Testosterone replacement therapy is a quick fix. It treats the symptoms of low T (fatigue, decreased motivation, diminished libido, etc), while completely ignoring the root cause—your lifestyle choices. Not to mention that TRT is expensive and potentially dangerous. The following are five goals you should try to achieve before taking the plunge.
1. Achieve sub-15% body fat
Excess body fat is associated with an increase in aromatase production (1). Aromatase is an enzyme that serves the function of aromatizing androgens into estrogens (2). The more aromatase you have running through your veins, the more testosterone is being converted into estrogen (3).
In other words, all that extra body fat you’re carrying around is literally making you softer – not just a softer body, but softer erections and emotions as well. If you’re currently overweight, getting lean will have a tremendous positive impact on your testosterone.
Estimate your current body fat percentage by referring to the image above and make it a goal to achieve sub-15% levels. Leaning down is simply a matter of consuming fewer calories than you burn on a day-to-day basis.
2. Optimize your vitamin D and magnesium levels
Large portions of the American population are deficient in Vitamin D (74%) and magnesium (46%) (4), both of which are crucial for testosterone production.
Men with sufficient vitamin D levels have significantly higher testosterone compared to men who are deficient in it (5). Similarly, magnesium status has been shown to be strongly and independently associated with testosterone (6).
Topping up your vitamin D and magnesium levels is perhaps the simplest way to bring your testosterone back up closer to where it should be.
Your skin synthesizes vitamin D upon exposure to the sun but if spending more time outdoors is difficult, opt for a D3 supplement. If you have a hard time fitting magnesium rich foods (like spinach, almonds, and dark chocolate) into your diet, supplementing with magnesium is a good option as well.
3. Bench your bodyweight for 5 reps
You say you have a hard time building muscle and strength because of low T, but have you actually been hitting the gym on a regular basis? I’m guessing the answer is no.
What if I have been lifting weights regularly for over a year, but am still unable to bench press my bodyweight for 5 reps?
Well, that means you’re doing something wrong.
The two most common mistakes men make in the gym are 1) focusing on the wrong exercises and 2) lifting the same amount of weight week after week.
Forget bicep curls and ab crunches. Your workouts should be centred around gaining strength in big compound exercises like the bench press, squat, deadlift, overhead press, and barbell row. And the key to consistently getting stronger is to keep track of your workouts. If you don’t measure your progress, you won’t improve on it.
This is a mistake that I made for years. I would enter the gym with some recollection of how much weight I lifted the previous week and would complete a number of reps for a given exercise until I felt the “burn”. As a result, I barely made any progress past the initial newbie gains.
Now, I know better and keep track of every single workout – what exercises I did, how much weight I lifted on each, and how many reps I was able to complete. In this way, I always have an eye on improvement during my next workout and am usually able to hammer out that one extra rep when it means making gains. Beyond the newbie level, that’s how strength is built – one rep at a time.
The following is an example of a simple progression model you can use to increase your strength:
Week 1: Bench Press – 145 lbs x 6, 6, 6
Week 2: Bench Press – 145 lbs x 7, 7, 7
Week 3: Bench Press – 145 lbs x 8, 8, 8
Week 4: Bench Press – 150 lbs x 6, 6, 6
Before you jump the gun and make excuses about how you can’t build muscle because of low T, at least put the work in. Show up at the gym. Keep track of your workouts. Focus on getting stronger.
After a year of this if you still haven’t made any progress, that is the point where you can think about opting for TRT. Not before.
4. Eat your fair share of dietary fat
Considering that steroid hormones are synthesized from cholesterol, dietary fat intake is very important for T.
Scientists at the Centre of Sports Medicine found monounsaturated and saturated fat intake to be the strongest dietary predictors of resting T concentrations (7). Polyunsaturated fats like soybean and corn oil, on the other hand, actually lowered T.
Whole eggs, avocados, bacon, and fatty beef are your T-boosting friends. Make sure to keep them in your circle.
