I have already stated once that I used to be crazy about basketball, (and volleyball…and swimming) I also love to talk about height and how to grow taller. So I wanted to throw in an article about basketball and height, which is a related subject.

The purpose of this post is to ask the reader this “At what time during the day is considered one’s true height?“- HOW are we really measuring our height? – Should we standard the process to have some consistency?

We all know that one’s height changes throughout the day because of our back vertebrate and the disks compress and make us shorter as time continues. When we wake up after a long night of sleep, we go back to the highest height.

Lets look at the height of Lebron James and the height of Kevin Durant, two of the premier NBA players, if not the best basketball players on the planet at this time (Summer, 2012).

Let’s take a look at picture #1.

On the NBA site and on the individual team’s websites, the heights of Lebron James on the Miami Heat website is listed at 6′ 8″ at 250 lb. If you want to see the Reference, click HERE.

On the NBA site and on the individual tema’s website, the height of Kevin Durant on the Oklahoma City Thunder website is listed at 6′ 9″ at 235 lb. If you want to see the Reference, click HERE.

What I don’t seem to understand is why there seems to be such a large height difference between the two players in that picture.  I would guess that the two players seemed to have a 3-4 inch height difference between them. Let’s take into consideration the angles, the body positions, and the footwear.

Lebron James is standing closer to the camera so in theory he should look bigger due to the Law of Perspective. He does not. Both Lebron and Kevin are leaning towards the center of the picture, to the woman in the middle. However, Lebron seems to be leaning back a little while Kevin is leaning in.  Overall, they are both facing the camera .

Kevin Durant has a natural posture of stooping, but he still looks far bigger in that picture with his posture problem.

From a measurement of the average human head/skull, the distance from the horizontal line from the middle of the eyes to the top of the skulls is usually between 4-5 inches in length. From that picture, it look like that the middle horizontal line from Kevin Durant’s eyes line directly lines up to the tip of Lebron’s head. So, does that mean the Kevin is 4-5 inches taller than Lebron? What the hell is going on?

Let’s now do a better analysis

Refer to Picture #2.

From this picture we note that again  the two players seem to have a height difference far more than just 1 inch. If you don’t remember how big 1 inch is, either go find a measuring stick or ruler in your house. If you can’t even find that, look at the first part (endpoint) of your thumbs. That is about the length of an inch (assuming you are an average sized US male).

The height difference looks slightly less this time, removing the angle and posture problems that was involved in the last picture. We can say that the height difference between the two is more like 3-4 inches.

So how does the listings on the websites have such a difference between what the pictures say?

Let’s go to what the old measurements for the two players were. If we go to the predraft measurements, we see something strange. For the Predraft Express Website, click HERE.

The official measurements of Lebron James on the Dredraft Express Website are:

Rank Pick: 1st in 2003 by Cavaliers (Born 12/30/1984 – was drafted at age 18.5 years old) – Went directly to NBA from high cchool

Height Without Shoes: 6′ 7.25″

Height With Shoes: 6′ 8″

Weight: 245 lb

Wingspan: 7′ 0.25″

Standing Reach: 8′ 10.25″

The official measurements of Kevin Durant on the Dredraft Express Website are:

Rank Pick: 2nd in 2007 draft by SuperSonics (Born 9/29/1988 – was drafted at age 18.75 years old) – Spent 1 year in college

Height Without Shoes: 6′ 9″

Height With Shoes: 6′ 10.25″

Weight: 215 lb

Wingspan: 7′ 4.5″

Standing Reach: 9′ 2″

No Step Vertical: 26″

Maximum Vertical: 33.5″

From these number, we could argue that Lebron was only 18.5 years old when drafted so he could have grown the extra 3 quarters of an inch to hit 6′ 8″ as he is always billed. That is completely reasonable because guys have shown to be able to continue to grow in height even up to age 21-22. Given that most of the NBA players have amazing height genes and often have dramatic crazy growth spurts, it is definitely reasonable that he reached that height. But then, shouldn’t Lebron then be only 1 inch shorter than Durant? It doesn’t look like it. If the height difference between the two was really 1.75 inches, then it might be acceptable to go with that difference to explain the pictures. However, we are going with the opposite assumption. Lebron is 6′ 8″ and Kevin is 6′ 9″. So if we go with this arguement, what the hell is going on then with the pictures? Could it be that Durant also grew another inch (or more) since he was only 18.75 when he was drafted? It is likely but how come his height has not been adjusted on the teams website?

