Increase your Height with Yoga?

I think the whole Yoga to increase height theory got it's start from Dhalsim in Street Fighter II.  There are other instances of hyper flexibility being used to achieve height like Mr. Fantastic, Elongated Man, and Plastic Man.  And it's true that if the bone had low mineral content it would be highly flexible to grow taller due to the collagen content of bone.  So yes, you could grow taller with radiation like Mr. Fantastic.

I've seen many height increase sites recommend the Cobra.  Now the Cobra exercise could actually decrease your height as you are compressing the intervertebral discs(they can heal however naturally and/or with supplementation by Chondroitin and Glucosamine).  Now it might be possible for the Cobra exercise to increase height if it caused microfractures in the vertabrae releasing mesenchymal stem cells.  Even though the Cobra does cause compressive forces on the vertabrae a compression microfracture is still a microfracture.

Is their any evidence that suggests that it is possible to increase the size of your intervertebral discs with exercise?  There is some that you can increase the Annulus Fibrosus but not the Nucleus Pulposus and it's the Nucleus Pulposus that can contribute to height.  But guess what could contribute to Nucleus Pulposus growth?  Microfracture released mesenchymal stem cells.

Yoga involves a bunch of other stretches but I've found the most effective height increase stretches to be inversion and hanging.  The purpose of stretching is to create traction and decompress the spine.  The juries still out on whether it's possible to increase the length of your ligaments which a yoga routine might exercise.  However, ligaments tend to want to return to their original length.  A ligament with more fibers won't be longer it'll just be thicker and more easily able to stretch.

Another element of yoga is breathing and relaxation.  Both of these can help with posture.  Taking a deep breath can be used to help stabilize your spine.  Breathing is unlikely however to make you taller.  Relaxing can help you achieve better posture and spinal alignment is important but not really what we're looking for in terms of height gain.

It's possible for the bone to grow in response to stretching forces but Yoga doesn't provide any stretching forces on the bone(or a very minor force).  It might be possible for a more sophisticated stretching routine that applies severe stretches on the bone to work but Yoga is not that routine.