LEG LENGHENING WITH CYCLING – DOES CYCLING MAKE YOU TALLER?

Many folks wonder if cycling does increase height after 18 or even 25 years.

If you are one of them, I will share my experience with this article.

In a bid to explore the possible reasons why a number of folks (me inclusive )  somehow increase their leg length with cycling with a raised seat, three hypotheses will be taken into consideration;

One is stretching of the leg joints. 

If you’ve read the retired Ukrainian high jumper  Rustam Akhmetov’s book ( unfortunately  not available in English), he says he increased his height by about 8 inches  by stretching his body on the bed everyday with the aid of strings until he became 6’2″.

Hence,  possibly there is a secret in stretching the body forcing it to grow.

A study that aimed to assess the effects of small changes in bicycle seat on leg movement established that any slight increase in your bicycle saddle height stretches your hip, knee, and ankle joints.[1]

Though speculative, this is likely to  contribute to your leg length in one way or the other.

The second possibility is developmental plasticity /adjustment.

Developmental plasticity involves permanent change in the structure  of a tissue or an organ, as a result of  structured interplay between the organism and its environment.[2]

Organisms continuously face challenges as they grow and develop, and are equipped with the ability develop traits in a bid to adapt to hostile conditions they are exposed to.

Take an example of giraffes.

According to French zoologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s book  zoologique physique, they had shorter necks but continuously   stretched their necks  to strip leaves from the untouched upper branches of trees and as a result, their necks became longer over time to adapt to the environment.

English naturalist Charles Darwin too believed that the giraffe’s extraordinary long fore legs, tongue and neck must have something to do with foraging  on the higher branches of trees.

However,  though his theory of evolution stemmed from Jean-Baptiste’s theory, his argument differed from that of Jean-Baptiste.

He believed that the giraffe’s long neck resulted from repeated  natural selection.

Long-necked giraffes were more likely to survive hard times than their short-necked rivals.

According to Darwin, first there was overproduction of the offspring (giraffes) but less than enough food was available for all of them.

Those with longer necks survived because they could reach higher tree branch leaves  while those with shorter necks starved to death.

long-necked giraffes survived and reproduced, so their genes for long necks increased in frequency in the next generation.

Hence, when you raise a bicycle seat and your legs stretch out to reach for the pedals, developmental plasticity will come into play.

The body will receive a communication that the legs reaching the pedals is a matter of survival which will help you to lengthen the legs with cycling since the legs will have to adapt to the environmental alteration over time.

Since adaptation is a process, your body will take some time to adapt.

The Third possibility is adaptation resulting from stretching the leg muscles.

Change in muscle length after a stretch is applied is normally transient, lasting for only  hours if not minutes before the muscle reverts to it’s original position.

However, if tension is maintained for a long time, muscles adapt to function  in a stretched position then the length of the muscle will increase over time until a new steady state length is reached a term known as the adaptive remodeling of muscle.  [3]

The stimulus for the adaptation of muscle length  results from the imposed length change.

When you Ride a bike with a seat raised, a number of leg muscles are consistently stretched and these include;

The calf muscles (soleus) , the lateral and medial head  muscles, the tibialis anterior and the plantaris muscles.

This gives the shin bone room to grow freely when stress on the legs is well applied.

Your leg bones also have roughened patches on their surfaces where muscles are attached.

When your muscles contract and stretch, they pull the bone they’re attached to, making your leg move.

What does it take to be Successful with this technique ?

First, both an indoor and outdoor bike can effectively do the job but your success in using this technique will depend on the size of bicycle you use among other factors.

In terms of size, the Schwinn hybrid bikes are a good example if you choose an outdoor bike.

If you live in India, road master bicycles will be a good alternative.

If you prefer indoor bikes, then the     Sunny health and fitness indoor bike » »    will be effective.

After securing your bike, the next thing will be to raise the seat by about 6 to 10 mm higher than the level you pedal comfortably.

The challenge

The challenge most people face is adjusting the seat post.

Most indoor bikes come with short stems which makes it impossible to raise the seat to your desired height.

If you face such a challenge, you may try an  adjustable bike seat post   but   make sure you get the right size for your bike.

If you fail to get the right post for tour indoor bike, you may have to hire a welder to customize it for you or opt for an out door bike.

It’s a lot easier to find adjustable seat posts that are compatible with most out door bikes.

After fixing your bicycle seat post, if its an out door bike, the next thing will be ensuring that it’s stationed.

Many people ask if the bike has to be stationed.

The answer is you are free to do whatever you want but from my experience, it’s almost impossible to comfortably pedal a bike with a raised seat when it’s not stationed.

So, if you don’t have a stationary bike and you are facing budget constraints, there’s no need to hit the gym as long as you have an outdoor bike.

Just customize your outdoor bike with a bicycle stand to make the bike stationary.

However, some bike  stands tend to have compatibility issues so be sure it fits your bike.

How cycling with a raised seat should be done

The main challenge you will face is getting used to riding while seated on a raised saddle.

You may not be able to pedal at all if the seat is raised too high.

It may take you between a couple of weeks to four months to gain the first 5 -7mm in legs.

Bones take on average 2 to 4 months to fully remodel.

When the legs finally lengthen slightly, you will be able to push the pedals with the instep of your feet even when the seat is raised.

The initial 5mm gain in height may be negligible and discreet  but it will be enough achievement and you will be heartened to carry on now that you have renewed belief that it is possible.

With this exercise, I managed to grow about 1cm during my first month with the aid of other exercises and nutrients as shared in my book  though  later it took longer.

You may grow even more in much less time considering that I approached the exercise the lazy way.

It’s however imperative to note that growth hormones are very critical for bone growth so, if you ride for long hours and also increase growth hormones then you may be able to grow faster.

Visit    how to increase human growth hormones during and after puberty    if you wonder how to achieve that.

what I realized though, is that even if your target was growing by an inch, you keep increasing the target as you grow because you realize that your height destiny is in your hands yet you feel you want to walk on top of every one….how nice it feels!

How Much height can be increased by cycling?

This may vary from individual to individual and may depend on many factors like genes, time invested, nutrition etc.

However, in my experience and according to a couple of folks who shared their success stories in the exercise routine handbook, your shin bones together with the thigh bones or femur bones are most likely to grow between 1- 3 inches.  

I’m certain that now you are wondering how the femur grows with this technique.

Quite hard to explain but with time, as my legs lengthened, my thigh bones appeared longer  than my shin bones.

Could be that the body symmetry is automatically maintained since like I mentioned on the home page, even my hands grew slightly.

For instance, a person’s arm span, — the distance from the middle fingertip of the left hand to that of the right hand when stretching out both arms horizontally—to their height. This ratio is approximately a one to one ratio, meaning that a person’s arm span is about equal to their height.