So let’s bring up picture #3

This picture may be the greatest example at how varied the human body can be. It is also a spectacular example of just how big these NBA players are compared to normal human beings. Kobe Bryant was billed at 6′ 7″ when he first came into the league at age 17, but he had big hair back then. He is now listed at a reasonable height of 6′ 6″. Dwayne Wade is listed in the league at 6′ 4″ and his predraft measurements show that he is 6′ 3.75″ without his shoes on. Given the these facts, and then looking at the picture maybe it is time to recognize the fact that Lebron James is really 6′ 8″.

If not, then there is only two other possibilities.

1. One, he is listing his height as himself in shoes, which makes him 6′ 8″ exactly as he is billed.

2. He is listing himself using his height during the morning, when he wakes up after sleeping. His height would have increased from the vertebrate decompression.

For me, who is slightly over 6′ 0″ when I wake up and slightly more than 5′ 11.25″ late at night, I understand that one’s height can change. For a person like Lebron who has a bigger body, that means that the variation in his height is probably a lot larger than mine. His height could possibly range form 6′ 7.25″ up to 6′ 8.5″ through out the day. It is totally reasonable to say that Lebron is indeed 6′ 8″ for much of the day. Of course, all of this height speculation on Lebron is assuming that Kevin Durant has not grown over his predraft measurement listed height of 6′ 9″.

So, if this NBA player is listing his height at his maxium height of the day, should I do the same? Should I claim that my height is 6 foot even though it is only that measurement for a short time during the day?

So then, we go back to the original real question this post is supposed to ask, “At what time during the day is considered one’s true height?” – HOW are we measuring our height? – Should It be changed or altered to have some form of consistently?

This will be one of the last posts which I express only my subjective opinions and ideas on the subject of height increase. The truth is that for me to even start and continue to work on this project which is looking for a way to grow taller and increase height after we have finished puberty and the growth plates have does require one to have something more than only science, rationality, and logic.

From the current scientific, rational point of view, there should not be any way one should be able to add height after one reaches the end of puberty when the epiphyseal plates seal and ossify with the adjacent boness. The general consensus by the medical community and specifically orthopedic specialists and endocrinologists is that puberty removes the cartilage which was the way we had been able to continue to grow and increase the length in our long bone.

There may be a few things we can do to gain 1 inch or even 2 inches like stretching, and yoga. Of course limb lengthening surgery has allowed us to literally manipulate our very bones to give us what we want.

However, what we are looking for directly goes beyond the accepted scientific theory. I may sometimes be quick to point out that a specific method uses theory and ideas that are pseudoscience, I also realize my own hypocrisy because I will have to shift my idea into the pseudoscience, the esoteric, and even the mystical practices to even allow for the idea that the idea of height increase is even possible.

I realize that I can not fully accept the rules that science imposes. The scientific answer to our question is a clear ‘NO”. I also realize that I can not fully accept in an crazy irrational theories and ideas because they don’t make any sense or have any real foundation in the sciences.

When I look at certain people whose profession is to debunk people who claim the supernatural like Derren Brown and James Randi, I realize that I must be very careful with my claims and beliefs too. Randi has left a $1,000,000 prize to any person who can show through a double blind test that any form of psychic or paranormal phenomenon exists still has not lost that $1 million yet in over 50 years. The UK mental magician Derren Brown has managed to go around the world using hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic Programming to influence people. His intentions has been to show the blind spots within us humans, and all the types of confidence tricks our ego plays on ourselves and all the ways that people use their own subjective biases to trick themselves into believing things or trusting in ideas that have no true objective basis.

My own way in this path is to explore all the options, and try my best to show which methods and techniues are the most feasible and most effective. I will not be afraid to state that some product being sold on the internet is a scam, whether it is because of bad intentions or because of a bad quality product.

The people on the camp who is all science and rationality will hate me because I still want to believe in the possibility and will be okay in continuing to search for an answer. The people in the faith camp will hate me because I am always trying to disprove the ideas and methods out there currently and use science to evicerate unwell thought-out theories and ideas. I will not tolerate fluff and “hand waving” communication.

