Hey everyone, I am fairly new to this forum. Funny enough, I actually joined after completing my LL journey at the Paley Institute earlier this year. It has been nearly 5 months since my tibia surgery and about 4 months since my femur surgery in July and August, as I am a quadrilateral patient. From the very beginning, I went into this surgery very conscious of my proportions. During my initial consult with Dr. Robbins (who now runs the whole CLL dept. at Paley’s), I was very persistent on doing an insanely conservative quadrilateral approach (roughly 5.5cm was my combined total goal). Dr. Robbins tried talking me out of it several times saying that it would be ridiculous to do this little in total and that I was better off doing the femurs. For the longest time, I stuck to this goal and refused to budge even in the slightest as I did plenty of visual calculations before surgery and figured out that I would look pretty good with 5-5.5 extra cm of height. Where I think that things really went south is how brain washed I became when I stayed at the homewood suites hotel with many of the Paley Patients. I noticed that the vast majority of patients were maxing out the P2.2 nail in the femurs all the way to the full 8.3cm, and many of the patients were very surprised to hear that I was only doing 5.5cm in total. Many would even suggest that I do more as I “wouldn’t be getting my moneys worth” for such little gain as quadrilateral is ridiculously expensive. Whether I was totally brainwashed by these other patients or it was the medications I was on, I made a completely irrational decision of lengthening to a whopping 7.5 *ucking cm, thats right, 2 whole centimeters over my goal which I was already skeptical about to begin with. The worst part about the p2.2 nails is that I was wheel-chair and walker-bound for the whole lengthening so I could hardly visualize my walking height from various angles and see if I looked “off.” Even the PT team at Paleys were encouraging me to keep lengthening, saying I looked “great.” Fast forward to today where I am back at home, no longer surrounded with LL patients with distorted proportions, and no longer on medications - meaning I can finally think rationally again and not base proportionally on a select group of outliers. Now that I am able to walk around and record myself from different angles, I realize how ridiculous my proportions look from various angles, especially in shoes, and very upset with my outcome. I would do anything to go back in time and stop the nails flat at 2.6 cm in tibs and 2.9 cm in femurs for a clean 5.5cm gain and no higher. I am a slim guy and the 7.5cm jumps out a ridiculous amount. Even for someone like me with a starting +8cm wingspan over height, not only do I feel like a t-rex now, but my legs look abnormally and sickly long. No amount of muscle is fixing this realistically and I am beyond upset. For the past whole week I tried to talk myself out of thinking about getting a revision shortening, but the more I try to convince myself it looks fine, the worse it gets. I’d love to hear from some of the veterans on this forum, because as of right now, I dont know how this will play out.
My friend, we all struggle with height neurosis anyway, why are you torturing yourself so much? Believe me, even if your proportions were perfect, you'd still find a flaw. Relax a little. I'm sure you look great. 2 cm won't ruin your proportions, bro. You've just made a habit of torturing yourself.
Im pretty proportions obsessed and ive never seen someone's legs look off with 8cm lengthening. arms can look off but certainly not in your case where your wingspan is nearly equal to to height. wingspan becomes a consideration when your like like 8cm less than height, and even then people probably won't notice, probably around 12-15cm less is when its a real issue. here's two things for you to think about
1. a wingspan slightly more than height is extremely common naturally. im 5'5 and my wingspan is somewhere between 5'6 and 5'7,although I have somewhat an arm length discrepancy .5-1in
2. how many times have you seen a woman in heels and thought she had t rex arms, the answer is probably never.
if its really such a big deal your leg proportion, id rather just do a small second lengthening to equal out the proportion a bit. unless you had really short torso it would be fine.
I get the point you are making about my wingspan still being around the same length as my height even after double LL, but relative to how I used to look, it does look very off to me visually. The wingspan part I can overlook but the leg length I cannot. After doing 7.5cm, my legs look far too long for the rest of my body, which is actually what makes my arms feel short in comparison even though they are still relatively normal length. The woman in heels thing is different because they often wear a dress with heals or its open toe so you can visually see where their legs end. And if not, it wouldn't matter the same way having longer/masculine arms matters for men as I believe my arms look borderline comical next to another guy of the same height now. I am confused about your last point about doing a small second lengthening as I already did quadrilateral so there is nothing to be balanced as my tibia to femur ratio looks great and isnt the issue here.
I want to believe what you are saying, but at the same time I truly believe that there is a very narrow threshold between what can look good and bad when it comes to LL. Up to 4cm and almost anyone can look fine or good. 6cm+ is what I believe should be reserved for either turbo manlets below 5’ 5 starting or people with short legs and generous proportions, not just good arm length. My starting arm length was good but my legs were very normal length wise. And I truly believe just 2cm between 5.5cm and 7.5cm would be make or break. I guess I will have to do mockups and recover fully before jumping into any decisions on this.
Quote from: GC Quad on December 16, 2025, 06:45:35 AMI want to believe what you are saying, but at the same time I truly believe that there is a very narrow threshold between what can look good and bad when it comes to LL. Up to 4cm and almost anyone can look fine or good. 6cm+ is what I believe should be reserved for either turbo manlets below 5’ 5 starting or people with short legs and generous proportions, not just good arm length. My starting arm length was good but my legs were very normal length wise. And I truly believe just 2cm between 5.5cm and 7.5cm would be make or break. I guess I will have to do mockups and recover fully before jumping into any decisions on this.
