Does Basketball Make You Taller? (A Shocking Answer)

Basketball has grown to be an incredibly popular sport over the last few years.

With so much more attention, more questions are being asked regarding playing basketball and whether playing basketball make players taller. Here, we are going to answer one of the most commonly asked.

Does playing basketball make you taller? There have been a lot of different studies on whether playing basketball make you taller.

Over the last few years, results have been inconclusive. Obviously, an overwhelming majority of people believe that height is purely based on genetics and nothing more.

However, scientists do believe that there is a correlation between the popular sport and a person’s height through scientific studies.

Could this correlation possibly be why some NBA superstars happen to grow multiple inches seemingly overnight?

There is only one way to find out. Let’s dive a little deeper and see if basketball can make you taller.

Does Basketball Make You Taller?

Despite scientists’ belief in the correlation, there is no evidence to back that up at the moment. As a suggested read, check out “How Tall Was Allen Iverson At 16″.

We caught one particular study where scientists investigated the effects of playing basketball over several months and whether it may make you taller.

They noted improving body fat percentages and decreasing blood pressure, but nothing regarding height was noted.

The research will likely continue in this field to try and give us a better answer on whether you can increase height with basketball moves.

Can Jumping Make You Taller?

Can you increase height by jumping? There are talks about continuous jumping making you taller.

However, it won’t make you any taller than you already are. It increases the electrical current flow within the body, which triggers growth hormones.

However, scientists believe that there is a correlation between jumping and height. Currently, there isn’t any conclusive evidence, even if you jumped throughout the day.

Eventually, we may look back and determine whether jumping may increase height.

How Do You Grow Taller While Playing Basketball?

One study believes that when we constantly jump when playing basketball, it sends messages to the brain. The brain increases the possibility of growing taller.

These messages help stimulate a growth hormone in our brain, which increases height. Jumping seems to be the only possible factor that could increase height while playing the game.

There has been little to no evidence outside of that. Sure enough, wearing the right shoes helps in jumping higher too. Check out some killer shoes for jumping here.

As a related resource, check out how tall was Steph Curry at 16 and learn the shocking truth about James Harden’s height at 15.

Tallest Basketball Players in the NBA

The NBA has multiple seven-foot professional basketball players in the league. Tall people or the tallest players are always advantaged when scouting for players. The tallest is the young Tacko Fall.

The freak athlete was noticed in college due to his immense height, as he stands at approximately 7-foot-6. The tremendous center somehow isn’t running away with this title.

The lovable Boban Marjanovic of the Dallas Mavericks is 7-foot-4. Gheorghe Muresan is tied for the tallest player who played basketball at an amazing height in terms of NBA history.

The basketball player stands at 7-foot-7.

Alongside him is Manute Bol. Bol also happened to be 7-foot-7. Have you ever noticed that many players in the NBA are incredibly tall?

It’s rare ever to see somebody under 6 feet playing in the league and still contributing to their organization. Tall players are an asset to the team.

Other notable players are; Mark Eaton, Yao Ming, and Shawn Bradley.

Why Are Basketball Players So Tall?

There are a few reasons for this insane height, though. We briefly touched on the value of proper nutrition, which is a major reason professional basketball players are so tall.

These professional basketball players are athletes, and they dedicate their entire lives to being fit and in shape.

This allows them to continue making a living in their field while playing basketball. As you can probably imagine, these basketball players can’t stay in shape with a balanced diet.

Instead, they create a diet that keeps them healthy and ready to play in future games. Alongside a healthy and balanced diet, professional basketball players constantly exercise to boost rapid height gain.

Their physical routines matched up with their healthy diet, foster good health, and help in stronger bone growth.

Some players are taller naturally. Besides, most engage in physical activities like stretching exercises to stay healthy.

Players value the comfort of sleeping, and that’s why the majority have proper sleep facilitates to make sure they achieve a good night’s sleep.

Avoid staying up late as it may interfere with your sleep pattern, hence stressing the growth hormones.

Primary Health Benefits of Basketball

Even though playing basketball may not contribute to your increased height as you might expect, it still helps you in many other ways.

Playing basketball makes movements and jumps required to increase your maximum oxygen uptake and also help promote bone growth.

We also talked about the decreased blood pressure earlier. You lose body fat and take far more time to become exhausted while running or exercising.

In most cases, legs, back, and arms also grow more muscle as you continue playing the game.

If you happen to have a standard-looking jump shot, your back and arms are utilized every time you shoot the ball.

For most professional basketball players, their legs get stronger from the jumping and the fact that basketball runs end to end every possession. Running may release HGH, which helps in growth.

Alternatively, a doctor can give you a prescription for a supplement that features synthetic hgh to prevent stunting.

