclusion, please understand that you are ultimately going to do or not do this surgery for yourself, so that you can find peace and acceptance and remove the suffering in your life, but definitely not for others because you can never appease other people’s expectations.

Increase Height Using The Shinbone Method Or Shinbone Technique

This method or technique called the Shinbone was a really interesting and unique case because of the people associated with it development. There was a guy named Sky which came along around the 2006-2009 period (I am not sure about the real dates since I haven’t done all the research) who wanted to form some type of group or organization to find the solution to our height increase problem. His answer to the issue was a very radical and original method.

If I was to summarize how his method worked, it would be a combination of 1. Microfractures and 2. Ankle Weights. The personal will have to first do some really high intensity anareobic exercises like jumping up and down with weights, and than doing some sprints. The idea is that the high intensity exercise will allow certain areas on the lower leg bones, the tibia and fibula to develop microfractures, at least in the vertical direction. After the microfractures occur, one must put on heavy ankle weights, and use the force of gravity with the weights to push downward on the shine bone to expand and stretch the bones which now have the fractures.

There was a group formed, a lot of testing was done with home made equipment, and plans to expand the method to other cities. The guy named Sky kept on making a lot of claims and in the end he never revealed what the resutls showed. The forums were left wondering what happend and they never got their answer. In my opinion, the guy tried to get this specific method to work, and the result was not what he wanted. The shinbone method didn’t seem to work .

This is my conclusion on this most unique of ideas, at least at this current time. If you are still interested in finding some routine to do with ankle weights hoping to increase your height, refer to my post on Ankle Weights, Part I (link below) which does give at least 3 ideas and routines on how to use the ankle weights to gain extra height.

If you wanted more information about the technique, please go to another post I wrote about Ankle Weights, Part I and Part II. You can also refer to the article on microfractures located HERE.

Lateral Synovial Joint Loading Explained In Simple English

Lateral Synovial Joint Loading Explained In Simple English

Update Dec 30,2013: I wanted to bring this post back up for people who are thinking about trying the method out for the first time. Some of the directions given on the first website is hard to follow. This post was originally written back in Aug of 2012 and I wanted to see if this post would still be of high value even more than a year later. 

I knew one day I would have to do a review, or summary on this method/technique because I know that no real or legitimate height increase website would be complete without this technique. Now, this idea is very well substantiated with the science behind the physiology and anatomy of at least mouse bodies. When it comes to humans, it is still very iffy. Tyler from HeightQuest.Com is the person who has been promoting this method for at least 2 years and the results seem to be that he grew from 5’9′ to 5’10” (Note: Jimmy, a reader of this site from the US has informed me that Tyler’s actual height increase was from 5′ 8.5″ – 5′ 10″. Edit made). If I was to play devil’s advocate, I would say that Tyler could have gotten that kind of height increase through some basic stretching and maybe yoga. Now that is not a lot but it is substantial enough to show that the technique can work.

This method would be the most simple, and cost effective way to gain real extra height. I would probably endorse and promote this method along with one other possible method, the Qigong one, which I have talked about extensively before and you can read about HERE (Part I) and HERE (Part II). The blog and website seems to be created from a person who is truly sincere and not trying to sell anything or trick anyone. However, even the qigong method goes into the area of pseudoscience and mysticism which some people would not consider or don’t believe in. If that is the case, this may be the only reasonable option.

It has taken me 2 entire days and at least 12 hours of reading, learning, and researching mostly unknown medical terms to figure out what Tyler is talking about. The biggest help was reading up on Yokota’s Joint Loading Modality which I had written a very short review and analysis on HERE.  The main article and link I read were these on his site and I managed to piece everything together into a very user friendly method. It will be explained as simple as possible.

Note: This article due to the nature of the method will most likely be altered and changed over time to fit with new information and scientific studies. If Tyler sees any point or place I have made an error in logic or methodology, please tell me so I can fix it. If you have read this and still don’t understand what to do, email me and I will either try to answer your question or edit this article/ post to make it easier to understand for people.

Note 2: I have never fully understood why the fibula is never mentioned. I haven’t figured out the growth or ossification process of the fibula, and whether if you just stretch the tibia, the fibula will stretch along with it. 

So the height increase method or technique is called Lateral Synovial Joint Loading. In laymen’s term that just means you find ways to compress or push a certain area of your leg with enough force and maybe also at the right speed or rate (aka frequency).