On the other hand, lets us not forget that science and our own logic can not answer everything, or even some of the most obvious biological phenomena. If we consider the reason why we even go through senescence (biological aging), sleeping or yawning, nothing in the scientific literature can give a solid scientific explanation using the evolutionary model. If you don’t believe me just google the terms “sleep”, or “aging” ,or “yawning” into google and look for the scientific reason and you will realize that the scientific community can not explain these common events in our lives using the standard scientific model.

In addition, recent discoveries that was just decades ago believed to be impossible are now shown to be possible. The generation of new neurons, the growth of cartilage, the growth of teeth cells, the growth of human organs for transplants, the mapping of the entire human genome, the discovery of the first gene related to height, etc. One day it could very well be possible that I will not need to stand on that line that is right in the middle of believing in science or only going on faith and the spiritual and mystical stuff. I have a lot of confidence and respect for the sciences and as long as humans stay alive and do more research on our bodies , specifically genetics, the scientists and engineers of tomorrow may build a device that not only can make us taller, whether through stems cells or dna manipulation, they can also make us younger, regrow entire limbs, improve our memory and cognitive ability, and cure cancer.

You can grow taller by swimming if you consistently do that before you finish puberty and your growth plates have not closed. The constant exercise and mvement of the body develops strong muscles and actually does help release slightly more Growth Hormone than if one just was a couch potato. By how much one will increase one’s height if one takes up swimming is not determined.

However, even after you have finished puberty the exercise of swimming can possibly still increase one’s height by 0.25-0.5 inch if the swimming is done with intensity and is accompanied with rest and a light meal.

In general, the decrease in the amount of force being pressed down on you will be reduced significantly since the downward force of gravity will be redistributed along you in the front–> back direction when you are lying down face in the water and moving horizontally. The disks between the vertebrate will then have less load per square inch and they can decompress. The additional twisting of the ankles and the motion of the others joints like the knee and hips keeps the body nimble. The extension and movement of the arms and legs during swimming can also help improve flexibility and stretch the body. However, we must remember that the overall bone structure and bone lengths still have not changed or increased.

Although many other Height Increase Guides state that the breaststroke is the best stroke to use, I personally would actually say it is the butterfly stroke and backstroke. For the backstroke, the extension of the arms back behind your head, the arching of the back to expand your torso, and the need to consistently keep one’s head flat helps train oneself to learn to have a straighter back and neck position. For the butterfly stroke, the movement of the arms, the stretching of the back in both directions at a constant rate, and the movement of the legs keeps the body moving allowing for a degree of flexibility.

Note: Again, I would like to remind the person that I only gained 1/4th of an inch through 3-5 months of constant non stop swimming where I would often swim up to 2 hours a day. This included also sleeping on a flat surface, sleeping over 9 hours a day, and eating light meals each day. 

Of course at that time I had just finished my undergraduate degree and being lazy did not decide to get a job yet.

I know from personal experience that after I took up the exercise of swimming, I measured myself to be .25 (or sightly longer) inches taller. I was 22-23 by that time and had not grown in 3-4 years. The only explanation that I could make is that the types of swimming I was doing helped improve my posture and straighten my spine. Throughout childhood I had always had a slight slouch but that eventually decreased but the slouch still existed. After I started swimming, I found that my posture had changed and my breathing as far slower and deeper. My chest was often extended out and upward so I also gained an amazing amount of confidence.

In terms of fitness, the benefits were amazing. I went from 195 lb and 5′ 11.5″  to 185 and 6′ 0″ in the morning. I found that my torso had far more definition, my stomach shrank, a 6 pack “sort of” showed up, my lats expanded, and my body turned into a “V” shape . My neck slimmed down and my thinking became clearer.

I wanted to state that one should really think about taking up swimming even if there is not height increase because the other types of benefits are worth it.

What one learns from swimming in Masters Programs is the one wants to start with a warm up, then the core stuff, and then the cool down. One adjusted the number of laps does by the size of the pool. In the US, the most common size is pool that are 25 yards in length. The length the US measuring system does is by inches, feet, yards, and miles. There is 12 inches in 1 feet and 3 feet in 1 yard.

In other countries where the International Standard is done, length is measured by the log of 10. You have milimeters, centimeters, decimeters, and meters. The pools in a country like Canada, Australia, or France are all 25 metres.

There is 39.37 inches in a meter and there is 36 inches in a yard. So relatively, a yard is about the same length as a meter. When one swims the pools in other countries, one should notice that the pools seem to be slightly longer than the ones in the US (because they are by over 9%). In Olympic sized pools, the length is 50 meters. In general, one should want to focus on distance first and then work on intensity, then speed, for fitness goals.

