In my search for a solution for height increase, one of the most common methods and tools that people talk about is the use of ankle weights. When I read through the boards like Giant Scientific and the Impartial Height Increase Boards, I notice a lot of discussion on the focus on using ankle weights. So I wanted to find out why people have become so fanatic over this method, and why they believe it can work.

I personally have used ankle weight myself years ago when I was trying to make the High School basketball team and I wanted to increase my leaping ability to add extra inches to my jump. I did succeed in adding the extra inches for a short while I never made it on the team. I later found the ankle weights again years later and used them in my exercise routine and tried to see if I could add the extra height through leg lengthening but I personally gave up on the venture when I noticed that one of my knees buckled and felt weak after using the weights for too long. So for medical reasons, I did not go with this method to increase height since I was afraid it would have lead to more negative consequences than benefits.

I wanted to start out by linking the Wiki article on what ankle weights are. You can find out about them by clicking HERE.

Ankles

Ankle weights are a commonly found weight used in many activities. Further from the core, fixated above the ankle around the lower shin and Achilles tendon, due to leverage much less weight is needed to increase the forces on the body.

As they are attached to a region with a far smaller diameter than the thigh, there is not room for much weight without greatly changing the effective width of the lower leg. An advantage over thigh weights is that they are not attached to any major muscle or fat storage region, so tightness is not a factor and it can be used in almost any exercise.

Being above the ankle, movements incorporating the calf muscles such as calf raises can benefit from ankle weights.

Ankle weights are useful in adding weight to pull-ups and dips, especially when incorporating leg raises into the movements. They are also useful in slow kicking katas, and static-active stretching of the legs when balancing on one leg, or suspended in the air.

Light ankle weights have a history of use resistance for kicking in swimming, and of forward flexion in kicking, walking, jogging, and sprinting exercises. Concern has been expressed regarding this type of training. It may put too much stress on the joints, similar to the shearing forces found in eg extension and leg curl exercises.

Practicing weighted movements at high speeds also causes the nervous system to fire at larger intensities. If an individual loses the weight without being trained to adapt to the transition, he may overexert himself without checking at the end of the movement and overextend a tendon. This is more of a risk when people fully extend their limbs in such movements and do not come to a controlled stop at the end, limiting muscle flexion. Generally, the muscle being extended is more at risk, not one held statically. For example, the quadriceps muscle could overexert in a snap kick trained with ankle weights, but in a rising kick, it is the hip flexor muscle more likely to overextend. In either case, the hamstring and associated ligaments would be at risk for a tear.

One major advantage to ankle weights, unlike wrist weights, is that it adds a whole new component to exercises that wrist weights do not, since we can’t grip dumbbells with our feet like we can with our hands. It is a major advantage in training rotational hip stabilizers, to work on turnout for martial arts and dance postures. To do this, the leg is bent 90 degrees at the knee, and then rotated inwards and outwards to bring the foot upwards. This is commonly seen in foot bag kicks and holds.

One potential disadvantage to ankle weights is they may add stress to ligaments in ankle or knee. For this reason, some people discourage running while wearing them.

Me: So what about this thing makes the H.I.S. try it out and put it in their routine? This is what I gathered from the main page of the Giant Scientific site located HERE.

How can you grow taller from knees?

The knee cartilages are capable to grow, thicken, adapt and remodel. Through continuous exercising to apply stress on the knee cartilage, one might be able to transform the cartilages into real bones, and this process is called endochondral ossification.

Most bones of the body are formed originally from cartilage. As a fetus, the skeleton is made of cartilage and fibrous structures that are shaped like bones. Over time these structures transform into real bones when cartilage is replaced with calcified bone matrix. This remodeling and changing can happen due to the continuous activity of bone forming cells called osteoblasts and the bone resorbing cells called osteoclasts. The process of bone sculpting and resorbing allows bones to respond to stress or injury by their ability to change their shape size and density.

The knee cartilage can grow longer and thicker if you can consistently train it under stress with the correct exercises. The cartilage will gradually adapt to the stress and grow to sustain the force.

Height increase exercises that target knees:

• Sitting with ankle weight
  • 
  • start out with 10 or 15 lbs of Ankle Weight on each leg, gradually increase the load as your knees get stronger. Make sure the knees are completely dongle off the edge of the bed or chair, so they can be completely pulled toward the earth gravity . Also make sure your feet do not touch the ground, loft the bed if you have to or sit on many pillows. Try to sit for at least 30 minutes in one sitting to sustain a continuous stress. Look at below picture for proper sitting position. Your upper body can lay flat on the bed with pillow on head to read a book or watch tv, time goes by easier this way.
  • massage the muscle in knee area to help blood circulation after sitting session is finished.
  • Try to avoid or minimize any pressure on your knee immediately after you are done sitting. Because you do not want to lose the freshly stretched knee cartilage by walking on it, try to rest them as long as you can or do this immediately before sleep.
  • Some ambitious height increase seekers would even sleep with ankle weights. But this is not recommended, since alot of people find it very difficult to fall asleep with weight dongling on their legs, restful sleep is extremely cruical for your body to grow and re-generate.
  • if you feel any numbness or painful sensation in any part of your legs, stop immediately and rest to avoid any injure. Maybe the ankle weights are too heavy for you, remember patience is the key, height increase won’t happen over night.

• Kicking with ankle weight
  • kicking with Ankle Weight
    strapped on lower thigh. Start out with 5 lbs ankle weights on each leg, gradually increase the load as your knees get stronger. Kick low toward the earth gravity. Do at least 10 minutes of kicking on each leg at a moderate pace, gradually increase the pace as your knees get stronger. Kicking positions in one motion are illustrated in the following two pictures, remember to kick low and toward earth’s gravity.

Kicking initial position	Kicking ending position

Me: So the idea is to make the lower leg where the tibia and fibula longer through increased tensile decompression of the cartilage around the knee area. I wanted to list a few routines that people have given that state that the method works.

Routine #1 : From Hubpages by cooljohnny23

EXERCISE 1: ANKLE-WEIGHTS:

This is perhaps the best workout to increase the height of your lower body, at any age, even after your bones are fused.This exercise is solely intended to increase the length of your lower body, by stretching the cartilate between your knees. Prolonged stretching will elongate the cartilage and increase its mass, which in turn will increase the length your lower body

How to do?

Sit on a high chair and use a Ankle weight fastener to add weights to your ankle. Start with small weights initially and gradually increase as you go on. Allow your legs to stretch down with the pressure of the weights. Once completed, remove the weights and relax your legs by kicking your legs gently for 5-10 times, and then vigorously for 5-10 times. This will flex your knee cartilate to enable it to grow in length

Perform the Workout 3 times a week for optimal results

Routine #2 & #3: Taken from the product page under the Height Gain Exercises pdf

These are the comments other people have made on the subject of wearing and using ankle weights: