It is no secret that one of the silent pandemics in our world today is a severe reduction in overall testosterone, particularly among men. It has played a role in numerous chronic health problems including fertility, obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease just to name a few. Since opening Mainestream Health Co. in Gray, ME a little over 3 months ago it has surprised us at how prevalent and widespread this problem is within our own Maine community. We are rapidly evolving our clinical practice here to readily test and to educate and help men with this problem. Our nurse practitioner, Leda Werrell, FNP-C and her expertise in hormone optimization is proving to be vitally important to this office and community at detecting and fending off this current problem.
For the purpose of this discussion I won't go into detail outlining the widespread health effects, growing statistics, and the causes of this problem. There are MANY of them, and I will leave that for future conversations. If you are interested in learning more in that regard I would direct you to the work of Dr. Shanna Swan and her book Count Down which I will link below. Make sure you buckle up before you start reading, it’ll blow your mind.
Guys, I want to give you a few scientifically established strategies in the gym to help maximize testosterone production naturally. If you aren't aware of this already, going to the gym and lifting weights is one of the most effective levers you can pull to help increase testosterone. If you are not physically active and lifting weights in some capacity then I’ll put this very plainly; you MUST START. And if you need to, get your spine fixed so you have the capacity to lift and be strong!
3 Golden Rules for Maximizing Testosterone release from your workout:
6 sets of 10 repetitions - Performing 6 sets of 10 repetitions around 75-80% maximum intensity enabling you to perform the full 10 repetitions each and every set with 2 minutes of rest between sets. It has been recently established in the scientific community that performing compound lifts (deadlift, squat, bench press, etc.) which are movements that require multiple muscle groups across 2 or more joints in a 6x10 format will yield a significant release of endogenous T compared to any other resistance training pattern. So profoundly in fact, that if you perform 4 more sets (10x10) or increase the your rest period to 3 minutes the Testosterone boosting effects will plummet significantly. This may be the single most significantly effective rule of the 3 golden rules that I will explain, however this is the most sensitive rule in the sense that it needs to be followed very closely. Not 5x5, not 10x6, but 6 sets of 10 repetitions at 80% max intensity with 2 minutes rest between sets. If you would like to learn more about this I would direct you to the work of Duncan French, PhD. and his research at the UFC Performance Institute.
60 minutes. Keeping your overall workout duration around 1 hour has demonstrated substantial evidence of being the ‘goldilocks’ window of time to improve T release; not too little but not too much. The majority of literature shows that workouts no shorter than 50 min and no longer than 75 minutes appears to be the perfect duration for optimal testosterone release.
Lift Heavy but not too Heavy. Another well established parameter in the literature to help promote testosterone release is lifting relatively heavy weight without going to failure. Fundamentally, you need to lift heavy in some capacity in order to build muscle and get stronger. Regardless of age, gender and fitness goals everyone should have at least 1 heavy weight resistance training day in their weekly routine. However, if you are constantly going to failure during your workout sets then you’re hindering testosterone release. Going to failure repeatedly during your workouts is a method to help promote muscle hypertrophy (increase in muscle size). The physiological mechanisms at play here are not entirely understood, however it is thought that it has something to do with cortisol release which we know downregulates T production and conversion. We know that repeatedly going to muscle failure dramatically elevates cortisol levels at the end of your workout, so we speculate that this has something to do with the negative effect on testosterone.
There’s some gray area and wiggle room with this rule but it’s really important, so I’ll sum it up briefly:
Staying within the 6-12 rep range while hovering around the 70-80% max intensity range throughout all sets will be best.
Keep in mind rule #1 outlining the very specific 6x10 format - DO NOT go to failure with your compound lift of the day. Hover around the 70-80% max intensity range for that too.
Shoot for 3-5 intense workouts per week - just not too intense. Again, keep in mind the 70-80% max intensity range.
Disclaimer: Just so we are clear, these rules prioritize hormone health. These lifting parameters are not geared to optimize hypertrophy or strength gains, although you will very likely see gains in both hypertrophy and strength alike. These rules maximize endogenous Testosterone production, and although other training protocols may support and also cause T production these rules help to optimize and maximize T for individuals