5. Get 7-9 hours of deep, uninterrupted sleep daily
If you do everything else right but fail to get enough high quality sleep, your testosterone results will be severely limited. Given that the bulk of your testosterone is secreted while you sleep (11), you have to start making sleep a priority.
Four steps to faster and deeper sleep:
- Cut off night-time exposure to bright screens
- Sleep in complete darkness
- Keep it cool (between 60-67 degrees fahrenheit (12))
- Make it consistent
Conclusion
Unless you’re suffering from a medical condition that’s stunting your body’s ability to produce testosterone, there’s no need to for TRT. Getting to the root of it – your lifestyle habits – will take longer, but the results will last longer as well. If you go for the quick fix, you’ll see faster results, but there will always be a price to pay at the end.
Read More: The Top 15 Male Foods You Need To Increase Your Test And Get Ripped
Nothing beats the semi-conscious, 3am jungle fuck. Full night sleeps are overrated.
Hahaha Mr. Kelly a 3am jungle fuck is the only reason one should stay up past midnight.
I haven’t slept five hours at a stretch for over twenty years. That’s not going to change any time soon.
Sure.. all you need then is a woman who is up for it, instead of laying there snoring her fucking head off and peacefully getting her 7-9 hour quota.
Top quality article, good job guys.
Cheers mate, hope you act on this info as well
Mo, what do you think of natural T boosters like Tribulus, Maca, Saw Palmetto, Fenugreek and Royal Jelly? Any reviews or cautions that you wish to share? Steroids are banned in my state.
John, Tribulus has been shown in multiple studies to have no effect on testosterone – all it does is boost libido. Same with Maca and Fenugreek.
Saw palmetto can boost testosterone, but it does so by reducing testosterone’s conversion to dihydrotestosterone (DHT). DHT is the most potent androgen in the male body – so lower amounts of it is definitely something we don’t want.
Royal jelly actually contains testosterone, but the current human research is limited in scope.
The only herb that I’d recommend is ashwagandha. Multiple studies have shown its effectiveness at not only boosting testosterone, but also helpful with muscle and strength gains.
Hope that helps
Co-sign on ashwagandha. Good stuff. However, Tongkat Ali (longjack) and Mucuna Pruriens (velvet bean) are both quite effective as well. Google it and you’ll be surprised at some of the science-backed date supporting these herbs.
The key with these is keeping your cortisol levels in check. Cortisol and testosterone are basically two sides of the same coin. Keeping cortisol levels regulated will allow testosterone levels to rise.
#15 Avoid Toronto. It has been shown that men who move to Toronto have dramatic hair loss, greying of hairs at 21 and experience hate from local women. Men who were born and raised in Toronto are most likely to be either fat, mangina, low testosterone or gay.
Add Seattle to this list as well.
Seattle is infested with Hongcouver citizens of questionable methods of citizenship and income from China.
Toronto women should be classified as a different form of human, like how we view lions and snakes as dangerous, we should view Toronto fembots as dangerous animals who should be avoided at all costs!
Achieving 15% body fat is easier said than done. Looking at some of these items, if you could do them so easily you wouldn’t consider TRT. The conundrum comes from needing testosterone to do the things that give you more testosterone. If you have sub-optimal T levels one thing you see right away is how little energy you have. Try getting to 15% body fat from 25% without much energy. Same thing for benching or doing heavy squats or total body high intensity workouts. Yeah all those things are great for your T levels but you almost need high T levels to do them.
You’re right about that Jared – these items are not easy to achieve. Many times we’re stuck in a downward spiral that leads us to sub-optimal T and it can get pretty difficult to go against the negative momentum. The point is that we should address the root cause – lifestyle factors – that have led us down a dark path rather than go for the quick fix.
An analogy:
A tree’s leaves are turning brown. A good gardener looks at the roots to inspect what nutrients the tree is missing out on that is causing the leaves to turn brown. A bad gardener just paints the leaves green.
Which one are you?
Everyone is so quick to find instant solutions to their wants.
2 hints to get there without detrimental artificial “instant fix” means.
