Size may matter, but in some cases the smallest
thing can have the biggest impact. Like that grape-sized organ-
the anterior pituitary gland- nestled within your brain. Despite
its small dimensions, it is the source of powerful juice when it comes
to building height. You see, the anterior pituitary gland is
responsible for secreting a substance called somatotropic hormone,
more commonly known as "growth hormone," into your
bloodstream.
Without that tiny gland, it wouldn't matter how many
reps of stretching exercises you perform. Without it, building
your physique would become an exercise in futility. Why?
"It's somatotropic hormone that dictates how your body will adapt
itself from all your height increasing efforts" says Ed Burke,
Ph.D., director of the Exercise Science Program at the University of
Colorado at Colorado Springs.
Acting as your body's foreman, growth hormone
instructs your skeletal bone to grow larger and stronger while it
speeds the conversion of excess fats into energy. In other
words, get enough growth hormone floating around in your system and
your body has no choice but to construct itself into something bigger
and badder. Cheat yourself from acquiring your fair share and
your body can only do so much, no matter how much you do.
Although the amount of growth hormone your body
regularly produces is entirely up to your brain, there are a few
things you can do to trick that thrifty gland into being a bit more
generous.
So now that you've worked hard enough on your body
performing the stretching exercises, pay attention to these six proven
ways to make your body work for you:
1)Get your shut-eye.
It's simple math really. Add eight hours to the time you went to
bed, then look at your alarm clock before peeling yourself from the
sheets. "Not getting enough sleep regularly can lower the
amount of growth hormone your body produces daily," says Walter
Thompson, Ph.D., director of the Center for Sports Medicine, Science
and Technology at Georgia State University in Atlanta.
Even though excess sleep won't necessarily increase
the amount of growth hormone your body secretes, constantly burning
your midnight oil could be suppressing how efficiently your body
distributes growth hormone during the course of the day. Keeping
normal sleeping habits may let you tap into a certain percentage of
growth hormone that your bones never get a chance to utilize when
sleep-deprived.*
2)Eat Smarter.
Focus on eating six or seven smaller meals
during your day instead of three or four larger ones. Consuming
large meals with a high glycemic index forces the body to release a
high amount of insulin into the system to aid with digestion.
This reaction not only forces your body to store fat, it may also
inhibit the flow of the growth hormone being released throughout your
bloodstream. Instead, make a point of consuming other low-sugar
foods that will prevent the release of insulin.
The crossover between what you need to stay healthy
and what you need to release more growth hormone doesn't stop with
eating smaller meals and getting enough shut-eye. All of the
same factors that need to be in place for a healthy lifestyle still
hold true. Training right, eating right, sleeping right and
keeping your stress to a minimum will not only keep you healthier,
they will foster the type of environment that encourages the anterior
pituitary gland to do its job. Deficits in any of these areas
will only slow down how well your body functions as a whole, which in
turn slow down the amount of growth hormone that is being continually
pumped into your system.*
3) Pre-workout nosh: Toss
back a small chicken salad sandwich a couple of hours before you
exercise. Food Researchers have discovered that consuming a
protein-carbohydrate meal two hours prior to working out and another
meal immediately afterward elicited a significant increase in both
growth hormone an testosterone within the bloodstream.
Even if you're not hungry a few hours before you
exercise, you may want to consider having a snack to prevent being
hungry within the two-hour window before you work out.
Researchers at UCLA found that subjects who exercised with partially
digested food in their stomachs experienced up to a 54 percent
decrease in the production of growth hormone. Subjects who were
fed strictly carbohydrates prior to a workout still experienced a
lower production of growth hormone by up to 24 percent.*~
4) Get the most from your training: What
you put your body through during your stretching exercise routine has
a direct effect on what your pituitary gland puts out to build height.
A recent study in the Journal of
Applied Physiology found that the frequency and amount of
growth hormone the body secretes is relative to the intensity of your
workout. Subjects who exercised at a higher intensity
experienced greater and more frequent releases of growth hormone after
their workouts.
To get the most from your training efforts, you need
to be sure that the duration and intensity of your regimen are high
enough to elicit a response. Keeping your workouts focused on
short-burst, high intensity anaerobic stretching exercises and
maintaining a pace that lasts at least 20-30 minutes is a fair
standard to follow.
There are certain stretching exercises that may help
squeeze out a little extra growth hormone. By utilizing
stretches that include several muscle groups to work collectively, the
intensity of the workout subsequently increases as well, forcing the
anterior pituitary gland to issue more growth hormone to compensate
for the extra effort.
Oddly enough, participating in intense aerobic
exercise can also cause an increase in growth hormone release.
However, what keeps marathoners from looking like basketball athletes
is that their bodies react differently to the substance because of the
activity they participate in.
It is like having someone who never lifts weights
using a muscle-building supplement. They have the building
blocks within their system, but unless the endurance athlete is
performing a significant amount of resistance stretching exercises,
the body never recognizes a demand to use these tools effectively to
help restructure.*
5) Supplement strategically: Taking
the amino acid glycine immediately before you work out can mildly
stimulate the release of growth hormone, but only when taken as a
supplement. Trying to achieve the same effect by consuming
glycine-rich foods such as poultry or milk prior to exercise only
inhibits growth hormone by causing you to exercise on a full stomach,
plus the glycine doesn't get absorbed in the same way.
Being introduced into the body in the presence of
additional amino acids forces the glycine to compete for transport
across the blood-brain barrier, diminishing its effect on the growth
hormone levels. The only way glycine can cause a reaction is
when taken in isolated supplement form, preferably on an empty stomach
to speed up absorption and prevent outside interference from other
amino acids.
6) Don't pig out before bed:
Never
eat a large meal within two hours of going to sleep. The
reasoning ties into avoiding the same insulin surges you're trying to
prevent during the day, but this abstention is especially important
before bedtime.
The body releases the greatest amount of growth
hormone during the first two hours of sleep. Having excess
insulin within the system after a large meal suppresses this higher
output of growth hormone, preventing your body from taking advantages
of it as you rest.
Nighttime also seems to be the best time to take
additional supplements to increase the flow of growth hormone.
UCLA researchers have found that taking the amino acid arginine and
orthinine together on an empty stomach right before bedtime can boost
growth hormone levels significantly. However, the amounts
required to see a difference were between 40 and 60 grams, dosages too
large to take in any version besides injectable form.
There are safer, more accessible supplements you can
try, such as 5-hydroxy tryptophan, a safer derivative of tryptophan.
This sleep aid used to encourage drowsiness also helps the brain
release growth hormone.*~
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