Visit Doctors
Visit
Visit
Call Doctors
Call
Call
Ask Doctors
Ask
Ask
Feed
Home
18 years
I exercise daily (bodybuilding) for an hour. Does it affect my height?
Apr 28, 2014

Dr. Rania Mousa General Medicine
Practicing bodybuilding is ok as long as it is not that intensive and you are taking your energy requirements through your diet. 1 hour is ok but it depends on how much you lift; as long as your bodybuilding moderate with good diet, it doesn't affect your height.

Being that you are still in the rapid growth period that typically happens during the early adolescent years, if you start up on a teen bodybuilding workout program that is too intense for what your body is able to handle, this is going to compromise all the other reactions that are taking place in the body.

You should understand that weight training itself is not going to stunt growth, but if you are weight training so intensely that the body has no energy left to use for the natural growth process, that's when you will not reach your full height.

So the main message here is watch the total intensity of your workouts during the week and also make sure you're eating enough total calories so that you still have plenty of energy for the body to grow and function normally. It's also a smart plan to aim for increasing the intensity by only 10% at a time, so your body is better able to adapt to the training stimulus you are providing it.
 •