For our goals of height increase, it is better to focus only on intensity first to allow for greater release of hormone and endorphin release. Then work on distance. The disks between the vertebrate does not decompress immediately after we enter the pool, but after maybe a few hours.

Today we review and analyze the Yoko Height Increasing Insoles. There are quiet a few websites that sell this product.

The claim by this product is that the increase in height is from using reflexology, magnetic energy, and acupressure. The theory is derived from the ancient Chinese theory of chi, which also created Acupuncture. There is supposed to be these chi meridian lines in the human body, which is similar to blood vessel pathways, but only more subtle. Scientists and medical researchers to date have not found any evidence to the existence of Chi or these chi meridian lines. However, the practice of acupuncture has been shown to improve and relieve chronic pain, nausea, and headaches. Whether the conditions get better because of a placebo affect or actually be acupuncture is still inconclusive. Getting back to the subject of the product, the meridian lines have certain areas and point on them that is supposed to correspond dot certain diseases and body parts. There is supposed to be a line for the heart, liver, bile, kidneys, etc.

The YOKO product has these points or areas in the insole that is supposed to stimulate the pressure point areas in the feet that correspond to the human pituitary gland. By stimulating that point, the energy channel can then tell the pituitary gland to release more growth hormone, HGH.

Somehow the practice of acupressure was transmitted to other countries. The YOKO product was originally created and manufactured in Japan but now I do note that the product is mainly sold from sites that are from India.

So how do you use the product? from the website www.yokoheightincreaser.in/

HOW TO USE YOKO

Yoko gives better results when the position of your foot in the insole is correct, so the most concave part of your foot must be placed on the most convex part of insole. To fit the foot in right position, cut away the extra part of the insole.

The better result of Yoko is derived by using it regularly. So wear it in your shoes where ever you go and walk.

20 to 30 minutes, two times (morning and evening) walking regularly daily would give the better result.

While using Yoko, you can do your normal activities but sportive activities (like basketball, jogging and stretch exercise) are much better.

It may be possible that you feel nothing or hurt a bit earlier while using Yoko but don’t worry, it takes a little more time to accommodate.

Never forget better sleep and enough rest while using Yoko, in a right posture.

The best advise is to be given is the diet. All Nutritional (protein, fibre, vitamin) food items (like fish, milk, eggs, meat, fruits and green vegetables) are must.

Me: I wanted to introduce you to this question posed on Yahoo Questions and answered by someone who had used the product before, at an age which they still wanted to believe and tried many different forms of methods without success. You can find the link to the question HERE.

I always wanted to make this point to the Height Increase Seekers (H.I.S) out there. The human body is both a very complex system but also very easily to understand. It is complex because we can’t really pinpoint or be too exact on the explanation of certain processes in the body. Endocrinologists still have not figured out what is the true initla trigger that causes the onset of puberty. While the researchers have figure out steps 2-14 of the complex process that leads to the onset of puberty, the release of certain hormones, and the eventual closing of the growth plates, they still can never get back to the real first trigger in the body.

In the end, the real answer may not be biological or chemical, but based on the principles of physics. If we get really analytical, and we really examined the biological processes in the body, we would conclude that physics is what dominates the processes. It could very well turn out that once the organism (us) reaches a certain age the number of free radicals or the number of telomeres reach a threshold point where the glands in the brain start the process along with the aging process.

The complex part comes in the subject of height increase and growing taller because we still don’t know exactly where puberty starts because if we did, we can then do something to delay the onset of puberty or slow downs the rate of puberty. It is easy to understand because we know that just from a few basic principles we can describe maybe 80% of all the functions in the body.

The easy to understand part about our subject of height increase and growing taller is that the main issues that prevent us from growing is that our bones are extremely hard and inelastic. Remember that what had always allowed us to grow was because there was parts in our long bones which was elastic, the cartilage. However that cartilage one day goes away and we don’t have anything to stretch. The bones in our body is what both keeps us standing up because it provides the overall infrastuture of how our body form looks like. Thus, it is our bones that allows us to even stand and have height, but that hard substance also keeps us from ever increasing any higher in our preprogrammed biological genetics.

