Being a cycling enthusiast, I have often found avid cyclists discussing the possibilities of increasing their height by indulging in this vigorous sport. The answer to whether cycling can help you increase your height or not is a bit tricky. Although the answer is yes, exploring the ‘how’ and ‘when’ aspects of cycling is imperative.
Well, cycling can be a great exercise that can help you burn fat. Besides being eco-friendly, cycling does help you increase height! However, there’s always a right way to go about it, and also at the right time.
So, what would be the right way to cycle?
And what would be the right age to start cycling so that you can gain height?
I have extensively discussed these aspects in this article. Moreover, I have recommended some of the best diets for cyclists like you who are looking for ways to get taller. This way, you can complement your physical exercise with the right kind of food to optimize the health benefits.
Does Cycling Really Increase Height?
The Harvard Medical School published a research paper, which states that cycling for half an hour daily can help you increase your height. The paper also confirmed that you could lose around 300 calories by cycling each day, lose body fat, and stretch the muscles of your leg.
Also, NCBI states that around 80% of the growth in the height of humans depends on genetics that they inherit from their parents. While you cannot modify this possibility, it’s crucial to bank on the remaining 20%. Although cycling doesn’t contribute to your height directly, in some cases, it can be conducive to your growth.
- Although your height largely depends on genetics, exercise and exposure to diseases also help in increasing your height.
- Another research states that the best time to start cycling is during puberty. Teenagers between 15 to 18 are most likely to benefit from cycling to increase their height. As we near the age of 20, the chances of our height increasing fade off. So, it’s crucial to engage yourself in cycling from a young age.
- Along with this, it’s important to prioritize a nutritious diet. Therefore, a calculated combination of diet and exercise or cycling can help you increase your height.
When it came to the design of cycle or bike, the Germans and Dutch had their different ways. Later, in India, top cycle manufacturers started producing both these models. Interestingly, the Dutch are taller than the Germans, and this difference in height can be assessed by their cycling habits.
How To Increase Height While Riding A Bicycle?
Now that you know that riding your bicycle can help you increase your height, I will tell you the right way of doing it. Here are some tips for correctly riding your bicycle that should help you increase your height.
1. Raise Your Saddle Up
If you are keen to increase your height by cycling, I would highly recommend you raising the saddle slightly up. When you position yourself higher up, you would be stretching the muscles of your legs. Particularly, the impact would be on your calf muscles, popliteus, and plantaris.
As a result, the shin bone gets adequate room to grow freely with the stress on your legs. With the leg muscles expanding and contracting, they would also pull the nearby bones. Here is an informative video showing the correct process to raise the saddle up.
In the process, your leg muscles would lengthen, leading to an increment in height. The shin bones can increase in length between 1 inch and 3 inches. This is possible only when you increase the space between your shin bones and thighs.
2. Stretch Your Spinal Cord
Well, while this might sound obvious, the right choice of your cycle or bike determines whether you adapt to the right posture while cycling. The mobility and equilibrium of the human body largely depend on the spinal cord. The vertebrae consist of 33 bones, which remain fused together.
In case you sit in the wrong posture while cycling, the spaces between the discs in your spine might reduce. This explains why it’s crucial to purchase the right cycle that suits your needs.
You can keep your spinal cord perfectly stretched with a proper height on your cycle. So, your position, as well as the size of your cycle, determines whether you can increase your height by engaging in this exercise.
3. Relax While Cycling
I have often found cyclists getting carried away by their adrenaline rush. This is why I repeatedly advise my readers not to rush with their bicycles. Rather, they should relax while pedaling, taking care to stretch their legs fully. When you reach the pedals with your legs, make sure that your body alerts you. Over time, you should get adapted to the changes in your riding style.
Besides, I advise against tiptoeing on the pedal. Take care that the pedals are comfortable and flat. Uncomfortable pedals can lead to stress fractures and injuries. You might put on your headphones and turn your favorite song on while cycling.
4. Warm Up Before Riding
Regardless of the type of cycle you are using, it’s important to warm yourself up. This helps in activating the muscles of our body for exercise. The same applies when you think of cycling as an exercise to reduce your body weight or increase your height. Before going for a ride, make sure to stretch up your body for a few minutes.
5. Follow The Right Cycling Schedule
Just like you have a prescribed schedule and time to exercise or hit the gym, I recommend you strictly stick to your daily cycling regime. When you start cycling, try to engage yourself in this exercise for at least 30 minutes a day.
Later, try to extend this time to 50 minutes. Cycling for half an hour each day would burn 300 calories. This way, it would make your body lean, besides strengthening your legs. As your body grows lean, you would naturally look tall. Cycling regularly, thus, makes you look taller.
Try to relax your body and mind while taking some rest in between. This would prevent your leg muscles from experiencing fatigue.
6. Set A High Gear Ratio
One of the main advantages of using a gear cycle over a non-gear cycle is that you can change the gear ratio according to your requirements. I recommend maintaining a higher gear ratio on your bike, which can indirectly help you increase your height. However, this would be a challenge for you if you lack endurance and body strength. Take a break after 30 minutes and stretch your body before you restart.
Firstly, make sure to hold the cycle tightly to stabilize your muscles. Otherwise, the muscles would develop fatigue quickly. At the bottom, you will find a small ring where you need to shift the gears. Pedal backward and forwards to move your feet. As you go for a higher gear ratio, you can feel the impact on your feet.
Eventually, this is bound to result in an increment in your height. However, this adaptation doesn’t take place instantly, and you may have to cycle for months for a visible increment in height. Besides, the process also depends on your living conditions, hormonal functions, sleep cycles, and nutrition.
At What Age Should You Start Cycling to Increase Height?
