Chapters:
00:00 Myth #1: Testosterone helps you build muscle
05:49 Myth #2: You can feel if you have high or low testosterone
09:47 Myth #3: Testosterone boosters work
12:38 Take-home message
Transcript:
The first myth is that testosterone helps you build muscle. Yes, that’s a myth. And trust me, I was surprised too, but I think we now have enough research to say that this is at least largely a myth. Yes, testosterone makes you gain muscle. If you give people testosterone they gain muscle. The more testosterone you give them, the more muscle they gain. We see this even in the physiological range. So within the natural range there are multiple studies like this one by Wang et al., I’m not making this up. They found that men that were just barely hypogonadal, so their testosterone levels were just a little bit below the normal range, they were given testosterone in varying dosages and the more testosterone they got, the higher their fat free mass gains, also, the more fat they lost. So we saw increasingly positive body recomposition at higher dosages of testosterone, even while staying within the normal range. However, this effect is a standalone effect. So if you give people testosterone, they gain more muscle. But if you then also make them exercise, it doesn’t increase the rate of gains. And we see this in two lines of research.
One, we have a number of studies that found that people that have higher testosterone levels generally do not gain more muscle or more strength from training. So the rate of muscle growth and strength development are not affected by people’s baseline testosterone level. Moreover we have a line of research in studies where we give people testosterone and then we see that of course again they gain muscle from the testosterone. But the groups that exercise, they don’t gain more muscle from the exercise when they testosterone. In other words, in statistical terms, the effect of testosterone is additive, not synergistic and there is no interaction effect between the muscle growth from testosterone and the muscle growth from strength training.
One of the most famous studies on this had people take 600mg of testosterone with or without exercise. So they had 4 groups of trained men lifting weights 3 times per week with a coach with no testosterone, not lifting and not taking testosterone, good luck with that, and then lifting weights and injecting 600mg per week of testosterone and not lifting but taking the testosterone. The true bro way out. All the groups were on a standardized diet with 1.5g/kg per day of protein. After 10 weeks, of course, both the testosterone and strength training resulted in muscle growth. Interestingly, the testosterone without training in previously trained individuals that were now taking 10 weeks off from the gym actually resulted in more muscle growth than training. Let that sink into your head for a moment.
600mg of testosterone can have trained individuals for 10 weeks stop training and still make slightly better gains than people that keep training without testosterone. So not only did the testosterone offset the gains of detraining, it also added standalone gains, causing net strength increases and muscle growth in, again, previously trained lifters. And the extent was even a little bit greater for triceps size, quadriceps size, and fat free mass index, although these differences were not statistically significant. And strength gains for the bench press were identical, only the squat strength gains were actually a little bit higher in the group actually training the squats. And the squat’s a very technical exercise so that says something. But that’s not the only shocking finding about this study.
The other thing is that there was no interaction effect between the testosterone and the training. So if you add to the gains from the groups that were training to the gains from the groups that were taking testosterone, the total sum of that was pretty much identical to the gains of the group that was taking testosterone and training. So no interaction effect, they got some muscle from the testosterone, they got some muscle from the training, but the testosterone did not increase the gains they got from the training. So people that take gear, basically they just grow and how they train doesn’t actually influence their rate of gains. Of course, you still have to train to get to a certain level and essentially when you plateau on the gains you get from the roids, then you still have to train and it’s kind of like you’re natural in a sense. But yeah, you don’t actually have to work that much for the gains that you get from the gear.
The lack of effect of testosterone on the rate of muscle growth and strength development that we experience from going to the gym, is also seen in the sex difference between men and women. Men have around 15 times more testosterone than women. So it’s a very big difference. We also see that men and women start off with a different level of fat free mass. Of course, women have less muscle than men, typically, before they start lifting. However, we see that the rate of muscle growth in research confirmed in a multitude of studies is the same between men and women. So men and women, percentage wise, gain similar amounts of strength and muscle from training despite a massive difference in testosterone. So if you have a man and a woman that start off with the same bench press strength and the same fat free mass, they should actually have similar gains. Now, it’s unclear if their maximum muscular potential is also similar. We have some research on that, and it appears that the maximum muscular potential for women is still a little bit lower. You can find a calculator on my website where you can run the numbers, but, the rate of gains at least is not affected by the massive difference in testosterone levels.
So we see this and the sex difference between men and women, we see it in studies where people take gear, so very big differences in testosterone as well and we see it’s in differences within natural trainees where the testosterone level that people have in the highest quality research does not affect the rate of their gains. So it really seems like testosterone does not actually amplify your gains. In Bhasin et al.’s famous study on testosterone they also found another surprising finding. The men on testosterone were unaware that they were in the testosterone group instead of the placebo group. There were no mental effects, no effects on their mood, or their cognition of taking testosterone.
So it seems that you cannot feel if your own testosterone or not. This completely goes against the common perception of roid rage and the mental effects that people supposedly experience when they’re taking gear. Now, it should be noted that there is a lot of gear like Trenbolone and Deca that probably have more mental health effects, or at least theoretically, have the capacity to then testosterone. Most of the research is on testosterone, but we have multiple studies on high dosages of testosterone confirming that there are no mental, psychiatric, cognitive or mood effects of even high dosages of testosterone.
