Exercise is one of the methods that can help improve height for children. But how to exercise correctly and effectively? Let’s refer to our 10 height-increasing exercise routines for children below.
How exercise affects children’s height
To ensure the optimal development of a child’s bone structure, besides providing sufficient bone-building nutrients such as protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals, creating microfractures at the ends of the bones is a crucial initial step to help lengthen, strengthen, and fortify the bones.
As we know, the mechanism of bone structure formation is quite special. Bones are formed from cartilage. Bone cells break down the cartilage to create microfractures, then bone cells repair these microfractures by building new bone tissue with nutrients such as protein, vitamins, and minerals. The end result is that the repaired bone portion becomes denser and longer. This is why physical exercise actively supports a child’s height development.
During rhythmic, regular, and sufficiently forceful exercise, the muscle masses around the bones will stretch, creating continuous tension and compression on the bone ends, while also causing micro-damage.
Furthermore, this condition facilitates better blood flow to the bone ends, ensuring the transport of necessary materials for the process of new bone formation.
If you are looking for effective height-increasing exercises for children, you can refer to the following 10 exercises. When children diligently practice these exercises regularly every day, they will undoubtedly achieve significant results in improving their height.
Effective exercises to improve height for children
Exercise 1: Jumping for Longer Legs
This exercise involves continuous toe stretching to maximize joint flexibility, contributing positively to height improvement.
Perform as follows: Have the child stand with legs wider than shoulder-width, toes pointing out as per their flexibility. Lower the center of gravity horizontally at the knees to exercise the hip joint. Then, perform a high jump, bringing the legs together and ending in the initial position.
If balancing well, the child can stand on their toes instead of jumping high. Do this exercise in 3 sets, 20 times each, with a 30-second break between sets.
Exercise 2: Full-Body Flexibility Coordination
This exercise strengthens the child’s spine to maintain good posture, creating optimal conditions for joint development and height growth through this coordinated movement.
Stand straight with feet together and hands on the hips, then step one foot forward with both hands stretched upward. Shift the body weight between both feet, lower the center of gravity, then step back to the starting position and continue with the other leg. Do this exercise in 3 sets, 20 times each, with a 30-second break between sets.
Parents should help the child maintain the correct posture, with a straight back, chest open forward, and eyes looking straight ahead.
Exercise 3: Stretching
This simple yet effective exercise helps improve a child’s height by lengthening the spine and improving posture.
Simply have the child lean their back against a wall, then instruct them to raise both arms as high as possible, or you can have the child sit on the floor, widening their legs as much as possible, then instruct them to arch their back to touch their toes.
It’s quite simple, isn’t it? From early childhood, you can have your child regularly perform this exercise 10 times a day to effectively improve their height.
Exercise 4: Neck Stretches
According to Professor Mickey Mehta in Mumbai, India, neck exercises can relieve tension, stimulate the thyroid gland, and promote growth. Similar to the spine, a long and healthy neck can add a fixed portion to the height.
You can hardly find such easy height-increasing exercises for children. The child simply fixes the body and nods the head upward and downward ten times, then to the left and right.
Exercise 5: Swinging
Your children must enjoy swinging at the playground, right? This is indeed fantastic. Swinging is one of the excellent ways to promote a child’s height growth, fully stretching the child’s spine.
Therefore, find a suitable spot and install a sturdy swing that can support the child’s weight at a convenient height and encourage regular swinging. Consistent swinging over a prolonged period can rapidly increase a child’s height.
Exercise 6: Yoga
Yoga is a traditional exercise method from India dating back about 5000 years. Height-increasing yoga exercises help children improve their posture. They release spinal joints, increase cartilage flexibility, elongate back and leg muscles. Moreover, yoga helps relieve tension, laying the foundation for stimulating the production of growth hormones beneficial for height increase.
Exercise 7: Jumping Rope
When practicing jump rope exercises, children continuously move their arms and legs, especially the ankle, knee, and hip joints. At the developmental age when the body is consistently stimulated at these joint positions, it produces more new layers of cartilage, leading to overall body development in height.
Regularly practicing jump rope exercises creates an excellent condition to increase the quantity and bone density throughout the body. This not only helps children increase their height but also improves muscle and other parts of the body, such as the digestive, circulatory, and excretory systems.
Exercise 8: Swimming
Instead of letting children sit indoors with their iPads, why not go swimming with them? When the child paddles in the cool water, it creates a wonderfully relaxing moment.
Furthermore, when children become acquainted with swimming, they are provided with an opportunity to effectively improve their height. While swimming, the parts of the child’s body will move rhythmically, breathing regularly. The synchronized movement of the arms and legs actively supports bone development. This helps children effectively increase their height.
Moreover, swimming is excellent for the entire cardiovascular system of the child, helping broaden the shoulders, chest, and improve lung function. Swimming also triggers the release of growth hormones, supporting cell and muscle development.
Exercise 9: Running
Regular and proper running for children helps bone and joint development, creating conditions for increased growth hormone secretion, thus improving height more effectively.
Moreover, when running regularly, the body absorbs more oxygen to nourish itself, and the circulatory system operates continuously to nourish other body parts. Consequently, the body becomes healthier, absorbing nutrients more effectively.
Exercise 10: Basketball
When playing basketball, children have to stretch and jump high, allowing the child’s body to overcome the Earth’s gravitational pull, while the intervertebral discs at the bone joints also stretch.
Similar to other sports, the first step in playing basketball is warming up, including ball dribbling, running in place, gradually stretching the bones for throwing, shooting, and dunking. All the shooting, scoring, and dunking during the game have the effect of promoting and stimulating bone development. Furthermore, playing basketball outdoors allows children to absorb natural vitamin D, making their bones stronger and improving their height effectively.
Read more: Foods That Stunt Children’s Growth
It can be seen that encouraging children to apply height-increasing exercises is the key to help them achieve the ideal height. Also, do not forget to provide children with a diet rich in nutrients and ensure they get enough sleep at the right time for the best possible height development.
Hi everyone, I’m Tony Scotti, an expert in the field of height increase with many years of experience researching and applying height increase methods, and have achieved promising results. I have created increase height blog as a personal blog to share knowledge and experience about what I have learned during the process of improving my own height.