One of the more common questions posed by people who email to the website email is them asking the question which is a variation or derivative of “What Are The Chances For Me To Go Through A Late Teenage Years Or Late Life Growth Spurt?”
This is a really common question that I see on all of the height increase and grow taller boards. For these people they are only in the very early stages of learning about this endeavors.
I have thought about putting this question in the FAQ section of the website.
If felt that the entire question can be almost completely answered by reading the two posts below
Hi, I’m ENTER YOUR AGE years old. Am I Still Growing? Can I Still Grow Taller?
What Is The Most Height Gain One Can Achieve Through Exercises And Stretching After Puberty And Growth Plate Closure?
While the question posted for this post implies that the person asking the question is hoping that a miracle will happen to them which will let them do nothing but be passive in their achievement of height increase, the question and post I linked above implies that the person who wishes to be taller is willing to do more than just hope and may be more active and assertive in their approach for height increase.
To answer the question more directly is is worth pointing out the medically defined age range for most males and females for when they stop the natural growth process.
For males, they stop growing around the 17-19 age range – This is basically exactly the end of the teenage ages since the technical definition of the end of being a teenager is around 18 years old.
For females, the stop growing around the 15-17 age range – This is basically a little below the end of the teenage years. However we do note that females in general even in their development years mature faster than males, in terms of bone maturity and also emotional and mental maturity too.
If the person asking is hoping for a late teenage years growth spurt, then they would have to be more exact on how old they are exactly. There is a major different between 17.6 years old and 18 years old for men. There are enough cases seen where the male manages to continue to add 1-2 extra inches after even the 18 years point. This is due to maybe from the late closure of the male growth plates and also the longer, bigger tail of the bell curve of the distribution of height tabulated for men. The standard deviation magnitude for the male population is large than the standard deviation magnitude for the height bell curve distribution of females.
In all honestly, I would tell the individual that their chances are very low, maybe around 0.1-0.5% if they are anywhere past the age of 17 for a female and 19 for a male. There are many people who might try to counter-argue this assessment by telling me and recounting a story of how their relative, themselves, or one of their friends beat the age range and was the exception but the numbers don’t lie.
Most people who do contact this website are already in their 20s so their odds are severely reduced. I am talking about it to mean that in terms of percentages they might have a 0.001% chance that they would even be able to get 1 inch. However this does not mean that they can’t get some real height increase by focusing on stretching out their vertebrate and realigning their posture. A large percentage of people in a given population has the potential to gain upwards (or sometimes slightly more) of 1 inch in height increase through stretching and posture correction int their 20s. However what they are doing is more like body remodeling or modification, which is NOT a growth spurt.
Growth Spurts imply that the bones in their body went through further the process of endochondral ossification and the height they did achieve is permanent, which is something that won’t go away if they stop doing the stretching.
Maybe the person who messages me might think that they are somehow special, unique, or have a situation which means that they are excluded from the majority but fit that very, very small minority of people who can still grow, but that is always assuming that they think that their growth plates are still open. I would not want to wager that the person has their growth plates still around, but are gone. If a person doesn’t have their growth plates anymore in their limbs, they still have some cartilage in their vertebrate which might still be around which will contribute to the person’s overall height through appositional growth but if those vertebrate growth plates disappear, then growth spurts are almost impossible.
There is one unique case where it is suggested that growth spurts might still be able to occur that was with with the now passed Tanya Angus. Her biography showed that she apparently stopped increasing in height when she was in her teens but her growth was reactivated when she was around 18, which is the age when most females would have complete closure of their cartilage. Of course Angus had the most severe case of Acromegaly that has ever been documented. Where most pituitary gland tumours which cause human gigantism are benign in nature, Tanya Angus had one which seemed to more malignant, at least in terms of the fact that her tumour seemed to grow bigger. If we can prove that Angu’s plates were in deed gone before her pituitary gland was activated, this might prove the idea that even with all the growth plate closed, growth spurts still might be able to happen where the body is enlarged in every single way, not just in terms of height.
So at this point, hope for the best but expect the worst. Be prepared to accept the idea that maybe you are not going to get any growth spurt but be grateful if it does happen. Sometimes the growing does happen, like what happened with Dennis Rodman with his crazy 10 inch of growth at the age of 20, but those cases are very, very rare.