Low testosterone is becoming an epidemic in today’s modern society.
From Justin Bieber blasting on the airways to drugs in MMA, low T is everywhere.
This past weekend at UFC 139, Dan Henderson, who fought to a 5-round decision with Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua, has said publicly that he’s on testosterone replacement therapy.
The ethics of this are up to debate, but the fact is that he’s doing nothing illegal and he’s within the legal limits.
The fact of the matter is that until the rules are changed, you’ve got to do whatever you can to compete, if this is going to be how you make your living.
HOWEVER, if you’re not down with drugs or the associated costs, there are a lot of things you can do naturally to keep your T high, which we’ll be talking about soon…
A year ago or so, I watched a documentary called “The Disappearing Male” that talked about the role of environmental toxins on the globally declining birth rate of males. [You can watch the full documentary here]
The documentary was based in Sarnia, Ontario, a town whose economy is based on the petroleum industry.
The theory is that the refining of petroleum products is spewing chemicals in the air called xenoestrogens that mimic the effects of the female sex hormone estrogen in the body.
When estrogen levels are high it skews the estrogen:testosterone balance towards femininity.
This is why many more baby girls than baby boys are being born in Sarnia, Ontario, say the documentary creators.
It’s also possibly why men have accepted the idea of wearing skin tight jeans.
I couldn’t imagine putting those things on, not to mention walking around in them!
Anyway, this is all just theory, but here’s some hard data for you to swallow:
A 2007 study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism showed that from 1987 to 2004, testosterone levels in men have been on the steady decline.
So if you’ve felt that there’s been a general ‘sissification’ of men as time has worn on, your feeling might be right.
And it could all be due to low testosterone.
And it doesn’t just happen in men, women are also feeling the effects of a skewed estrogen:testosterone ratio, as you may remember a post I wrote called “Hormones and Body Fat” about a boxer who I felt may have had some T issues, which was preventing her from losing fat.
[UPDATE: Since implementing the changes I outlined in that post (and a few others), she went from 130+ lbs to make her weight class of 112 lbs to win the Provincial championships]
But most of you reading this are males, who, like me don’t mind a bit of hair on their chest or feel that scratching your crotch and burping loudly are god-given rights you must exercise on a regular basis.
Except I’m Chinese and I couldn’t grow hair on my chest for a million dollars…
But the other two I’m with you on.
Anyway, there are a whole range of symptoms that could be related to low testosterone.
Because testosterone is such a powerful hormone in our bodies, if it’s thrown off, a range of bad things can happen.
Unless of course you enjoy chick-flicks and talking about your feelings.
In all seriousness, here’s a list of things to look out for that might mean you’ve got low testosterone:
Possible Signs of Low Testosterone
- Low sex drive, but not necessarily the inability to get it up ie you can get it up but you just don’t feel like doing anything with it
- Problems gaining muscle mass, despite proper training and nutrition
- Gaining body fat disproportionately in the chest (man-boobs) and thighs relative to the rest of your body
- Poor motivation to do things ie you start a lot of projects but never follow through
- Inability to focus and concentrate; short attention span
The bottom line with testosterone is that it’s the MAN hormone and if it’s low, you just don’t feel like how a man should feel: strong, confident, motivated to get shit done and full of vitality.
Now one thing that I preach is that you should never put all of your eggs in one basket.
Related to low testosterone, it means that if you have 1 or 2 or all of the symptoms, they’re still all ‘subjective’ measures – to be sure, the next step is to get your T levels tested.
You can go to your doctor, a naturopath, or buy a testing kit online and ship them your blood or saliva sample and they’ll send you your results.
[I actually just bought a testing kit from ZRT Labs and I’ll report my results as I get them and my results from any interventions I do]
Once you’ve gotten your test results, you have both subjective and objective measures to work with, which will better guide your treatment protocol.
As I mentioned earlier, I suspected that a boxer I train had messed up testosterone:estrogen levels and I designed the training program taking that finding into consideration.
The result is that she lost the fat that she’d been unable to lose to get down to the 112 pound weight class and compete for a spot on the Canadian Olympic team.
Was it the fact that I identified the T issue and addressed it accordingly?
Possibly, but we did so many things, it could’ve been any of them. In the real world, you don’t always have the luxury to isolate one variable hoping to notice a significant results.
Sometimes, you’ve just gotta go for it and if it works you’ve done your job – who cares if you didn’t isolate that one single variable.
Now, we’re focused on peak performance for the National tournament coming up in January.
Well, I’m almost at 1,000 words here, and I know that attention spans are short these days (could it be low T?) so I’m going to end it here.
But we’re not finished yet…
In the next post, I’m going to recap some of the changes we made to address low testosterone and share the science I’ve uncovered related to boosting T – so stay tuned for Part 2!