I mistook your post, I read 7.5cm and thought it was one segment. 7.5m across two segments is seriously not going to cause any extreme proportion. if you arms are within like 2 inches of height its just not possible for them to look comical, that is seriously within the normal range, not common common, but im sure you've seen guys like that before and not thought a thing. I mean even -5 inches can happen, although I agree at that point I'd also be concerned. I have only ever seen one guy look bad after 8cm, and arm length was his issue not even the legs despite being 8cm in 1 segment. just trust me. 7.5m across two segments is a very moderate lengthening. go through my posts, I have to be one of the most proportions obsessed mentally ill people here, I am telling you don't worry.
Give it a year or two, maybe then you can think more clearly, but it is genuinely possible to obsess and obsess and see things that aren't there.
The only possibility is if you were on the extreme end of long legs prior to doing your surgery. look at the post I commented on before this with the 5'3 guy. he did WAY more than you with probably worse proportion, yes his arms look wrong because he had bad wingspan and did like 6 inches, however his legs look fine.
if your worry is your arms, I dont know what to tell you, scientifically you are just wrong. that's the hardest info you can get on it. you are scientifically well within the normal range. not one person, in your whole life, ever, will likely think about your arm length at that length except you. genuinely not one.
how many times have you watched a movie with a short actor, standing on a box or wearing lifts etc, did you notice their arm length? no and it was likely way worse in proportion than yours. Look at RDJ in any avengers movie, they got him on level with 6'3 guys and nobody ever really thought about it. sure people commented on his lifts but not his arm length. so many male celebs wear lifts that give similar heights and nobody says, oh their arms are short. they may comment on the lifts, but not the arms. like I said 1000 times, arm length is only a problem when it becomes genuinely unnatural. and you are FAR outside that.
the only time people comment on arms is when its someone like Artem lobov who is like 5'9 with 5'5 arm span and in that case he's in a field which arm length is especially relevant.
Henry Cavill, a super famous actor, according to this forum has really short arms, honestly I cant really tell, but likely his proportion is almost certainly far worse than yours. You can find a maybe four threads about it online, one of them being on this arm length obsessed forum and another laughing at the thread on this forum, and this is one of the most visible people alive.
Im sure you are right about the fact that its probably 95% in my head and that no one will ever point it out. But for someone like me that went through all that extra pain of a second surgery to have really good proportions, I am very displeased with getting carried away and over lengthening. I’d much rather sacrifice 2cm and look aesthetically better, because I objectively would be closer to ideal ratios at that 5.5cm total than I do after 7.5cm. And because Im a slim guy, the height benefit doesn’t necessarily scale the same way since my lower body just looks excessively lanky more than it already did to begin with. I liked my slim figure to begin with and dont want to compensate because of LL and have to get excessively jacked. I am 5’ 9.5” barefoot as of now and would gladly shorten back down to the 5’ 8.5” - 5’ 8.75” range to look aesthetically better. Face card is good enough to a point where this extra inch is worthless and very unpopular take on this forum but I would take proportions over height every day after crossing 5’ 8”
Quote from: GC Quad on December 16, 2025, 05:40:08 AMHey everyone, I am fairly new to this forum. Funny enough, I actually joined after completing my LL journey at the Paley Institute earlier this year. It has been nearly 5 months since my tibia surgery and about 4 months since my femur surgery in July and August, as I am a quadrilateral patient. From the very beginning, I went into this surgery very conscious of my proportions. During my initial consult with Dr. Robbins (who now runs the whole CLL dept. at Paley’s), I was very persistent on doing an insanely conservative quadrilateral approach (roughly 5.5cm was my combined total goal). Dr. Robbins tried talking me out of it several times saying that it would be ridiculous to do this little in total and that I was better off doing the femurs. For the longest time, I stuck to this goal and refused to budge even in the slightest as I did plenty of visual calculations before surgery and figured out that I would look pretty good with 5-5.5 extra cm of height. Where I think that things really went south is how brain washed I became when I stayed at the homewood suites hotel with many of the Paley Patients. I noticed that the vast majority of patients were maxing out the P2.2 nail in the femurs all the way to the full 8.3cm, and many of the patients were very surprised to hear that I was only doing 5.5cm in total. Many would even suggest that I do more as I “wouldn’t be getting my moneys worth” for such little gain as quadrilateral is ridiculously expensive. Whether I was totally brainwashed by these other patients or it was the medications I was on, I made a completely irrational decision of lengthening to a whopping 7.5 *ucking cm, thats right, 2 whole centimeters over my goal which I was already skeptical about to begin with. The worst part about the p2.2 nails is that I was wheel-chair and walker-bound for the whole lengthening so I could hardly visualize my walking height from various angles and see if I looked “off.” Even the PT team at Paleys were encouraging me to keep lengthening, saying I looked “great.” Fast forward to today where I am back at home, no longer surrounded with LL patients with distorted proportions, and no longer on medications - meaning I can finally think rationally again and not base proportionally on a select group of outliers. Now that I am able to walk around and record myself from different angles, I realize how ridiculous my proportions look from various angles, especially in shoes, and very upset with my outcome. I would do anything to go back in time and stop the nails flat at 2.6 cm in tibs and 2.9 cm in femurs for a clean 5.5cm gain and no higher. I am a slim guy and the 7.5cm jumps out a ridiculous amount. Even for someone like me with a starting +8cm wingspan over height, not only do I feel like a t-rex now, but my legs look abnormally and sickly long. No amount of muscle is fixing this realistically and I am beyond upset. For the past whole week I tried to talk myself out of thinking about getting a revision shortening, but the more I try to convince myself it looks fine, the worse it gets. I’d love to hear from some of the veterans on this forum, because as of right now, I dont know how this will play out.
this is unreadable
have you heard about the existence of paragraphs? might be a good idea to look into that
You must be logged in to post a reply.