Real Height Enhancement- Revolutionize your posture and become 1-3 inches taller

by John Fawkes
“Oh my gosh,” my mother exclaimed, “you’ve gotten so much taller!”
“No I haven’t Mom,” I muttered.
“No, I can tell you have. You’re at least an inch taller since I last saw you!”
“Mom,” I protested, “I’m 23 years old. I stopped growing years ago.”
“Well, you should look at yourself in the mirror then.”
I was mostly correct; people don’t generally grow taller after the age of 20 or so
. But my mom wasn’t wrong either; I had grown taller, in a sense. The overall le
ngth of my body hadn’t increased much, but dramatic improvements in my posture inc
reased my effective height by a good 2-3 inches over the course of a year. My p
arents, who could go a few months at a time without seeing me, noticed it much b
etter than I did.
First, let’s define our terms: height can be defined two different ways. First, t
here’s physical height: the total length of your body, from the bottom of your foo
t to the top of your head. This doesn’t can’t increase much, though it does tend to
decrease later in life (more on that later). Then there’s effective height, the
actual distance from the top of your head to the ground. This can vary dramatic
ally with your posture; slouching can lower it by several inches, while good pos
ture can make it equal to your physical height, and make it appear even greater.
My posture didn’t improve on its own. It required me to recognize my bad posture
and take deliberate steps to fix the problem. The total process took about a ye
ar, although I felt and saw definite results within a day. I also wasn’t that wel
l-informed or disciplined to begin with; with the information in this article, y
ou can see the same results in 3 months or less.
Diagnosing Your Posture

Stand with your back to a wall, two feet away from the wall. Try to stand up st
raight. Now, slowly back into the wall by shuffling your feet. Ideally, your h
eels, buttocks, shoulder blades and the back of your head will all touch the wal
l at the same time. More likely though, they will be out of synch, indicating t
hat your posture is not quite straight.
Most commonly, your head will touch the wall last. If you find you have to deli
berately tilt your head back after the other parts of your body touch the wall,
this means your head tends to be craned forward. I you find your buttocks touch
the wall before anything else (and assuming it’s not just because you have a huge
ass), it means you are bending forward at the waist and sticking your butt out
to counterbalance yourself. If your head touches the wall well in advance of th
e rest of your body, it means you tend to crane your head back too much, as if a
lways watching the sky. If your head and shoulder blades, or just your shoulder
blades touch first, followed by your butt and then your feet, it means you are
walking with an exaggerated backwards lean, like a 70’s funk star. If your feet t
ouch first, it probably just means you were taking big steps instead of shufflin
g them; try again.
Stand against the wall like this for 5-10 minutes a day, or just until it become
s too uncomfortable. Make sure your knees are not locked, but just slightly ben
t, and your weight is on your heels. Locking your knees may seem like it would
make you taller, but it tends to cause you to lean forward at the chest and head
. This alone will start to product positive changes, but to truly build stellar
posture you’ll need to do some exercises .
Stretching Exercises

Do all of the following exercises every day.

* Clasp your hands behind your back fingers intertwined, and rotate them so
your palms face away from you. Press your hands away from yourself, extending y
our arms.
* Bend sideways, without also leaning forward or tucking your chin. Stretc
h your right arm over your head when you bend left, and your left arm when you b
end right.
* Stand against the wall again. Place your left hand over your right buttoc
k, palm against the wall, and let your right arm hang at your side. Bend at the
waist to your right,keeping your head, shoulder blades, butt and heels against
the wall.
* Stand side-on to the wall. Raise the arm that is closest to the wall so t
hat your upper arm is parallel to the ground, and your forearm is pointed straig
ht up. Place the palm of your hand against the wall, and twist your body away f
rom the wall-that is, twist left if stretching your right shoulder, and twist ri
ght if stretching your left shoulder.
* Bend backwards- lay on your back on a swiss exercise ball and let your hea
d drape back over the ball, so that your back takes on a concave shape. You can
bend backwards over the arm of a couch if you don’t have a Swiss ball.