I had done a previous post on the composition, structure, and mechanical properties of our long bones before so I know that it is near impossible to stretch that bones because it would fracture and crack before stretching. So, we must always consider this: That height increase and growing taller is not possible, at least right now with our medical technology. Our hard bones prevent us from ever manipulating our bodies. Sure, there is plastic surgery which we can do to cut away bone, and there is always limb lengthening surgery.

I remember Napoleon Hill , the author of the self help book “Think and Grow Rich” stating that whatever is that you truly want, you can achieve, as long as it does not go against the laws of physics and nature, or man made ones (but those are breakable if one chose not to follow them). It could be that trying to push beyond what our natural inborn genes allows us goes directly against a law of Nature.

Can we settle and be happy with the possibility and idea that we have to settle and be happy with our bodies and height? Is it fair that our friends who is a foot taller than us seems to get all the attention of the opposite sex, gets all the job offers and raises, and is always admired while we get so little compared to them? No, it is not fair. But then what are we going to do about it? Can we somehow force the world not to have people taller than us just to make ourselves feel better about our selves? Not all of us can be a Blake Lively (5′ 10″) or Ivanka Trump (5′ 11″) but we can learn to be tougher, more mentally strong, strong than these individuals who have never learned what it means to suffer or feel insecurity over their height.

I am reminded of an extremely insight quote made by Kip Thorne, the Richard Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech about the amazing mental powers of Stephen Hawking, the former Lucasian Professor of Natural Science At Cambridge (which was once held by Newton) . While many people are amazed at Hawkings’ ability to focus and solve these incredible physics and mathematical problems all in his head even though he suffers from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, he has managed to accomplish so many mental feats that other people can not. Thorne made the comment which reverse the entire thinking upside by claiming that Hawking has been able to make such mental masterpieces because of his illness, not in spite of it, because his illness meant that other people would be able to take care of everything else in his life, and tend to his body while all he had to do was focus on the mental realm and strengthen his mind and mental prowess. When I heard that comment the first time, it made me realize that what is often considered a weakness in one area can be transmuted into a strength in another

Ex. The blind person whose sense of hearing or smell is so much more acute than people who have sight. The unattractive girl who has to improve her personality because she can not get away using just her looks. The poor business person who has to learn how to hustle and learn street smarts because they don’t have the money and book smarts another person might have.

I have met so many people with disabilities and physical limitations who realize their own physical limitations and decided not to focus on that area of their life but improve and make stronger another area. The People with AIDS, Cancer, debilitating Diabetes, Multiple Sclerosis, Lower body paralysis, and actually suffer form the medical condition of Dwarfism. They are only 4 feet sometimes. I have seen many cases of people who are below average in height find everything they want in life, specifically love and someone to be with, which is really what many of us really want in our deepest part of our heart. It is very obvious that for many men, one of the core reasons they might want to increase their height is to get the attention and interest in women. But that long and painful process can be easily hacked but getting these guys a girlfriend who truly loves them for their real selves without considering their size. There are some guys out there who specifically chase after tall girls because they are short . That is often to satisfy an ego thing to prove to the world and themselves that they are powerful and capable in their skills, which they had to make far better and stronger than another person to overcompensate for a believed weakness in another area (See Napoleon Complex).

My ultimate point is that if height increase and growing taller turns out to be impossible, can we find a way to make that final conclusion into something that can ultimately help us and others? If you are only 5 feet tall right now and stay at 5 feet for the rest of your life, what else would you like to focus your energy, time, and resources toward?

Again I felt the need to show that one’s size does not determine the quality or richness of one’s life. Even if you’re less than 2 feet tall, you still have amazing control and power inside of you to do great things. I wanted to introduce you to one of the most inspirational people you may meet. You’ve seen Sean Stephenson, and then Nick Vijicic, and now you get to meet Jessica Rogers. Again and again, we see that these amazing people have been able to overcome their physical limitations like height or disability and given the world their own gifts. Please realize that no matter how small we may be, there are always someone out there shorter that you and has learned to live an amazing life without worrying too much about how big they are. Dream big baby, just dream big and try to make them real.

Jessica Rogers stands at only 18 inches tall (That’s right, only a feet and a half tall) but she has the spirit and heart of someone who is more than 10 feet tall. Jessica was born with Caudal Regression Syndrome, which means she has no lower spine and extremely small legs. She is hoping to participate in the 2012 Summer Paralympics. Damn Awesome to me.

She was featured on Oprah I posted the article about her down below or  you can find the article about her HERE.

Me: I found the video below from Youtube from this link HERE.