1. How to increase testosterone levels
– Incorporate basic movements that involve several muscle groups in your training routine. Good ones are squats, dead lifts, and military presses. Basic (compound) exercises have been shown to play an important role in the testosterone levels.
– The greatest workout related testosterone production occurs with the use of heavier weights and lower rep range. A study shows that the best is 85 per cent of your one-rep max.
– Tribulus terestris is a natural supplement, which has been shown in some studies to have the ability to increase the leutenizing hormone (LH) levels.
As we already mentioned above, one of the functions of LH is to stimulate testosterone production by the testes.
2. How to prevent testosterone levels from getting low?
** Obesity. Based on the way the testosterone-estrogen mechanism works, increased levels of estrogen will ultimately decrease the circulating testosterone.
Excess fat causes more estrogen production due to the fact that fat cells are those, which manufacture estrogen. So, the more fat cells, the more estrogen in the blood and the less testosterone.
** Drug and alcohol abuse. Alcohol has the property to inhibit your ability to remove estrogen from the blood stream by acting as a central nervous system depressant and also by decreasing zinc levels.
** Stress elevates corticosteroid levels in the blood steam, which causes the testosterone levels to decrease.
** Medications. Some medications, including estrogen and progesterone, lower the lutenizing hormone (LH) levels. LH is the hormone, responsible for the steroid hormones production.
** Diabetes. Studies suggest that there is a link between type 2 diabetes and lower testosterone levels.
** Hypertension and high cholesterol levels. These both cause the arteries to harden, this way decreasing the blood flow to the sex hormone producing organs. That of course leads to low sex hormone levels.
** Aging. Fact is after the age of 40 test levels drops by roughly one per cent per year. We can’t do too much about that. The clock keeps ticking for all of us. However, we can try to manipulate testosterone levels in any other possible way.
** Low fat diet. Low fat consumption causes increase of the SHGB, which means one thing – less free testosterone. It is considered that monounsaturated fats play an important role in testosterone levels and bioavailability.
** Overtraining can contribute to as much as 40 per cent drop in testosterone levels. That is why it’s important to notice early the signs of overtraining and give the body a week or two well-deserved rest.
** Not enough sleep. If you are not getting enough sleep the body is not recuperating well, which causes less testosterone and more corticosteroids to be released.
Just to mention corticosteroids like cortisol are in fact catabolic hormones meaning they use up muscle tissue to provide the brain and the heart with energy.
** Vitamin C. It suppresses the release of the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol decreases testosterone levels. So, ultimately less cortisol, more testosterone.
3 Responses
Regarding obesity, I’ve always found it very odd that it supposedly diminishes SHBG (as your first article on this series acknowledged), but yet invariably since obesity increases estrogen, it would then cause an increase in SHBG. That part doesn’t make sense to me.
However, good info and important to try and maximize the bioavailable T stuff!
Increase in estrogen causes an increase in SHBG, true. Hepatic lipogenesis (the production of fatty acids by the liver) actually decrease SHBG. Obesity causes both testosterone and SHBG to drop. See here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10997612
Thank you for your response, Ivan.
I guess the reason it seems like a case of obesity being tied to both SHBG decrease and increase is that while obesity causes it to drop, doesn’t obesity lead to higher estrogen levels in men, which therefore would then lead to an increase in SHBG (instead of a decrease)?