Resistance Exercises
Do these exercises 2-3 times a week to allow adequate recovery time. Use a slow
cadence of 6-10 seconds per rep to ensure good form and eliminate momentum. Lo
ok all of these up on Youtube or bodybuilding.com to see what good form looks li
ke.
* Deadlifts, rows, pull-downs (not behind the neck!) and chin-ups will all b
uild up your back. Use 5-8 reps on the deadlift and 8-12 reps with everything e
lse. Deadlifts can be dangerous; start out with less weight than you think you
can lift, focus on perfecting your form and progress the weight slowly with each
workout.
* Dumbbell lateral raises, rear deltoid exercises, the French press (dumbbel
l behind the neck) and dumbbell shrugs will work your shoulders. Surprisingly,
working your shoulders can be as important as working your back, as the two musc
le groups are closely linked. Make sure not to tuck your chin when you do these
.
* Super-slow body weight lateral raises if you an’t get to a gym. The same as
a dumbbell lateral raise, but ten seconds up and ten seconds down. This may st
op being helpful once you get strong enough that it isn’t tiring.
* Be a penguin- place your fingertips against your shoulders, right hand to
right hand to right shoulder and left hand to left shoulder. Now slowly raise a
nd lower your arms, keeping your hands to your shoulders, as if flapping tiny pe
nguin wings. You can do this a bit faster, maybe 6 seconds a rep. This one can
also stop being useful once it stops being tiring, as there is no easy way to a
dd weight.
Don’t work your chest very much for a few weeks while initially working on your po
sture. Your chest and upper back/shoulders are antagonistic to each other; that
is, they pull in opposite directions. Increase the ratio of upper back/rear sh
oulder strength to chest strength will roll your shoulders back to where they sh
ould be.

Hydration & Nutrition

You’re probably saying “Huh?” at this point. But hydration is actually important to
maintaining your posture long-term. The reason is that your intervertebral disc
s can gain or lose volume depending on how well hydrated you are. Gradual dehyd
ration causes to most people to lose 1-3 inches of height over their adult live
s. Maintaing proper hydration levels, as outline in our previous blog post, can
prevent this. It may also allow you to regain a fraction of an inch of height,
thought this degeneration is mostly non-reversible once it happens.
Loss of bone and muscle density can also contribute to loss of height as you age
. Muscle loss makes it hard for people to stand up straight, while osteoporosis
causes the vertebrae themselves to shrink. The media tends to portray osteopor
osis as a female problem, but be assured that it can happen to men too. Get ple
nty of minerals and keep resistance training as you age and you can prevent this
from happening.
Developing Better Habits
Part of the problem is that we spend so much of our time sitting or lying down,
often with our spines bent into unnatural positions. Make sure you sit with goo
d posture; move your chair close to your desk if that helps you avoid leaning fo
rward. An ergonomic chair will help, or you can make most chairs more ergonomic
by putting a cushion or rolled-up towel between it and your lower back. When s
leeping, make sure to keep a straight back. Avoid the fetal position; sleeping
on your back is ideal, and best of all you should use only one thin pillow to ke
ep your neck almost totally straight.
Having a buddy work on this with you is another good way to enforce good habits.
The two of you can spot and correct mistakes in each other’s posture. Barring t
hat, get into the habit of conducting a spot check on your posture whenever you
hear a phone ring or see someone on the phone. This makes a useful mental trigg
er, as it is semi-random and happens fairly frequently. A rubber band around th
e wrist can work too.
What You Can Expect
You’ll notice that this makes you feel happier and more energetic right away. Thi
s is because the relationship between mood and behavior works both ways; just as
a good mood will improve your posture and energy levels, good posture will also
boost your mood.
Within a week you should notice a marked improvement in your posture. You will
likely also find other people responding more positively to you, acting friendli
er toward you and being more sexually attracted to you. This is due both to you
r improved posture and the superior mental state it produces. If your posture w
asn’t very good to begin with, major improvements should be visible within a month
. Attaining perfect posture will likely take at least three months, and could t
ake a year or more depending on how good your posture is to begin with and how c
onsistent your efforts are.
For more articles on health and wellness, visit www.erosfactor.com/blogs/eros-fa
ctor