I will break up this method into 5 parts, Location, Equipment, Amount of Force And Freqency, Supplements, Theory .

1. Location

I am just going to talk about the most common synovial joint right now. That is the one for the lower leg, the tibia.

The exact location on your body you are supposed to compress/push is the area in the upper part of your lower leg, right below the knee area. If you just read the name of the method Lateral Synovial Joint Loading, you can guess that the method involves putting some load (aka compressing down on) on the synovial joint of the lower leg bone in a lateral (aka side) direction. The picture on the right shows where the synovial joints are. The exact location is actually two places. You want to compress the bone with some form of clamp (or flat stiff surface and weight) so one part of the clamp goes on one side of the upper tibia and the other side of the clamp goes on the other side. The exact location or spot is on the location for the picture of the right just maybe 0.75-1.25 inches under where your patella (aka knee cap) is located, assuming you are a normal sized person (5 ft- 6 ft). Note the arrows that say “lateral meniscus” and medial meniscus”. The clamps must go just below (maybe .25-0.5 inches) the regions labeled lateral meniscus and medial meniscus. The area of the leg to apply the clamp should be from the side, not front and back.

One of the things you have to learn and understand is the terms of the parts of the long bones, specifically the femur, tibia, humerus, and maybe the ulna. The epiphysis is the protruding ends of the long bone while the diaphysis is the middle part that is more cylindrical and thinner. The epiphysis is what must be compressed, from the sides, both left and right. Remember that the real location of the places to clamp or compress is usually where you can feel on your leg or arm that is protruding out, which is not surrounded by too much muscle or ligaments. That means that you can push down on it without hurting your ligaments or muscles that much.

2. Equipment

You have to clamp down on the bone. Since bone is a very hard material, your hands and arm strength will not be sufficient to cause real bone deformation (unless you are either extremely strong with your hand or you suffer from weak bones). The equipment talked about by Tyler is a C- clamp. From Home Depot or any hardware store, it could cost you around $15-20. If you have ever worked in a chemistry lab or any type of lab where you need to hold something in place ,you know what a clamp is. If you don’t, refer to the picture on your right. Using a clamp is probably the cheapest option you have, which probably would do the work. For the experiment done on the mice, the equipment to subject limb size ratio was far bigger, but I don’t know where we could find some other bigger clamp at a reasonable price.

There is really at least 10 places where there are synovial joints you can compress at, the wrist area, right below the elbow area, the location right above your your knee cap, the location right below your knee cap, and your ankle area, and the thickness and morphology of the joints require that you will need more than just one type of clamp. For the wrists and ankles, you can use a smaller clamp, like a mini clamp. The cost to buy a mini clamp from Lowe’s or Home Depot can be as cheap as $10-15

3. Amount of Force and Frequency

There is two types of equipment I had talked about, clamps and dumbbells/weights.

With clamps, you have to find out where the location you should compress on. Once you find it, you put the clamp ends on the right location and turn the lever until you feel the bone underneath the skin deform a little. There is no quantified I can give at this moment. The only thing is that if you found the right place, the clamps compressing down should not hurt that much since you are only hitting bone (there will be some pain because you are pushing also against some skin). So, turn the lever of the clamp until you feel that the epiphysis has reached some level of deformation. For the experiments done of mice forearm ulna, it took very little force and a small frequency only a show time to see results. Clamp down for at least 30 seconds up to 75 seconds, 1-2 times everyday. Repeat the step for 3-5 consecutive days. It is okay to not do the exercise 1-2 (non consecutive) days of the week to let the  bones heal themselves.

With weights, on Tyler’s blog he uses weight or dumbbells up to 60 lb to 75 lb as the compressing force. You are supposed to take the head of the dumbbell and weights and push them down on your synovial joint epiphysis (whether it is knee, wrist, ankle, elbow) while the long bone is layer down flat on the hard firm ground or another firm surface that won’t move. With your knees, you can that only by sitting down in a lotus position with the leg you want to compress the one actually laying on the ground (with your other leg you can put on top of the other one or something else). Hold the dumbbell handle and lay it on the right place (the synovial joint) and push down for at least 30 seconds up to 75 seconds, 1-2 times everyday. Repeat the step for 3-5 consecutive days. It is okay to not do the exercise 1-2 (non consecutive) days of the week to let the  bones heal themselves. Then repeat the process.