Basketball is so competitive that you’ll have a fun time and improve physically. Truthfully, running on a treadmill by yourself isn’t always the most entertaining thing in the world.

Playing basketball makes it fun and efficient, and there is increased blood flow due to fast-paced activities.

You could also go into the gym and shoot around to strengthen up your muscles on top of just game action. Overall, this sport is wildly beneficial to those playing basketball regularly.

Soccer is quite similar when it comes to benefits in many aspects. Learn more about basketball and soccer here.

Could Basketball Cause Growth Issues?

Playing basketball could cause growth issues. However, growth issues aren’t guaranteed while playing.

The sport involves so much quick movement, body current flow, physicality, and cutting that a basketball player could seriously hurt themselves.

The main reason most problematic injuries when you play basketball are accidental fractures of any kind.

Sometimes a player blocks a pass on defense and has a small finger fracture or maybe lands awkwardly and badly hurt their leg.

If you sustain an injury like the one mentioned above when you play basketball and fail to take proper care of it, you may have some growth issues in whatever limb you injured.

Though, if you jump on the injury straight away and get it treated as fast as possible, you will have zero issues.

Another growth issue that could occur when you play basketball is falling. We talked about fractures being a problem in basketball, but falling is another.

Falling doesn’t necessarily mean just tripping, falling, or getting crossed over.

Falling is more serious when you jump up for a layup and slam into another player, causing you to contort and land horribly on the court. In the NBA, these types of falls happen more than they should.

In these scenarios, it could injure any limb you land on, though the most common body part that gets hurt is your back.

Jumping up, getting your legs taken out from under you, and falling flat on your back when you play basketball isn’t just going to give you some minor back pain either.

That’s the best-case scenario. However, the worst can happen if the injury causes spinal damage. Depending on the severity, these injuries could paralyze you or stunt growth.

As a freak athlete, always be cautious when flying down the court at certain speeds; you never want to get flung down too hard. Also, if you collide with somebody and notice them about to fall awkwardly, it is for the best that you stop playing for a moment and try to catch them.

Ultimately, basketball doesn’t cause you to have growth issues. It’s the injuries that you could sustain, and if you aren’t careful, they may lead to potential stunt growth.

What Makes You Taller?

Genetics play a massive role in reaching a certain height. Additional factors like essential nutrients may play a role in your height. Besides, posture and exercise may make you appear taller.

The bottom line, though, is if you have incredibly tall parents, then the chances are that you will also be tall. The same goes the other way around hence genetically predetermined height.

At What Age Do We Stop Growing?

Genetics play a key part in when a person stops growing taller. Numerous researches have been conducted to determine when people stop growing or grow at an average height.

Some studies believe that you are unlikely to grow any significant height during the ages of 18 and 20. Other similar studies suggest that boys stop growing at the age of 16.

We have caught onto another study that shares similar results and new findings, though they say that our brains don’t fully develop until we are 25 years old.

Giving us more time to grow long bones and achieve the average height. Other factors like nutrition and exercise could play a role in what stops you from growing.

If you are 20 years old and stop exercising and eating horribly, you could stop growing from that point forward. Or, you could be the same age and eat healthy while exercising to stay active every day and grow a few more inches in the next two and five years.

This answer changes for each person, with sex playing a major role, but research continues to narrow down the answer. You can check out some more information on the topic here.

Lastly, our bodies could grow in other ways than just height as well. I’ve seen studies talking about how our skulls and waists can slowly grow larger as we get older.

While neither truly affects our overall height, it is some form of growth at the end of the day.

Determining when you stop growing is a tricky subject and is mostly inconclusive.

The overwhelming majority of studies believe that the ages of 18-25 are likely when growth plates completely stop growing, and it’s when the majority achieve an average height.

Could You Increase Your Height by Other Methods?

The quick answer to this question is yes, you can increase your height by some outside methods. However, the only methods that work are ridiculously expensive and are no guarantee to get the job done.

The most powerful external factor is surgery, though outside of surgery, it just isn’t possible. Once your growth plates close in your body, it is almost impossible for you to grow any taller even if you have a healthy diet and exercise every day.

There are some ways for you to look taller, though. Making sure you have terrific posture is an excellent step in looking taller.

A good posture may require a couple of growing years with diet and exercise for flexible muscles to gain height.

If you have lived your whole life with poor posture and reach an age where you can’t grow anymore, then fixing posture could make you grow taller.

Strengthening your core muscles also contributes to looking taller. Exercises like planking and abdominal crunches are the best when getting your core stronger thus may improve your growth plates and make you grow taller.

Doing these few things for height development is a lot easier for you than attempting to buy something online that could try and increase your height.

Is It Dangerous to Try to Increase Your Height?

