Moore said it's very common for yoga students to report height increases. Students will come to him after medical checkups and tell him that they've "grown."
"They'll promptly come and pull me aside with a huge grin and say, 'Keith, I just went to the doctor, you won't believe this.' "
Pilates, which has found a huge new audience in the past several years, has cultivated a reputation for being able to create longer, leaner muscles . . . and to increase height.
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"I don't have any science to back me up, but the anecdotal evidence is strong."
Last year, UCLA medical professor Gail Greenberg completed a pilot study of yoga's influence on posture. The study's results showed that yoga could improve kyphosis, a forward curve of the spine originally believed to be an irreversible bone disorder. Researchers found that by the study's conclusion, yoga participants had straighter spines and their height measurements had increased.
Karen Garcia, owner of Studio Body Logic in Arlington, said Pilates can improve posture by building muscles to support the body against the constant tug of gravity, which otherwise compresses the spine's spongy disks throughout the day.
"Most people just slump out of habit," Garcia said. "But even gravity pulls us down."
Garcia swears by a move called the "roll up," which she says is a perfect example of how Pilates simultaneously strengthens and stretches the body. It's executed on the back with the arms extended skyward. The head is lifted and the spine is sequentially rolled, one vertebra at a time, off the mat until the arms are parallel to the floor and the fingertips can tap the toes.
This is where the flexibility is tested. Strength comes into play as the movement is reversed and the spine rolls sequentially down to the starting position.
Once a Pilates student has mastered that exercise, he or she will begin to look, feel and act -- but not actually become -- taller. For Torbert, that's good enough. •
Laurie Burkitt, an aide for the editorial staff of The Washington Post, is a certified Pilates instructor.
