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Please Note: This article is presented for informational purposes only and is not meant to diagnose or treat any illness. If you have any health concern, see a licensed healthcare professional in person.
If you’re anything like me, the chances are that you’ll find it very difficult to naturally gain muscle mass.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve set out on a fitness journey with the intention of building as much muscle mass as possible, only to find myself incredibly down and deflated at the end of it, to find that I’ve barely gained any weight at all.
As men, when it comes to getting in shape, time is not on our side.
The reason for this is largely down to the fact that our testosterone levels start to drop so rapidly as we grow older.
Testosterone levels peak in our late teens, yet once we hit 30 it’s all downhill. Literally.
When I was training in my early twenties I had heaps of energy, I was lifting some very impressive weights, and I found it fairly easy to burn fat and build muscle.
More than a decade later, however, and things are slightly different.
Nowadays I have to work harder, I have less energy, and building muscle seems to be a real challenge.
This is largely due to the fact that my testosterone levels are significantly lower than when I was in my twenties.
Recently, however, I have been looking into exercise and testosterone, and whether exercise does indeed boost testosterone levels naturally like some people claim.
Here’s what I have found so far.
Hormones And The Body
As you probably know, hormones play crucial roles in countless physiological processes within the human body.
When it comes to communication, for example, hormones in the body function as messengers as they are secreted, and once in the body, they then bind onto specific receptors in our bodies, in individual organs.
There are plenty of hormones in the body but today we are going to be looking at testosterone.
To cut a long story short, when we exercise we damage our muscles and put them under a lot of stress and pressure.
We build muscle via a recovery process.
Hormones are essential for these processes.
Testosterone plays a key role in the growth and repair of muscle tissue.
In the body, testosterone levels can range from around 348 ng/dl (nanograms per decilitre) to 1197 ng/dl.
The average is around 724 ng/dl. Anything below 348 is considered to be abnormally low.
For the record, before I took steps to boost my test levels, my T-levels were 627.
So, I was below average, but not by loads, so it certainly didn’t mean I’d burst into tears watching chick flicks while eating Ice cream on a Friday night.
T levels above 1197 are considered abnormally high.
If you have levels this high, you’ll like be big, jacked, aggressive, and as manly as they come.
Normally to get levels this high you would have to inject anabolic hormones into your body.
Exercise And Testosterone
Right, so now that I’ve brought you up to speed on what your testosterone levels should be, and why it is so important, I’ll now talk to you about what I’ve found out regarding testosterone levels and exercise.
Well, first off, it’s worth noting that some studies conducted have found that resistance training can increase androgen levels in the body.
There have been countless scientific experiments conducted on testosterone and exercise and many of them have found a direct correlation between working out and increases in testosterone.
There are some misconceptions out there which talk about how shorter rest periods are supposed to increase testosterone production.
I’m ashamed to admit that I fell for this myself and would go out of my way to fire through my workouts getting as little rest between sets as possible.
I wish I’d done more research because all that happened was that I found myself becoming exhausted much faster, as this had no influence on testosterone levels in the slightest.
I also found that my mood also influenced my testosterone levels.
At the time when my T levels were at their lowest, I was under a lot of stress and anxiety due to women, work, and all of the other usual suspects.
Once I addressed these issues and started to prioritize my mental health, my testosterone levels actually shot up.
As far as exercise goes, resistance training is, without a doubt, the best type of exercise for when it comes to testosterone levels.
Endurance athletes sometimes suffer from low testosterone, because of the lengths of their workouts.
You see, prolonged spells of exercise can result in increased concentrations of the stress hormone ‘cortisol’.
We produce and secrete this hormone when we are stressed, or when the body believes it is stressed, such as during an intense and prolonged workout.
Cortisol suppresses natural testosterone production.
For optimal increases in testosterone, moderate/heavy resistance-based workouts are recommended.
They found that, after taking part in a resistance workout, testosterone levels remained elevated higher than usual, for around 15 minutes to one hour after a workout.
Sadly, they did drop after this point, but over time it has been found that they didn’t drop quite as low as they were before the beginning of the workout.
Just to give you an example, when I decided to try to boost my T levels, I used a natural testosterone booster, I ate healthily, I ate foods rich in zinc, vitamins, and minerals proven to boost testosterone, and I took part in resistance-based workouts lasting around 45 minutes in total.
Before my quest to boost my T-levels, my testosterone levels were at 627 ng/dl. 12 weeks later, they had increased to 659 ng/dl.
This wasn’t anything amazing by any stretch of the imagination, but they had increased, and placebo effect or not, I was convinced that I could see and feel a difference.
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