Feeling tired and sluggish? Have a hard time recovering from your workouts? Perhaps you keep gaining weight and losing muscle despite eating clean and training hard? It seems like your testosterone levels are dropping.
Aging, stress, cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, and certain medications may affect testosterone production. Hormonal imbalances contribute to this process too.
As you age, your body begins to produce less testosterone. After age 40, a man’s T levels decline by approximately one percent per year. If left unaddressed, this problem can take a toll on your health, causing weakness, reduced strength, low energy, fatigue, depression, mood swings, weight gain, and decreased sexual performance. In the long run, it may contribute to osteoporosis,heart disease, obesity, and Alzheimer’s.
Before popping pills or trying hormone replacement therapy, consider natural alternatives to boost your testosterone levels. Here are five science-backed ways to restore testosterone production and feel like yourself again.
Go Heavy in the Gym
Forget about high reps and endless cardio sessions! While this approach builds endurance and improves your overall fitness, it has negligible effects on hormone production and hypertrophy.
Progressive resistance training, on the other hand, boosts testosterone and growth hormone levels, regardless of age. We’re not talking about lifting five-pound dumbbells, but training like an athlete. Start with medium to heavy weights and increase the load gradually as your strength increases.
Emphasize Compound Exercises
Compound exercises, such as the bench press, deadlift, squat, pull-ups, and push-ups, should account for at least 70 percent of your workout. These movements engage multiple muscles and joints, leading to mass and strength gains. Compared to isolation exercises, they induce a greater hormonal response and can skyrocket your T levels.
Squats, for example, have been shown to increase testosterone production. Again, the key is to use heavy weights.
Wall squats and bodyweights will yield little or no results in terms of hormone production. Barbell squats, on the other hand, hit nearly every muscle in the body, boost overall strength, and stimulate the release of of anabolic hormones.
Load Up on Healthy Fats
There’s a reason why athletes and bodybuilders take omega-3supplements and eat high-fat foods like salmon, tuna, avocado, and coconut oil. Dietary fats, especially omega-3s and saturated fat, raise testosterone levels. In clinical trials, low-fat diets have been shown to decrease androgen levels.
Just make sure you choose good fats. Olive oil, fatty fish,eggs, nuts, seeds, and unrefined vegetable oils are all an excellent choice.Steer clear of potato chips, fries, pizza, canola oil, and other processed foods. These contain trans fats, which are anything but healthy.
Limit Stress
Chronic stress not only affects your mental and physical well-being but also messes up your hormone levels and sexual performance. When you’re under stress, your cortisol levels go up. This causes your T levels to drop, leading to poor recovery, decreased exercise performance, muscle loss, and weight gain.
Do your best to limit stress. Take the time to recover between workouts, get more shuteye, and avoid daily stressors as much as possible.
Meditation, deep breathing, and yoga can help too. For example, you can start the day with 10 minutes of meditation, go to work, and hit the gym during lunch break or on your way home.
Consider Taking Natural Supplements
Last, remember that you can always take dietary supplements to naturally boost your testosterone levels. Zinc, DHEA, fenugreek, tribulusterrestris, D-aspartic acid, and other formulas can bring your hormones backinto balance and improve your overall health.
Tribulus Terrestris, for instance, has been found to increase testosterone production by a whopping 16 percent. In a clinical trial, men who took fenugreek reported increased feelings of well-being, greater energy levels, improved sexual performance, and higher libido.
Don’t wait until it’s too late. Low testosterone levels can affect your health, ruin your relationships, and stall your progress in the gym. Clean up your diet, load up on protein and healthy fats, get more sleep, and add more plates to the bar. These small changes can make a world of difference.
