Exercise + Testosterone, Does It Increase or Decrease It In 2024?🏋️

It’s 2024 and having healthy testosterone levels is important for BOTH men & women. Testosterone is needed for

  • healthy muscles
  • strength
  • libido
  • blood sugar levels
  • and longevity.

Today’s topic discusses whether exercise increases or decreases testosterone levels?….

I got an email from Jeremy and he asks:

“I’m super confused about working out and exercise… does it increase or decrease testosterone levels? I’ve read mixed information and I think I’m doing something wrong because I’m not gaining any muscle, my belly looks fatter and worst of all, my sex drive is worse and it’s causing problems with my girlfriend.

I’ve watched so many of your videos and I’ve applied your advice. I’ve gotten great results with my health. However, I don’t think you’ve ever answers this topic – Please help me Dr. Sam”

Actually, I have addressed this question in the past, but not in detail or directly and that’s why I’m bringing this up today.

And the truth is that I get a lot of questions about this topic, so don’t feel like you’re alone Jeremy.

It’s such an important topic because most people ARE doing all the wrong things when it comes to exercise.

bad exercise

And I say this because I personally wasted at least 10 years of my life doing all the wrong things, reading lies in the magazines (this was before the internet) and thus, never making any real progress and worse of all, causing more harm to my body and health.

Exercises Increase Or Decrease Your Testosterone Levels!

So the fact is that exercise can increase OR decrease your testosterone levels.

It all depends on what you do, when, where, how often, and for how long.

And thus, you can gain OR lose muscle.

Decrease OR increase belly fat.

exercise updown

Gain OR lose strength.

Increase OR decrease your energy levels.

Improve or decline the immune system.

And you can increase or decrease your sex drive, libido and happiness.

My Personal Struggles

So let me tell you about myself…

When I was younger, I would exercise 5-6x weekly.

I would work out for at least an hour. I would lift heavy weights, I’d push hard, and go to “failure” on all my exercises.

I would also do cardio almost daily – for at least 30 minutes or more. Typically it was the bike, jogging, stairmaster, etc.

It was a hard workout and I would always leave the gym feeling exhausted.

exercise wrong

However, I felt like I had a good, “honest” workout because I gave it my all and pushed as much as I can.

I did this for years…

The Sad Results

The end result – sadly, I looked the same all the time!…

I always seemed like I had a cold and I’d get sick often.

I never had any energy to do much else — I was just tired from my workouts.

The end result is I looked “skinny-fat”.

skinny-fat muscular

You know, not muscular or “lean”. It just didn’t look good. I was “puffy” and “squishy” all the time.

And sadly, my sex drive was kinda “blah”. Granted, because I was YOUNG, it was still “okay”.

However, compared to my friends – it was much lower.

Then one day I decided to do a hormone test because I was just curious.

My doctor was reluctant and he said “why to bother, you’re young… your hormones are fine”

Well, guess what — my testosterone levels were low. It was still in the “normal” range, but near the bottom/low end.

Worst of all, my “negative” hormones were “high”…such as my female hormone, estrogen

And my stress hormone, Cortisol.

Thus, my hormones were not good, not optimal — definitely not for a 23-year-old man.

…When things should have been much better and I should have had super high testosterone levels.

I mean, I was young and this was as good as it was going to get and it SUCKED!!!

It’s All About The RIGHT Hormones!

To make a long story short, I realized then that without the right hormones – it doesn’t matter what you do, how much you exercise, or what you eat — you’re screwed!

hormones

This is why steroids are so powerful. They give you “optimal” levels.

However, you can make your own“natural steroids” from within, and not have any of the negative side effects…

IF you know what to do and more importantly, what NOT to do.

The Do’s & Don’ts

So what does all of this have to do with the original topic of “exercise and increasing or decreasing your testosterone levels”?…

Here are the basic “short cuts” on the “do’s” and “don’ts”

DO

  • Lift weights!
    It increases your testosterone levels
  • Keep your workouts short, 45 minutes or less.
    Anything over an hour and your testosterone drops and your stress hormone, cortisol goes up.
  • Workout no more than 4x weekly. Ideally, it would be every other day.
    The rest days keep your cortisol levels lower.
  • Do one workout with heavier weights and lower reps – about 8-10 repetitions. And the next workout is higher, about 12-15 reps.
    Lower reps improve testosterone and higher reps improve Growth Hormone. They work together.
  • One week out of every month, reduce your sets and have easier workouts.
    This again prevents your cortisol levels from going too high.

DON’TS

  • Eliminate or limit stressful cardio. This means no running, jogging, biking, etc. These all decrease your testosterone and increase stress hormones. Much better to go for a fast walk, outside – greatly reduces stress hormones and boosts testosterone.
  • Don’t kill yourself every workout, go to failure, push hard, etc. When you are “natural” and have “regular” genetics, you can’t push so much, so often… or else your testosterone drops because your body is under “stress”.

What’s The Opposite Of Testosterone?

When I ask most people “what’s the opposite of testosterone”, people typically reply back with “estrogen”, the female hormone.

However, this is not true.

We all have the same hormones but in different ratios and amounts.

Actually, the opposite of testosterone is the stress hormone, cortisol.

This is why I keep bringing up ways to NOT increase your cortisol because as that goes higher, your testosterone goes lower.

Cortisol does the opposite of testosterone.

It decreases muscle and strength, increases belly fat, makes you tired, and kills your sex drive.

Again, “stress” is bad and the wrong workouts will cause stress on your body.

Anyway, this is a brief introduction to hormones and how exercise affects them.

Testosterone is one of the important ones. However, there are other hormones that when optimized, will allow you to build lots of muscle, get ripped abs, and dramatically improve your libido and “drive”.

So if you want to improve this part of your life and get faster results and save yourself valuable time and money, check this link.

You’ll discover how to naturally and quickly improve your hormones.