4. Supplements

The only two supplements that have been consistently talked about in height increase forums and discussions are Calcium with Vitamin D and Glucosamine with Chondroitin. The Calcium with Vitamin D is used to make the matrix of the bone cell (osteon) within the cortical bone part stronger. The Glucosamine with Chondroitin is to somehow help with preventing cartilage degeneration. I still haven’t figure out how the glucosamine with chondroitin exactly prevents cartilage degeneration but for the cost of say $30 for the Calcium with Vitamin D and $30 for the Glucosamine with Chondroition, I would say it is worth it for you to buy and take in your endeavor to increase your height. The supplements are safe so “why not?” I say.

Update: After finding another article on HeightQuest.Com entitled “Lateral Synovial Joint Loading Supplement Guide” I realize that the list of supplements I had put up previously (only talking about Calcium w/ Vitamin D & Glucosamine w/ Chondroitin)  is severely lacking and a much better and more complete listing of supplements can be found from Tyler’s site if you click on the link above. Sorry about that.

5. Theory

Note: You do have to learn some medical (specifically orthopedic) terminology to understand the theory behind the method.

I am going to try to make the theory as simple as possible. First let’s define the name “Lateral Synovial Joint Loading”.

“Lateral” means side. “Loading” means a pushing on, or applying force to. So “lateral loading” is means putting a force on from the side direction. If you take the palm of your hand and push the side of a  tower of jenga blocks to make it fall down, you applied a “lateral loading” or “pushed it on from the side”. “synovial joint” is the most common form of joint in  your body. There are 7 types of synovial cavity but the what makes a synovial joint a synovial joint is that all synovial joints have 3 main things (1. Synovial cavity, 2. Articular Capsule, 3. Articular Cartilage). The components and functions are not important to know at this time. You just have to know which joint in our human body are synovial joints. The elbow, knee, wrist, and ankle are all synovial joints. Thus, the term “lateral synovial joint loading” means to apply a force from the side on to either the elbow, knee, wrist, or ankle at a very specific position.

The specific position or location you have to apply a load (push upon) to is the epiphysis of the long bone. The Epiphysis is the protruding ends of the long bone, while the thinner middle part is called the Diaphysis. If you need a picture of what they look like look to the picture on the right (I know the picture is Copyrighted but until someone contacts me and tells me I can’t use it anymore, I’ll keep it up). The line that separates the epiphysis from the diaphysis is roughly where the growth plates used to be and fused at are. Inside the diaphysis and running into the epiphysis is this hollow area called the Medullary Cavity. This cavity is where the bone marrow lies and also where adult stem cells can be found. It is also also filled with interstitial fluid. The interstitial fluid is held inside the bone and that creates hydrostatic pressure pushing against the inner wall of the bone. (If you have ever taken a college class in fluid mechanic you understand what I am talking about).

The other thing you should understand is what the growth plates are made out of. The growth plates or epiphyseal plates were a type of cartilage called hyaline and made of mostly of collagen. The hyaline cartilage matrix is mostly made up of type II collagen and Chondroitin sulfate. If the cartilage is examined under the microscope, it will be found to consist of cells of a rounded or bluntly angular form, lying in groups of two or more in a granular or almost homogeneous matrix. The cells are called chondrocytes. It is the chondrocytes that really causes bone lengthen (thus height increase) and are what multiply through process called mitosis. The chondrocytes still alive go through mitosis and a part of the resulting chondrocytes change in form and function (aka differentiate) by ossification and degeneration into bone material by osteoblasts (bone cell units) and a part of the chondrocytes available keep on going through mitosis. The old chondrocytes develop on the diaphysis side to increase the length of the long bone while the new chondrocytes on the epiphysis side keep on going through mitosis to create more.

What the method of Lateral Synovial Joint Loading does is that by applying a certain amount of compressive force from the side on the ends of the long bone (aka the epiphysis), this forces 2 main reactions or processes to occur.

1. The compression causes the interstitial fluid inside to increase in flow downwards into the diaphysis and also causing the hydrostatic pressure in the hollow cavity in the bone to increase. Since we are pushing on the bone, the cavity should get smaller so the pressure inside should increase. This increase to hydrostatic pressure is theorized to increase or assist the stem cells to turn into chondrocytes (aka differentiation).