Eat smarter than you are already and get the maximum exercise ( through whatever physical activity you desire) you can out of your daily energy and maximum best quality sleep you can get. notice these two things are not said with specifics, because each person must find their own. All I will repeat about food, is whole fresh raw and home cooked foods get maximum normal nutrition with the least amount of additives and chemicals and self discipline enough to have portion control. Its less about what you eat than how much you eat and the actual nutritive quality of it. if you don’t have the self discipline to push back from the table and put quit shoving food with your greasy ham chop hands into your maw, you might as well quit reading and caring. people don’t get fat from breathing and f**king, they get fat from EATING, end of story. you can mentally masturbate this topic until your oatmeal you call a brain burns, but absent those two thing I mentioned, the rest has little to do with the ends you desire.
Blah blah blah gym routine…blah blah blah supplements..blah blah blah….blah blah blah testosterone enhancements…always about instant gratification, and so little about self discipline and work.
So, how do you gain self discipline? Maybe you should write an article about it.
DO you ever tell yourself you don’t need something that you want and then follow through with enough restraint to NOT indulge your “need” that is a want. Self discipline is an individual learned thing but it requires you to be smart and wise person first and is often learned through making the mistakes of indulging it and then paying the consequences later when its horribly inconvenient. If you don’t learn it then, likely you don’t have the personal fortitude to ever learn it, then you might as well go on living like a woman. you get the fast track of learning self discipline going into boot camp most times (ok well its used to be instilled back in the older Army, not so much now I hear), when you have drill instructors breathing down your neck and punishment comes quickly when you fail to learn quick and do the right thing in the circumstances. There is fast track learning self discipline thorough the military, and then there is the much softer non military less successful ways without instant credible feedback.
Well said.
I find that I have three voices in my head – the devil, the angel, and the voice of consistency.
When I track my habits, the voice of consistency is consistently fed, and that’s when it becomes harder for me NOT to follow through than to follow through.
No offense to the author but I’ve seen this “no isolation, just compounds” thing repeated so often that it has become the new myth.
If you’re short on time and motivation and have a spine made of steel (these squats and deadlifts can mess your discs up for life) then take that advice as it is but if you’re passionate about bodybuilding, do safe compounds AND isolation from day one.
When you do more exercises, you give the muscle different kind of stress from different angles, different stretch, speeds and different heads of the muscle become activated more diversely. You should not try to turn your body into a human crane; bodybuilding is not jiu-jitsu where you try to overcome heavy mass with tricks. Moving a pink dumbbell 20 inches is better than moving 1000 pounds two inches.
If you stick to basic compounds, some muscles don’t get any stimulation AT ALL or it’s piss poor quality relative to what you could have.
Another often forgotten issue is that even if you have higher body fat, having a diverse workout schedule with lots of different movements will increase the likelihood of your muscles poking through the suboptimally high fat while sticking to the same basics every semi-knowledgeable semi-chubby guy is doing will easily keep you looking like the average guy. Sure it’s hard to have abs at 20% but you don’t get that much fat in your forearms and calves (for example). How many guys work those muscles to the bone?
Very true with joints like shoulders – the small muscled that hold it all together during movements get overlooked, leading to injury even though you hit all the bigger ones regularly.
I agree with you man. I was trying to address the other end of the spectrum. I’ve seen so many guys come to the gym and ONLY do bicep curls.
Of course, there is no one way that’s the best way to train – diversity is the way to go.
That being said, compound lifts are recommended for those looking to boost testosterone because a wider stimulation of muscle mass accentuates a greater spike of post workout anabolic hormones.
Last week Roosh was emasculated by Brittany Venti,
today RoK hosts a TyT article.
Every time the government bombs a country, bans free speech, confiscates guns, wiretaps people, seizes property, tortures, and kills people then you are responsible.
Silence means consent.
You would be naive to think that the government won’t get worse or that you will never be a victim of government abuse.
A medically-supervised water-only fast is a great way to enter ketosis (without protein overload), and lose a ton of fat, very quickly.
