I second what people said above, I think 5cm is a great option especially for tibias (some doctors recommend 5 cm or 6 cm on tibias based on them finding out that complication rates increase exponentially after those lengths). I think Conway and Paley recommend 5cm or less on tibias. I think Parihar says do not go above 6. I think Giotikas also recommends not going above 6 for tibias
I'm at about 5cm on femurs now, and it feels amazing standing next to male adults and being shorter but not as much shorter as before. I'm going for two more centimeters if I can handle it but I think even if I stopped now I would be pretty happy
I feel like what is going on now in the forum are these two different schools of thought:
betz patients going for like 10+11 or like at least 8,9+ on both segments. In the interview with cyborg4life I can't remember if betz says that people can still recover fully if they train very hard and train for more months. I think in that 2021 interview betz also said most of his patients do 7-11 cm on femurs
Versus the other doctors (USA, South Africa, Greece, etc) recommending 6-8 cm max on femurs, and 4-6 on tibias
er well 3 schools of thought, I guess there are some people doing externals to save money and going for 7cm+ to 7.5cm externals on tibias, I think 2.5-3 inches via external tibias used to be very popular
And I feel like these different viewpoints are causing different perceptions about how much lengthening is safe/desirable. I feel like the second viewpoint (6-8 femur and 4-6 tibia) has been becoming more popular over the last few years and I think this conservative approach helps to protect the lower potential patients--- which I appreciate alot as a very slightly overweight American couch potato with below average flexibility (i'm trying to be less of a couch potato, I've been training/stretching more)