Does Hanging Make You Taller? Yes, But Not Really.

Have you ever considered hanging from a bar as a way to grow taller?

With the rise in popularity of hanging, the internet has produced some strong claims. One of them is that hanging from a bar can increase your height. Is that really true?

While the exercise decompresses your spine, resulting in a small height gain that gravity very quickly reverses, it is not possible to permanently become taller through hanging from a pull-up bar. In this article, we tell you briefly about the science behind that and compare the short- and long-term effects of the dead hang on height.

The Science Behind Spinal Compression and Decompression

Throughout the day, your spine is compressed by gravity. A study by Krag et al. has shown that the average height loss is about 0.9 percent of total height or 16.4 mm (0.65 inches) over 8 hours. Another study by Tyrrell et al. measured a decrease in height of approximately 1.1 percent of total height or 19.3 mm (0.76 inches) within a timeframe of 16.5 hours. Both studies have found that most of the height loss occurs early after rising and then gradually decreases.

This change in height is not permanent. Lying down in a horizontal sleeping position at night recovers the height loss. The recovery of height is also fastest in the first hour after lying down and then gradually decreases. An eight hour height loss of 16.4 mm is regained by 83 percent after four hours, 40 percent of which occur in the first hour after lying down, as Krag et al. found.

The exact time of recovery has not been measured but in both studies the tallest height was measured in the beginning — after eight to ten (Krag et al.) or 7.5 hours (Tyrrell et al.) of sleep in a horizontal position. This data suggests that around 8 hours of sleep fully recover the body to a “normal” morning height.

It also suggests that a lack of sleep does not give the spinal structure enough time to decompress to its “normal” length.

The largest height gain due to spinal decompression occurs in space. The pilot of the the Skylab 4 mission — a space mission observing body changes from direct effects of weightlessness — was two inches taller in space than he was on earth. That’s five centimeters of difference. As soon as he came back to earth and was exposed to gravity again, this height gain reversed quickly.

Immediate Effects of Hanging on Height

Hanging from a pull-up bar decompresses your spine. Gravity pulls your body towards the floor while your hands are attached to the object above. As a result, your spine is slightly pulled into length, reversing the compressive forces it is exposed to throughout the day.

The small height gain from decompressing your spine varies, depending on how compressed your spinal structure is before starting the hanging exercise.

If you have been awake and upright for 10 hours, there is more compression to reverse than in the morning, immediately after waking up.

Similarly, if you have been exercising or lifting heavy weights, your spine will compress faster. Therefore, hanging after lifting weights results in a larger height gain, just because more height was lost during exercising.

No matter how much compression happened before, the height gain from hanging will be very small and likely completely unnoticeable. It is unlikely that you will gain more than one percent of your total height. The maximum increase you can expect is between 0.6 and 0.8 inches (1.5 to 2 cm).

Long-Term Effects of Hanging on Height

The small height gains due to spinal decompression are only temporary and not permanent. As soon as you let go of the bar, the forces of gravity start compressing the spine again.

As the studies mentioned above have shown, most of the spinal compression happens immediately after getting up in the morning. The more decompressed the spine is, the quicker it compresses again.

Similarly, your spine will compress very fast after you used the dead hang exercise to decompress it. Because the decompression is only temporary, hanging regularly does not lengthen the spine more over time.

It is possible that spinal decompression could prevent or even improve degenerative disc disease and, therefore, decrease the level of shrinkage during the aging process. However, while studies on traction therapy have shown a relief of the symptoms associated with disc degeneration and even a restoration of disc height, the design of those studies does not provide evidence that this height restoration is permanent.

Therefore, it is questionable if spinal decompression is effective in slowing down shrinking during the process of aging.

Other Factors Determining Height

Although spinal compression causes small short-term variations in your stature, your height is determined by other factors.

By far, the largest determinant of height are genetics. Environmental factors influencing height pre-birth, during childhood, and during adolescence are nutrition, exposure to toxins or infectious diseases, and access to health care. Therefore, the height variance caused by environmental factors is greater in poorer regions in which exposure to negative influences is more common.

Growth stops with the fusion of the growth plates in late adolescence or early adulthood. This is typically at age 16 for girls and age 19 for boys but varies between individuals.

FAQ

Conclusion

Hanging from a bar decompresses your spine. As a result, you gain just a little bit of height.

However, this effect is not permanent but only lasts for a very short time. Gravity starts to compress your spine again as soon as you stop the hanging exercise, reversing the height gain quickly.