For the most part, if you rely heavily on these items, they simply don’t work. Trying to stretch your body out as well won’t work either.

If you attempt to use an outside method like this to grow taller after your growth plates are locked in place, you will severely injure yourself.

It could even cause you to get smaller due to a back/spinal injury risk. A primary method that people try to grow taller is height surgery.

There are a many things wrong with this surgery, and while yes, it could make you grow taller.

The risks far outweigh all of the positives you would gain from getting a couple of extra inches added onto your height. It’s best to avoid it entirely, even if you are worried about getting smaller.

If you happen to be worried about getting smaller, there are ways to avoid it and maintain an optimal rate. As most of you already know, when a person gets older, they could often get smaller in height as the body acquires geriatric syndromes.

One study here states that you can lose roughly half an inch per decade after 40 or when puberty hits due to something called osteoporosis. In other words, this is the compression of the spine.

If you want to avoid this happening sooner and probably gain extra inches, it is extremely important to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Try as much as possible to avoid junk food. That’s the first and most important step to growing taller naturally. Next, you must attempt weight loss exercise to keep your body healthy.

After that, it’s just a simple matter of staying hydrated and getting consistent rest, which most people assume. Oh, and I almost forgot, smoking is a killer when you want to grow taller.

Smoking can also be a killer when it comes to decreasing height. So avoid smoking if you want to stay active.

Growth Spurts

Growth spurts are wildly unpredictable, but they are the contributing factors to reaching your full potential in height gain.

Some studies with evidence suggests that boys have longer growth spurts than girls do, and these height increases average out to roughly six centimeters per year during your childhood.

We have to mention CJ McCollum in here. When he was just a freshman in high school, he was playing for his school’s basketball team. The team had him listed at 5-foot-2 that season.

Don’t worry if you don’t get your monster growth spurt straight away either; sometimes they can occur in your late teens, especially puberty, following two years, or maybe even early 20s due to high levels of human growth hormone.

The NBA has some classic examples of how more growth hormones lead to boom growth in basketball players.

We have to mention CJ McCollum here. When he was just a freshman in high school, he played for his school’s basketball team. The team had him listed at 5-foot-2 that season.

There are even pictures out there on the internet that would astonish you. Fast forward to now, and McCollum is a 6 feet-4 shooting guard for the Portland Trail Blazers.

This isn’t just a minor spurt either; he grew a full height potential in a short amount of time.  It’s what a human growth hormone or growth hormones can do in a short span.

The legendary David Robinson was another player that had an insane growth spurt. Robinson wasn’t a guard like McCollum is, though, instead he is a center.

Many NBA stars at the center occupy the tallest position in basketball games. So how in the world was Robinson dominating the league despite being listed at 5-foot-9 during his junior year in high school?

The solution is simple; he had ridiculous growth hormones. That fastest rate launched him up to 7-foot-1 and helped him become a franchise legend for the San Antonio Spurs.

Finally, we have one more player to mention. That man is named Scottie Pippen. Pippen didn’t hit a growth spurt in high school, but instead he hit one right afterwards.

He was leaving his high school at 6-foot-1, and most people in the NBA thought he would be a guard. His draft stock wasn’t incredible until he went all the way up to 6-foot-8!

That massive leap got him moved to the forward position and quickly got him picked up by an NBA roster.

Don’t panic about not being tall; even if you feel like you won’t ever grow, there are basketball players like this that show you it’s possible.

If you happen to be interested in checking out some other players’ insane growth spurts, we will leave a link to a video below.

This will show you some other crazy spurts that NBA players have had over the sports history.

Myths On Growing Taller

Many people believe that lifting weights will stunt your growth. The truth is that it won’t stunt your growth. However, if you continue to do certain exercises with horrible form, growth issues could arise down the line.

Other weight lifting exercises like bench press wouldn’t have any effect in helping you reach your full height. The next myth is that milk is the only substance to help basketball players attain full height.

That is just an old wives tale as some multiple other nutritional foods and drinks can help keep your body healthy besides just milk.

Milk definitely does help growth, but it isn’t the only substance around with the capability to make you taller.

The final myth we are going to tackle is height surgery. The myth is that height surgery is the only legitimate way to make you taller once those growth plates settle down.

In actuality, height surgery is wildly dangerous and one of the least legitimate ways to become taller at any time.

First of all, this form of surgery is ridiculously expensive, with prices ranging from $10,000 and over. Second, it is unbelievably dangerous to yourself.

This surgery will have to literally cut your bones and then see a device implanted into your leg to get taller. You still have a pretty good chance of growing tall if all works well.

If anything happens to go wrong or the recovery process doesn’t go smoothly, you will likely have height issues for a very long time in the future. Other injuries can also occur, and it is incredibly important for you all to know that this is just a myth.