Every parent wishes only the very best for their children and hence if you are parenting to a growing child, it is most expected that you will be concerned about his/her growth.
The right diet surely has the maximum impact on the growth of a kid apart from his/her genetics, but along with them the right physical activities can also be very helpful to boost the maximum potential growth of a child.
According to medical experts, influence of exercises on growth is as much as 20% and hence ensuring the right physical activities for your growing child is vital to help him/her attain maximum height supported by his/her genes.
Any physical activities that involve working of the whole body, specifically stretching and jumping of the legs and body are ideal for growing kids.
The growth plate present in the bones is stimulated by jumping, while the stretching relaxes the joints and the bones, thus creating the ideal condition for growing taller. The physical activities that your growing child should do to get maximum height include,
Rope skipping
Rope skipping is considered as one of the most effective physical activities for better growth in children. Rope skipping involves jumping, which helps the growth plates preset in the backbone, knee and ankles to stretch and grow.
It also stimulates the large muscles and increases blood flow across the body, helping in fat burning and muscle toning. Doing some simple stretching exercises before rope skipping can double the effectiveness of this physical activity.
Running
Running stretches the muscles of the legs and the back. It also stimulates the heart and ensures better blood circulation across the body. Stretching helps the bones and the joints to relax. Running is a great activity for calorie burning and growing taller.
Jogging
Jogging involves mild jumping, which stimulates the growth plates and due to running at the same time the joints of the legs are also stretched. Jogging also stimulates the heart and the lung and makes an ideal physical activity for height gain.
Dancing
Dancing involves movement and stretching of every part of the body; starting from the legs, to the upper body, the hands and the shoulder.
Dancing is a complete physical exercise; different dance poses involves jumping as well as stretching of hands, legs and upper body which helps in stimulating the growth plates and also helps in relaxing the joints and the bones.
During dancing blood circulation increases in the body and calorie is burnt which help in toning the muscles.
Ballet
Ballet is a form of dancing which is equally helpful for growing children to attain the best height. This activity also involves jumping and stretching of the legs and body while boosting blood circulation and calorie burning.
Aerobics
Aerobics is a cardiovascular exercise and it also involves a lot of stretching of the calf muscles along with jumping which can be highly effective to boost the growth of your bones. Aerobics helps in fat burning and ensures complete wellbeing.
Cycling with raised seat
Cycling is another activity that can be helpful to gain height and its’ efficiency is maximized when performed from a raised seat. Cycling in itself is a cardiovascular exercise and it helps in exercising your leg muscles.
When performed from a slightly raised seat, it stretches the knee cartilage thus helping your legs to grow longer. Cycling also aids in proper secretion of HGH which plays a major role in increasing height in growing kids.
Rod hanging
Hanging from a rod can be highly effective for the growing kids to gain height. While hanging with the help of your hands your feet hang above the ground and hence gravity acts upon your body in the downward direction, stretching every bone, joint and muscle of your body in a very balanced way.
The more up you pull yourself with your hands the force of gravity increases thus stretching your bones and muscles even further.
Other stretching exercises
Simple free hand stretching activities that involves stretching of the leg and body muscles and bones can be effective for children to grow height.
Yoga
Yoga or better known as Yoga Asanas can be highly effective physical activities for your child to grow taller.
Yoga Asanas like hastapadasana, surya namaskar, gomukhasana, ardha chandrasana, Adho Mukha svanasana, Anantasana, Bhujangasana, Chakrasana and Dhanurasana can be highly effective for ensuring a better growth.
However, it is always suggested to ensure that your kid is performing the yoga asanas under the guidance of a skilled instructor for the best results and to minimize any risk.
Sports that can grow your kid taller
Swimming
Swimming can be an ideal sport for the growing kids. Swimming exercises each and every muscle of the body, stimulates the heart and increases blood flow in the body.
Swimming involves stretching of whole body which boosts the growth by relaxing the joints and the bones. If you have to pick one sport for ensuring the best growth of your child, opt for swimming and it can indeed offer you the best outcome.
Volleyball
Volleyball is the other sport activity that can be helpful for growing taller. It involves jumping and stretching of the legs, body and the hands, which stimulates the growth plates and also relaxes the bones and joints thus boosting growth.
Soccer
Soccer involves a good amount of running and it helps in building the muscles of the legs. Soccer can be helpful to shed extra weight and can be effective in boosting the growth by stretching the bones and the cartilages of the legs.
Basketball
Basketball is also considered as a very effective sport for growing height. Playing basketball clearly involves jumping and running. While jumping helps in starching the bones of the legs, running aids in better flexibility of the bones and joints.
The play also does the work of an effective cardiovascular session and ensures overall good health that can support height gain in kids.
So, if you are concerned about the height of your child, ensure that he or she performs a combination of the above activities and sports on a daily basis; however, there are few things that you need to keep in mind.
- Muscular strength training and exercises for long duration are not good for growing kids. It can even hamper their growth.
- Growing children should avoid rigorous exercises for long duration. Even swimming, running or walking for long can arrest their normal growth.
- The type of physical activities a child is performing should not continue for more than 60 minutes at a stretch.
- A combination of different types of physical activities on different days of the week gives the maximum results. So, engage your child in different types of physical activities as mentioned above.
Some important points to keep in mind
- The growth of your child is directly related with the food he consumes during the growing period and hence while ensuring the right physical activities for him, also focus on his diet. Ensure that his diet is filled with protein, carbs, vitamins and minerals that are vital for supporting growth in children.
- Apart from diet and physical activities, sleep also plays an important role in the growth of children and hence also make it a point to ensure that you child is getting adequate undisturbed sleep of at least 8-9 hours during the night.
- Weight training is not suitable for growing children. It can hamper the normal growth and hence it is suggested that the growing children should not opt for any type of weight training. Also make it a point that your child does not carry anything heavy regularly, which can have a negative impact on his growth.
- It is important to keep in mind, that the height of a person is mostly determined by his/her genetics and while by ensuring proper diet, sleep and physical activities we can support the growth of the child, there is absolutely no way to ensure better growth of a child unless it is coded in his/her genes. So, have realistic expectations about the height of your child and in case, he/she seems not to be growing a lot make sure that it does not create any mental stress on him/her.
- Over weight can disrupt the normal growth in height in children. So, it is important to ensure that your child is not over weight. The physical activities mentioned above can be very helpful to ensure that your child maintains a proper body weight.
