If you were a precocious fitness enthusiast, your parents may have warned you to stay away from the weight room because of a belief that it might stunt your growth. While lifting weights can be dangerous if it's not done correctly, there is no evidence that the workout will make you shorter than you would otherwise be.

Can lifting make you shorter?

The evidence is pretty clear that there's no correlation between lifting weights and being shorter as an adult. Barring some kind of catastrophic injury to one of your long bones during adolescence as a result of heavy lifting, there's just absolutely no reason lifting weights would impact your overall height.

Does weightlifting affect your height?

Rob Raponi, a naturopathic doctor and certified sports nutritionist, says the misconception that lifting weights stunts growth likely stems from the fact that injuries to growth plates in immature bones can stunt growth. ... But it's not the result of lifting weights correctly.