Will Swimming Increase Your Height?

It is easy to see why people would ask: Can swimming make you taller?

Most professional and semi-professional swimmers are tall. For instance, Kenyan Olympic swimmer Jason Dunford is 6 feet 0 inches tall.

Besides, swimming involves a lot of leg movement, making it easy to entertain the notion of the legs and spine stretching, making you taller.

But really, does swimming make you taller? Genetics, gender, and hormones can make you tall or short. Swimming has little effect on your height. You will develop broad shoulders and your physique will taper away towards the waist. This makes you look taller than you are.

Perhaps there is a faint chance of swimming making you grow taller. Exercises enhance the release of feel-good and other hormones in the body.

If your hormones (including the human growth hormone) are well-balanced, that could lead to expected growth.

Can swimming make you taller? Indirectly

If you are genetically predisposed to be short, you will be short, irrespective of the benefits of swimming every day.

When you swim, you assume a horizontal position, and this may cause a slight elongation of the spine. However, when you stand up again, the spine compresses and goes back to its natural position and height.

The combination of genetics, workouts, and food can make you grow taller. If you come from a family of tall people, chances are you’ll be tall yourself.

Swimming is a low-impact exercise. Therefore, alone, it will not do much for your growth. You can influence your height growth by exercising, eating the right food, and making swimming a part of your daily lifestyle.

Stretching exercises can help the muscles to grow. When you do aerobic exercises such as swimming, you enhance your circulatory health. The nutrients from the food you eat can be transported easily to different parts of the body.

Exercising regularly and eating nutrient-packed food can stimulate the release of the HCG – human chorionic gonadotropin hormone, which enhances faster growth. Please note that this growth might not be height-related.

Does swimming make you taller during puberty?

Swimming will not make you taller during puberty. Even if toddlers swim, it will have a minimal effect on their height later in their lives.

It is okay for a parent to want to influence the height of their children. While there are some things you can do, there are no guarantees at all.

One of the things is to feed your children a balanced diet from early on. You can also encourage them to play sports, take up swimming, hanging, and other stretching exercises.

While swimming does not make people taller directly, it does not make them shorter either. Taking it up can only be beneficial.

During early childhood to teenage, it is possible to influence height since these are the growth years. However, after teenage, one cannot increase their height easily.

If you want to increase the chances of your child growing taller during puberty, encourage them to combine swimming with stretching exercises. This can pull their muscles and can encourage the spine to elongate, albeit slightly.

Growth is quite dynamic for both boys and girls. Boys grow taller because they continue growing even when girls stop. But even they have to stop growing sometimes. Although it may vary, most boys will stop growing in height after the age of 18 years.

Does swimming make you taller after 16?

Swimming alone cannot make you grow taller after 16 years of age. If you swim solely to grow taller, it won’t happen.

If your child is 16 years old, there is still a good chance that you could influence their height. Feed them the right diet, and make them do stretching workouts. That can help their bones and muscles to grow, increasing their height.

At 16 to 17 years of age, some people may get to their peak growth age. Therefore, if they swim a lot, and they increase in height, you might attribute it to swimming.

Boys tend to grow the most when they are between the ages of 12 and 15. However, they will fully stop growing when they exit 18, and for some, even when they are 20 years old.

On the other hand, girls grow most between the ages of 8 and 13 years. They hit peak growth at 14 years of age. Therefore, you might not be able to influence their height anymore after that. Boys will continue to grow up to 18 years, which is why they grow taller than girls.

At 16 years of age, you might not be able to influence growth in girls, but it is possible in boys. Get them to swim often, ride, run, and most importantly, do various stretching workouts.

Does swimming increase height after 21?

Swimming does not increase height after any age. Even in earlier ages, you can only use swimming and other factors and pray that genetics favor you, to increase height.

Once you are past the age of 18, you are likely to stay with your height for the rest of your life. Even taking all the supplements is not going to help you.

But that 18-year-old rule is not cast in stone. Some mitigating factors may make you grow taller. For instance, if you are a twin, you are likely to grow as tall as the other twin because growth between you two is correlated.

Using inversion tables, hanging, climbing and stretching exercises will not help you grow taller when you are over 18.

Even when you are under 18, they won’t really. However, they help to balance the growth of muscles in your body.

You won’t grow taller by doing anything. Even swimming will not help you to grow taller. Only genetics can.

Does swimming make you shorter?

Swimming might not make you taller. It is not going to make you shorter, either. Some people also ask: does swimming make you shrink? And the answer is still no. But if you are asking about shrinking in the form of losing weight, then the answer is yes.

Swimming tones your body. It will give you a full-body workout. It works out the core muscles, which include the abs. Biceps, quads, hamstrings, and other muscles get a thorough workout.

Swimming can also make you lose weight easily since it stimulates metabolism. Your body will burn fat faster. Since metabolism releases energy in the cells, you feel more strength to work out, perhaps even swim longer.

Thus, even if swimming does not make you taller or shorter, it has other incredible benefits. Toning your body also has a positive mental benefit and it can boost your self-esteem.

Are swimmers tall?

Not all swimmers are tall, but many are. Most of the winning swimmers are over 6 feet tall, for men. While swimming does not increase your height, being tall in a swimming competition helps a lot.

Taller arms, torso, and legs mean you can cover more distance with any of the five swimming strokes. A shorter person would have to make more strokes to cover the same distance as a taller swimmer.

Olympic swimmers are tall. Height is one of the considerations when they are being selected to represent their countries.

Overall, the height of the shortest female swimmer at the Olympics can be anywhere from 5 feet 10 inches, and that’s a woman. One of the tallest Olympic swimmers is Missy Franklin at 6 feet 2 inches.

For men, we had Florent Manaudou at 6 feet 6 inches at the Tokyo Olympics. These numbers can show you the range of height for most swimmers.

Final Thoughts: Can swimming make you taller?

There are no two ways to swim to become taller, but the answer is just no. Indirectly, swimming can help the body to release more HCG, which can enhance growth and height.

While swimming does not change your stature, it certainly has a positive effect on your weight. Swimming often and eating the right food can reset your metabolism from slow to fast.

Swimming also ensures oxygen-rich blood gets to the muscles faster. Thus, you can work out longer and harder without the early onset of fatigue.