The key thing to note is that in research people are unaware that they’re taking testosterone, or at least they are aware maybe that they’re injecting something, but they are aware that that could be a placebo effect and they don’t know what it is. It could be a saline solution, it could be corticosteroids, it could be something else entirely. When you’re not aware that you’re on testosterone it doesn’t seem like you feel this mental effect like you hear some people say: “I feel like I could tackle a bus.” That effect seems to be mostly a placebo effect. It’s an expectation effect of what you’re supposed to feel on testosterone. When people take testosterone, they expect to feel a certain way because they expect to feel more alpha, more like gigachad, more masculine. And that feeling and probably the confidence that it brings makes them feel more masculine, more alpha. The expectation effect drives the placebo effect that they actually start feeling that way and maybe even act that way as well. This includes aggression. Roid rage is largely a myth, again, at least for testosterone. In research, when people are blinded to the fact that they’re on testosterone does not find that people taking testosterone become more aggressive.
However, this is true for the vast majority of individuals, but there is some research indicating that a small minority of people does experience either manic or aggressive symptoms when they take testosterone, and it’s unclear why that is. So it seems that there are some susceptible individuals that do go a little bit off the rails when they start taking gear. For most individuals, though, I really think that the effects of testosterone, mentally speaking, are very overrated. Some things that I experience in clients, I also coach clients that are on gear, and you see that, for example, they still have a low libido when they are in contest prep. So people think that if you have super high testosterone levels your libido must be absolutely off the charts, and that’s not true. Effects like your body fat percentage are much stronger than the effects of testosterone and gear.
Now, libido is actually the one thing that has by far the strongest support. It does appear that especially when you go from low to normal levels, people experience an increase in libido, but mood and psychiatric symptoms like aggression and generally how you feel, these things don’t change on testosterone when people are blinded. In fact, I know some individuals that bought gear from the black market and were telling how amazing it was and how their gains were much better and how they felt so much better, and it turns out that the gear was bunk. So clearly a massive placebo effect in that instance. In fact, one of my favorite studies that I talk about in my book is on the placebo effect of steroids.
In that study, they gave people fake Dianabols or fake steroids, and they actually experienced steroids like strength gains. So the gains in well-trained individuals were like 2% in seven weeks in terms of strength gains in the group not taking the placebo gear, so just training as usual, and then in the other group, the gains were 8 to 15%. So dramatically higher. The researchers concluded that “Taking the placebo apparently supplied the psychological inducement to increase strength gains above and beyond reasonable progression.” And the strength gains that they ended up with are particularly impressive because they were benching almost 3 plates and overhead pressing almost 2 plates. As a group average that’s very impressive for collegiate level recreational trainees. So it’s not like these individuals, you know, 10% strength gains for a novice. No, this was like up to 15% strength gains in very well trained individuals purely from a placebo effect.
The third myth all men should know about testosterone is that testosterone boosters work. They don’t. According to a 2023 systematic review of the literature on testosterone boosters they concluded: “Our findings indicate that most fail to increase total testosterone.” And if you’re going to look at individual studies, you will find research supporting that some supplements, some test boosters actually increased testosterone in that specific study, but then when you zoom out, it often turns out either already or later on that there is no effect in healthy individuals. So maybe in individuals that have something wrong with them where there is an effect or there’s sponsorship bias. In most cases we see that over the long run the research finds that the effect is basically trivial in healthy individuals.
And a cautionary tale here is that the story of D-aspartic acid, where research originally found that there was an effect on testosterone and people were buying it, and it became a super popular supplement, and then subsequent research found not only that D-aspartic acid is basically trivial in effect in healthy individuals, but moreover, animal research indicated that it has testicular toxicity. So it might increase testosterone levels, but at the same time it’s toxic for your balls. So probably not something you want to take. The supplement industry in general is not very well regulated. Many test boosters and supplements in general have ingredients in them that are not on the label. Many test boosters, in fact, are spiked with hormones. So it is very imprudent, I would say, to just buy any test booster that where you can find a single study showing that it might work in certain individuals.
By and large, even if these test boosters actually work somewhat, what you can expect from it based on this video is: You’re not going to feel any different, if you gain any muscle at all from it it’s probably within the natural range. So it’s going to be a 1 to 2 pound increase based on the latest meta analysis between the dose relationship, between testosterone levels and fat free mass. Whether you considered as significant, that is really the best case scenario, and yeah, you’re taking a lot of risk to get that, again, in the vast, vast majority of cases, there will be no effect whatsoever. And you have to keep taking it to maintain those gains. It’s not amplifying the gains that you’re getting from your strength training, so there’s no long term benefit. You have to keep taking the testosterone booster to get any effect. And again, most likely you’re not going to get any meaningful effect in the first place.
What you can do for your testosterone level is all things you should be doing anyway for your health and general well-being. Manage your stress levels, get enough sleep, have adequate intakes of all micronutrients, especially magnesium and zinc, so generally just have a good nutritious diet, and of course exercise. When you have those things taken care of, you just generally have a good healthy lifestyle, good sleep, good diet, stress management, then the effects of any test booster are going to be absolutely trivial and they’re not going to do anything meaningful to your life.
So the general take home message of this video is that testosterone is overrated. People’s obsession with their testosterone, in my view, is mostly masquerading for insecurity about their masculinity. If you want to be more of a man in life then develop yourself physically and mentally. Do something you’re passionate about and master it. Excel in life. So basically what I’m saying is: If you want more cojones, you need to grab life by the balls, ese! But if you do have medically confirmed hypogonadism see my other video on TRT. And if you like this type of evidence based fitness content, I’d be honored if you like and subscribe.