Update 1/21/2013: After going back to this post to review the information that I had previously put up, I realized that this post needed to be redone, edited, and added on the technical details.

There is a theory that if one can induce microfractures, one can then use some form of device or equipment to stretch the long legs where the microfractures which were induced  can lead to longitudal length gain, thus an increase in height. This idea was the main theoretical background behind the shinbone method.

The idea of microfractures has been one of the most researched and tested theories and methods for height increase. The experimenter Sky and his team at LimbCenter.org (which I don’t think exist anymore except on the Wayback Machine.) tried applying the microfracture theory to gain height for over 5 years and in the end, the results were very dismal and showed little success. Through Sky’s effort, he would develop the prototypes and many variations of ideas on how to induce microfractures, including a Shinbone Method, Thighbone Method (which I remember seeing but could never find any information on), and also a Lumbar/Back Method.

In addition, the trainer Pierre Pozzuto would come up with A-Grow-Bics and use the principle of microfractures to explain why any bit of height increase would even be possible for adults. However the results which we do find from his program, which does seem to work for a small group of his clients, can be explained instead by the idea of vertebral decompression, better posture, and some bone realignment moves similar to what we might find in rolfing, or the Alexander Technique.

In my personal opinion, at this point in the research, I would not recommend trying or applying this method. The idea behind inducing microfractures was that the external cortical bone of the long bones in the legs would have a weak enough tensile strength being rather on the brittle side to allow even for a bit of microfractures to come about from repeated kicking, jumping, or running.

In general we remember and note that the tensile strength of human cortical bone, which is cylindrical in nature to give it the most strength in terms of bone strength/volume, is very, VERY high.

The hollow nature of human long bone gives it the strength and durability to land animals who need to stand up right and still be nimble and fast enough to either run for prey or outrun predators. The same idea for hollow bones is found in birds who need the strong hollow bone matrix to hold their body structure up and also be light enough to be able to glide and fly.

It would turn out that when I did a quick Google search for the term microfractures, that the idea is currently already being done by orthepaedic surgeons as a way to heal articular cartilage damage.

The picture to the left is a picture I found from a website where a surgeon/physician is showing in diagram how to perform a type of knee arthroscopy. What they seem to be doing is inducing microfractures that are  just small holes less than 1 mm in diameter in the sub condylar and sub chondral medial & lateral areas of the epiphysis of the upper knee area, where the distal end of the femur is.

It seems that overall the medical professionals have been able to figure out how to use microfractures to cause the healing of chronic articular cartilage damage.

As for the technology to use microfractures to lead to height increase, it would seem that maybe it would just be easier to get medical professionals to cause the microfractures formations. If the idea of microfractures was truly sound, then a medical professional with a few drills will be instead used to cause the bones to develop the microfractures we are looking for. All we then would have to do is prove using any type of bone lengthening device that the induced microfractures can cause lengthening.

However I have wondered whether any chance for bone lengthening is dependent on microfracture shape as well. With the microfracture surgery, the drill in round, hole shape has to reach the subchondral bone level so that the pluripotent progenitor stem cells will be released from the bone marrow inside to cause cartilage formation. This shows that any microfracture technique will in terms of depth be able to reach the subchondral layer. What is left in terms of factors is the shape. The question then to ask is whether  the shape should be a slit in the horizontal direction or vertically since a large bone defect would not do much except cause blood loss. I would guess that a horizontal slit fracture may give the bone a slightly greater chance to be able to expand vertically, thus causing height increase.

There really isn’t much more to say about microfractures which hasn’t already been stated in other posts like the one on the shinbone method or the posts about ankle weights, part II.