2. This causes the stem cells in the bone marrow in the medullary cavity to turn themselves into chondrocytes. The newly formed chondrocytes can then more readily go through the process of mitosis and endochondral ossification, which would lead to long bone lengthen, leading to height increase.

Note: I still can’t figure out just how the already existing stiff and strong cortical bones of in the diaphysis or epiphysis will fracture (aka go through distraction) to even allow the newly formed condrocytes to go through their natural processes. I would guess that a compressed epiphysis that leads to newly formed chondrocytes would only build on the inner wall of the medullary cavity and thicken the layer of cancellous bone inside the outer cortical bone shell.

Increase Height And Grow Taller By Inducing Microfractures

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Update 1/21/2013: After going back to this post to review the information that I had previously put up, I realized that this post needed to be redone, edited, and added on the technical details.

There is a theory that if one can induce microfractures, one can then use some form of device or equipment to stretch the long legs where the microfractures which were induced  can lead to longitudal length gain, thus an increase in height. This idea was the main theoretical background behind the shinbone method.

The idea of microfractures has been one of the most researched and tested theories and methods for height increase. The experimenter Sky and his team at LimbCenter.org (which I don’t think exist anymore except on the Wayback Machine.) tried applying the microfracture theory to gain height for over 5 years and in the end, the results were very dismal and showed little success. Through Sky’s effort, he would develop the prototypes and many variations of ideas on how to induce microfractures, including a Shinbone Method, Thighbone Method (which I remember seeing but could never find any information on), and also a Lumbar/Back Method.

In addition, the trainer Pierre Pozzuto would come up with A-Grow-Bics and use the principle of microfractures to explain why any bit of height increase would even be possible for adults. However the results which we do find from his program, which does seem to work for a small group of his clients, can be explained instead by the idea of vertebral decompression, better posture, and some bone realignment moves similar to what we might find in rolfing, or the Alexander Technique.

In my personal opinion, at this point in the research, I would not recommend trying or applying this method. The idea behind inducing microfractures was that the external cortical bone of the long bones in the legs would have a weak enough tensile strength being rather on the brittle side to allow even for a bit of microfractures to come about from repeated kicking, jumping, or running.

In general we remember and note that the tensile strength of human cortical bone, which is cylindrical in nature to give it the most strength in terms of bone strength/volume, is very, VERY high.

The hollow nature of human long bone gives it the strength and durability to land animals who need to stand up right and still be nimble and fast enough to either run for prey or outrun predators. The same idea for hollow bones is found in birds who need the strong hollow bone matrix to hold their body structure up and also be light enough to be able to glide and fly.

url-2It would turn out that when I did a quick Google search for the term microfractures, that the idea is currently already being done by orthepaedic surgeons as a way to heal articular cartilage damage.

The picture to the left is a picture I found from a website where a surgeon/physician is showing in diagram how to perform a type of knee arthroscopy. What they seem to be doing is inducing microfractures that are  just small holes less than 1 mm in diameter in the sub condylar and sub chondral medial & lateral areas of the epiphysis of the upper knee area, where the distal end of the femur is.

It seems that overall the medical professionals have been able to figure out how to use microfractures to cause the healing of chronic articular cartilage damage.

As for the technology to use microfractures to lead to height increase, it would seem that maybe it would just be easier to get medical professionals to cause the microfractures formations. If the idea of microfractures was truly sound, then a medical professional with a few drills will be instead used to cause the bones to develop the microfractures we are looking for. All we then would have to do is prove using any type of bone lengthening device that the induced microfractures can cause lengthening.

However I have wondered whether any chance for bone lengthening is dependent on microfracture shape as well. With the microfracture surgery, the drill in round, hole shape has to reach the subchondral bone level so that the pluripotent progenitor stem cells will be released from the bone marrow inside to cause cartilage formation. This shows that any microfracture technique will in terms of depth be able to reach the subchondral layer. What is left in terms of factors is the shape. The question then to ask is whether  the shape should be a slit in the horizontal direction or vertically since a large bone defect would not do much except cause blood loss. I would guess that a horizontal slit fracture may give the bone a slightly greater chance to be able to expand vertically, thus causing height increase.

There really isn’t much more to say about microfractures which hasn’t already been stated in other posts like the one on the shinbone method or the posts about ankle weights, part II.