Yes, the ketogenic diet is definitely something I’ve been meaning to experiment with but just haven’t taken the plunge. How has your experience been in terms of mental clarity and performance? More than anything, the cognitive benefits of it are the main appeal for me. From what I’ve read, our brains function far more effectively off of ketones as fuel rather than glycogen.
Your dad and granddad have more T than you. They ain’t on TRT.
The reason your T is so low is you probably spend too much time around women.
I’d think that spending time around women would boost testosterone, but I guess that depends on context. Are you there as their emotional shoulder to cry on or the ravage beast to fulfill their wildest desires?
I meant at work or too much exposure to them in life in general. Past generations of men spent time with women to fuck and then to raise children. The concept of men spending time with women at work or “as friends” is entirely modern (at least for Western men).
High T males work jobs for men, and those fields don’t attract women. I don’t mean befriending them either. I mean just being too exposed to an estrogenic environment. Kind of like coed schools as well
Nope, it’s fast food and energy drinks…both could cause strokes as well.
A decent woman who could cook great meals, as a WIFE wouldn’t let you get this way
Then agaim, most men didn’t work with women until around 60 years ago.
Also, some men weren’t allowed to fornicate under carnal knowledge….they had to get married for physical intimacy
Wow do you actually believe this bs? The article is about ways to improve your body and you relate it right back to “women are the reason we fail”. Too many excuses bro.
Great article, bad comment, not everything is about women dragging you down.
I have to highly recommend the butt nuggets. I had them installed last October when my testosterone tested at 178. Now this is a 74yr old man with type II diabetes, at ~350lbs. In about six weeks, I felt great. After nearly six months, the weight is gliding around 300lbs and I’m having trouble balancing the diabetes meds.
The only real drawback is the tendency to think with my sick… again. Do this under a doctor’s supervision and regular exercise.
I really hate auto correct… man.
Boxers don’t do compound lifts. Herschel Walker built one of the finest physiques in history using just calisthenics and sprinting uphill. Bruce Lee didn’t even lift bro. Unless you’re a competitive athlete, lifting weights is unnecessary. You can build a fine physique with 6 minutes a day of calisthenics, specifically one minute each: Hindu pushups, Hindu squats, pullups gripping towels hung over bar, free-standing static handstand, back bridge, fingertip L-sit. Add a minute of vertical jumping if you don’t walk much and so need more leg work.
No, You cant.
You can get into shape and build small amounts of muscle, but not achieve real muscularity unless you life. Herschel did 1000s of push ups daily. He couldve been even stronger and bigger, in Less time, had he lifted.
Herschel now has a GAY son, who does cheerleading. Just saying.
Compund body lifts release tones of natural HGH.
hahaha @ GAY son who does cheerleading.
But yea bro spot on. Compound lifting regulates our hormones like nothing else. It’s the closest thing to a magic pill we’ve got. And the rising obesity epidemic along with the fact that most men don’t take advantage of lifting is are the primary causes of the emasculation of men.
be careful with magnesium supplements. why for most people they improve sleep, there are people for whom magnesium does exactly the opposite – destroys good sleep completely.
i learned it from bitter experience. for a few months a couldn’t understand what’s going on. then connected the dots, read up some more on magnesium on the net, stopped taking magnesium – and my normal good sleep returned the next day.
Experimentation is key.
Try NATURAL CALM
A GOOD MAGNESIUM SUPPLEMENT
GNC sells it
This is a largely incomplete article that neglects to mention a few critical factors. The major one being your age.
Look – if you’re 24-34 or so and you have a diagnosed low T blood level – you need to start looking at your environment, diet, sleep, etc.
If you’re 38+ and low – you MAY be able to boost those levels but it’s going to be hard to get back to the 1200 (high end range of normal) level at that age. If you’re already in the gym 3 times a week lifting and not going anywhere despite good diet and sleep – you should really consider TRT.
Also – younger guys considering taking a cycle of steriods – DON’T do it. It will permanently down regulate your natural T levels – a buddy of mine had that very thing happen to him.