Do you know why people hardly grow once they reach 20 years of age?
This is because their growth plates get closed after this age. Although you can look taller by improving your posture after this age, you don’t really gain any additional height. The human growth hormone (HGH), which helps in increasing your height, gets generated when you engage yourself in activities like cycling.
Therefore, I would recommend starting cycling as early as 13 or 14. The ages between 15 and 18 are particularly crucial for gaining height. Given that your genetics significantly determine your height, you need to make the most of the remaining 20% by adapting the best cycling practices. Once you cross 20, there wouldn’t be any visible increment in your height.
Many parents buy cycles to their kids as early as six or seven. The earlier you start cycling, the greater would be your chances of increasing your height marginally.
If you are a teenager, I would recommend you cycling every day for at least 30 minutes. By the time you reach 20, this should add to your height by 2 to 3 inches. Of course, the results depend on your physique and diet habits.
So, the impact would vary from one person to the other. Also, you have no hand on your genes, so you can do little about it. The secret lies in maintaining the right posture while cycling. So, I would recommend you to check out the best bicycles to increase your height so long as you are a teen.
Watch experienced cyclists explaining how starting cycling at an early age helped them:
What To Eat To Get Taller Besides Riding A Cycle?
While you need to start cycling early in your teens, make sure to include these items in your meal. These items contain protein that promotes growth and repairs damaged tissues, along with vitamin D, calcium, phosphorous, and magnesium.
This also enhances bone health, which helps them grow faster. Another research reveals that probiotics, commonly found in fermented items, help in growth in height. As I mentioned, you need the right combination of nutrition and exercise to grow tall, here’s my recommended list of food for avid cyclists.
- Beans: Being a rich source of protein, beans are highly nutritious. Protein increases the IGF-1 levels in the body. This is a hormone that regulates growth in height. Moreover, beans contain Vitamin B, which protects children and teenagers from anemia. In the case of anemia, the body lacks healthy red blood cells. This can potentially delay your body’s growth.
- Chicken: It contains several essential nutrients and proteins. Besides, it contains vitamin B12, which helps in maintaining body height and makes you grow taller. Also, it contains an amino acid called taurine that helps bone growth and formation. No wonder, why I recommend cyclists to include chicken parts into their meals.
- Almonds: These edible seeds are a part of a healthy diet chart. Loaded with minerals and vitamins that help you grow taller, almonds help in achieving a good height. Other essential nutrients in almonds include magnesium, manganese, and fiber. You must know that a deficiency of vitamin E can slow children’s growth. Almonds contain this vitamin, which explains why I am recommending this to you.
- Leafy Green Vegetables: Coming to green vegetables, make sure to include cabbage, spinach, and arugula in your diet to enhance your height. These vegetables are loaded with potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron, and Vitamin C. moreover, the Vitamin K content of green vegetables enhances bone density. This eventually boosts growth and helps you achieve a good height.
- Yogurt: It contains generous amounts of protein, good enough to foster height growth. Besides, it contains probiotics, a kind of beneficial bacteria. Besides boosting your gut health and strengthening immunity, yogurt helps young people increase their height. Moreover, it contains several nutrients that enhance bone metabolism.
- Sweet Potatoes: Besides being incredibly healthy, sweet potatoes are versatile and foster growth in height. The Vitamin A content in sweet potatoes makes them crucial for gaining height. It significantly enhances your bone health. Sweet potatoes also contain fiber, both soluble and insoluble. This helps in maintaining gut health and ensures good digestive health. With a good gut health, you can absorb the vitamin from other food that can help you grow faster.
- Eggs: These non-veg food items are loaded with nutrients, particularly proteins. A single egg comes with 6 grams of this nutrient. They also contain vitamin D, which helps in maintaining skeletal health by absorbing calcium. I highly recommend including eggs as a part of your diet to increase your height.
- Milk: Well, you must have heard that milk constitutes a complete diet. It contains several nutrients that enhance bone health. These include magnesium, phosphorous, and calcium, among others.
Milk also contains significant amounts of proteins. A single cup of 244 ml. contains around 8 grams of protein. Unless you are allergic to cow milk, make sure to include it in your diet. This way, you can achieve a remarkable height by the time you reach 20.
Other Activities You Can Do To Increase Height Faster
Although cycling helps in increasing your height, this exercise is not the ultimate word to make you grow taller. Alongside cycling, make sure to engage yourself in dedicated exercises to increase your height. You can never depend totally on cycling to grow taller.
When I was a teenager, I engaged myself in sports activities like swimming, skipping, and playing basketball to increase my height. Along with cycling, I also used to hang on bars and did everything that could help me grow taller. As a cumulative impact of all these activities, you can grow taller by a few inches.
Here is full list of other activities to increase the height faster:
- Stretching
- Swimming
- Hanging from the rod
- Following healthy sleep patterns
- Skipping
- Staying active
- Doing yoga
- Maintain good posture
- Hopping on one leg
- Spot jumping
- Playing basketball
Apart from these sports and activities, you can also try the following exercises to increase your height faster:
In Conclusion
Cycling happens to be an adventurous, eco-friendly and affordable exercise that helps in maintaining your body shape and increasing your height. Beyond height growth, there are several benefits of cycling. In case you are over 20 and have little scope to increase your height by cycling, you still can reap the other benefits of this exercise.
For instance, cycling strengthens your arms, calf muscles, thighs, hamstring, and several other muscles. By engaging in cycling regularly, you can make the lower body leaner. Naturally, you can achieve a taller look.
Before concluding, I recommend you start cycling before you are 15. In case you are too old to grow your height, make sure to get a cycle to your kid during the early teens. You would love to see the impact of cycling on the height of the child!