 

Increase Height And Grow Taller Using The Alexander Technique, Updated

I had previously written a very short intro post about the possibility of using the Alexander Technique to Increase Height (HERE). I was getting into the research to see what others have found.

From this Resource (a SHE magazine article on the Alexander Technique website), it seems that a women who has had very bad posture for a long time increased her height from 5′ 5″ to 5′ 7″ after a few weeks of using the Alexander Technique sessions.

From this PDF HERE, we learn that the technique has been used by movie stars, musicians, athletes, and actor students in Julliard and the NYC Actors Studio Drama School for over 70 years. The quote I will take is ,

” The results can be very dramatic; people can gain up to an inch and a half in “lost” height that was due to collapse….”

From the Resoouce HERE it is stated also that “commonly adults gain height”. I found this link to be very useful and informative on what the Alexander method does.

Of all the resources on the internet, the best resource is TheAlexanderGuide.Com . From the website, I copy and pasted the first intro paragraph…

The Alexander technique is a way of becoming more aware of your balance and how you move. It’s based on the premise that most people have bad postural habits that, over time, stop us using our bodies as easily and comfortably as we should. Wrongly used muscles contract and pull down, giving to the classic sign of bad use: head tipped back at the start of any movement, especially sitting or standing.

The way of modern living leads to bad postural habits; shoulders raised and stiffened by stress, neck poked forward over desk work, tired bodies slumped into saggy armchairs. Soon we’ve lost all sense of how we really are, so that what feels natural (because it’s habitual) is widely out of line. That’s why it’s hard to correct our own posture without expert help. The Alexander Technique aims to re-educate the body into moving more easily – relearning the natural grace all children have until they all go to school and start slouching over desks.

How can Alexander Technique make you grow taller?

It’s based on what Alexander Technique teachers call ‘good use of the body’ – allowing the spine to regain its natural curves, holding the head effortlessly in the easiest position and distributing weight evenly over your feet. The bonus is that you look taller and feel lighter.

The Alexander Technique teaches you how to stand, how to sit and how to use a chair. Posture is perfected and the body is taught to move with ease. It is not unusual for Alexander Technique practicioners to have grown by 2-3 cm. It can simply be that their spine was curved or they held their head too far forward. It’s about letting the spine reach its full length. Many of us carry our heads too far back and tilted skywards. The technique teaches you to let go of the muscles holding the head back, allowing it to resume its natural place on the summit of our spines. The head weighs 4-6kg (10-12lb), so any misalignment can cause problems for the neck and body.

How is Alexander Technique different from Pilates or Yoga?

Alexander Technique is not like Pilates in that it does not involve actual exercise (like on the cadillac or reformer) but has some of the same ideas about being centered.

Pilates was developed to strengthen the body core (Pilates originator, Joseph Pilates, was a gymnast who wanted to speed up recovery). Alexander Technique was originally developed for stage performers to “free up” their bodies (Mr. Alexander was an actor). That is, you would not get stiff after an Alexander Technique session like you would after your first Pilates sessions, nor will Alexander Technique do anything for your muscle strength.

Alexander Technique is more about realignment, which is where it comes closer to Yoga. But it does not have the meditative and stretching/relaxing element of Yoga. Alexander Technique is stricly about using your body better and more efficiently.

Me: If I was to go out into the street right now and put adult 10 people in 10 sessions with a licensed Alexander Technique instructor, I would guess that half of them but the end of the 10 sessions would have added at least 1 extra cm of height. The Alexander Technique helps normal people who often live lives where they are slouching and hunched over gain what I have termed “lost height”. In the US based on our living habits, I would say 60% (or higher) of people have at least 1 cm of “hidden height” that they don’t realize. If they were worked on, I would guess a good number of them can increase their height by up to 1-1.5 inches in extra height.

It is because they are choosing not to stand and walk in the right posture. The alexander method redirects the person who goes into the session to learn how to direct and focus the movement of their body. They learn how to stand, walk, and move better.

So in conclusion, the Alexander Technique can help a person gain “hidden height” from better posture and spinal realignment. The technique will NOT give another 2 inches to a ballet dancer or figure skater, or anyone who had already learned how to stretch out their body to the body’s natural limit through training and exercises. It works, and it also doesn’t work.