Age is definitely a factor, but it should never be used as an excuse. If you’re 38+ and have developed a life long habit of munching on Cheetos and watching TV all day, is it wise to blame age for your low T and opt for TRT while carrying on with your pathetic habits?
Did I suggest at any point to blame it on age if you’re a fat ass not working out and not taking care of yourself?
No I didn’t.
LoL @ 7-9 hours of sleep every night…
Also, I got down to 11% body fat a few months ago, and I did not look like the picture depicted…
Mate, the picture is merely an estimate. Even a DEXA scan, which is thought as the most accurate method of assessing body fat, is not 100% accurate and fluctuate anywhere from 2-5% based on bodyweight. A metric that’s simpler to track and is more accurate is waist measurement. Every man should make it a priority to achieve a waist measurement of less than 45% of his height.
“Not to mention that TRT is expensive and potentially dangerous.”
Have you ever used testosterone or been on TRT? I would assume no given you’ve made such a wildly incorrect statement on the opening of this article.
TRT is not expensive, unless you’re completely broke-ass poor and nor is it dangerous. I’ve been on it 3 years and never had an issue. It has, as a matter of fact, improved my life beyond measure. I get bloods every 6 months and they come back extremely healthy. Perhaps not everyone needs TRT, but to state that it is potentially dangerous is a totally false and misleading accusation entirely.
It’s not like you use TRT once and are done with it. Consider the life long cost of TRT.
As per the dangers of TRT, men using it over the long term have been shown to be at a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and developing the growth of prostate cancer cells.
That being said, I do believe that the benefits of TRT would outweigh the costs for a man who has a pituitary tumor or an adrenal issue that’s holding his body back from producing T.
You got a study to site for such claims?
Check out this article published in Harvard Health:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/mens-health/is-testosterone-therapy-safe-take-a-breath-before-you-take-the-plunge
I am late life where the T reaaaalllly matters for tone and positivity and hardness. I have found zinc really does it. I’m told and seen articles that zinc transfers your ‘core sterols’ that are in meats and fats into T. Otherwise it goes to estrogen… a major no no! For what its worth, DHEA and eating seafood and then topping zinc supplements multiplies this effect. Otherwise large muscle exercises definitely. If you have trouble getting enough sleep, try melatonin and/or stop waking up peeing with pygeum supplement.
Keep it up mate.
Nobody has mentioned it yet. You can increase your bodies own testosterone production by stimulating your balls with fertility drugs, like clomid. It will also increase your sperm production. A low dosage of 12.5-25 mg per day will do wonders, for your balls. You could try this for 6-8 weeks, then take another 6-8 weeks off. You can experiment with doses, but I wouldn’t recommend ever taking more than 50mg/day, or you can start to get negative side effects, like floaters in your vision(which can cause permanent damage to your sight). Stop or reduce dramatically if you get that reaction. High doses can also make you weepy, like an over emotional girl. Do some research before taking it.
Okays its not a steroid like effect, but it will maximise your natural hormone production. The effect is small, but it is noticeable, and worthwhile, especially if you are over 40. Bodybuilders use it to help regain, speed up normal hormone production after a cycle of steroids. You will also shoot massive loads:)
It can be prescribed by a Dr for fertility issues. Most of them probably won’t do it, unless you have a low sperm count and are trying to get your woman pregnant. It also stimulates women to ovulate.
A quick search on the net should reveal companies that will sell without prescription(India). It can also be obtained in liquid form from research chemical companies.
Once again another faggot downvoter. How about addressing the issues?
Great article and I fully agree. I dropped 65lbs going keto and now focus on nutrient density. The rebooted metabolic efficiency gave me energy and restored my T naturally which forced me into the gym. Everything else in my life has since kinda worked itself out. I think the most important one in this article is the first one getting below 15% bf. If you’re above that, consider it like a fire that’s about to burn your house down. It has to go or you’ll die.
Good stuff with that 65lb fat-loss Aaron. Keto is definitely something I want to experiment with but haven’t made the commitment. Any books you recommend to get started with?
Went through a phase a few years ago where I just couldn’t get myself out of bed. Doctors at first blamed the flu. Then it was mono. Then it was something else. I thought I had cancer but kept on getting back after this test and that test everything was normal. My response was always of course not everything is normal getting out of bed in the morning to go to the bathroom felt like a five hour gym session.
Finally read an article about low T which described my condition to the well “t”. I asked my doc for a simple test and it came back several days later that my levels were extremely low. About a week after TRT I was out of bed like my old self. Had to stay on it for about three months until I got back to the gym and got back on a good diet, but that was a life saver.
How did I get to that place? Frankly I have no idea. It was almost overnight. Was out with friends one night and just woke up the next morning feeling like shit. Figured it was a hangover but I hadn’t had much to drink. A few days later thought it was a bad cold. About 6-7 weeks later I have the doc on the phone telling me a simple jab once a day should get me back up in a few days. That was a longggg 6-7 weeks though.
Lifestyle changes are good but still on thing. But sometimes you just need some good old fashion modern medical intervention.
Exactly bro.
When something like that happens over night where you wake up one day and don’t know how or why you’ve suddenly lost you’re drive, that’s when there are issues other than lifestyle at root – that’s when TRT should be considered because the benefits of it far outweigh the potential costs.
My whole thing is that guys these days are overly quick to jump the TRT train. They’ve been munching on Ben & Jerry’s, not lifting, barely getting enough sleep, are stressed out and think that low T is the cause of their lack of assertiveness rather than what they do on a day-to-day basis.
They just did another study that found a 50% drop in 40 years in fertility levels in Western Europe, US, and Australia. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/07/25/sperm-concentration-has-declined-50-percent-in-40-years/?utm_term=.26a77a0513bc
Areas such as Africa, South America, and Asia saw no change in 40 years from their fertility rates. Looks like white males are a top target. My top 5 reasons for the significant drop that I can think of are:
1) Chemtrails- On truehealthfacts.com and other websites, no one remembers seeing them until 1998, 1999. Countries such as China ban chemtrails. Components of chemtrails are: Ethylene Dibromide, Aluminum, Barium, fly ash, viruses, mold, and bacteria.
2) Soy (GMO) in almost any processed boxed food in the grocery store. Over 90% of soy has been GMO since 2002.
3) BPA’s and BPS in plastics.
4) Being exposed to a 24/7 modern PC world unless you happen to live in central Montana.
5) Feminism
Wow. That’s a pretty significant drop.
I think you’re spot on with your 5 reasons.
It seems like modern society is developing in a way that’s robbing us of our natural testosterone production. Its structure is literally robbing us of our man-hood. Plastics, chemtrails, BPA, social media, feminism are all factors that seem to be interwoven into the threads of society and are quite difficult to avoid.
Still we, as men, have to do what we can, where we are, with what we have.
No excuses.
I disagree with your article. With more and more women in college and less and less men, educated men will be in the driver’s seat when dating. Educated women will have to compete for a male instead of the other way around. Women will pay for the opportunity to date an educated man.
Sex-bots will be here within 10 years for men. If they can mimic a woman’s actions during sex, many men will find the advantage of sex anytime without the BS, added cost and added drama that comes with a female much more appealing than the real thing. Plus Sex-bots don’t get pregnant, have children and therefore child support and also no alimony.
Men are already discovering marriage is a bad deal, soon they will discover women in general are a bad deal.
I discovered this article about 2 months ago. It is a great read. Below is the summary.
The Western World has quietly become a civilization that has tainted the interaction between men and women, where the state forcibly transfers resources from men to women creating various perverse incentives for otherwise good women to inflict great harm onto their own families, and where male nature is vilified but female nature is celebrated. This is unfair to both genders, and is a recipe for a rapid civilizational decline and displacement, the costs of which will ultimately be borne by a subsequent generation of innocent women, rather than men, as soon as 2020.
http://www.singularity2050.com/2010/01/the-misandry-bubble.html
I liked the article, but couldn’t get over the use of what has to be a picture of a lard-ass diabetic taking insulin in the opening photo. Are we just going full bore with irony?
Great article thank you!