If you are a health and fitness professional, I would make the argument that you cannot ethically leave a man in the 200s or 300s as far as total testosterone.
Yes, this is the diagnosable hypogonadal range when other symptoms are present, BUT if we look back to one of the seminal works on the dose response of testosterone and the impact it has on body composition over time by Bhasin et al we see that in just 16 weeks…
250 ng/dL (25mg per week) resulted in a gain of 8 pounds of fat and no significant change in LBM
300 ng/dL (50 mg per week) – 6 pound gain of fat and no significant change in LBM
Both super No Bueno, especially as you age and start progressively losing muscle mass if you accidentally forget resistance training is important.
Then you get to what in this study is as close to physiological as we are going to see
570 ng/dL (125 mg per week) – 6 pound gain in LBM and no significant change in fat mass
As men we want to stay as high as possible as long as possible and track this value as we age so if or when it drops we can do something about it. It would also be advantageous to track body composition or strength numbers so that you can know that you are at least maintaining what you have built which is ultimately the show long-term.
Finally, you get into supraphysiological ranges and the changes get wild.
1,345 ng/dL (300 mg per week) – 12 pound gain in LBM and no significant change in fat mass
2,370 ng/dL (600 mg per week) – 20 pound gain in LBM and 4 pounds of fat loss
This is all while keeping diet as constant as possible and no addition of an exercise arm! Yes, you read that right, men gained 20 pounds of muscle and lost fat with no dietary changes or resistance training.
It’s hard to know for certain, but it is estimated that the average bodybuilder dose is 1,100 mg per week. This is just one of the reasons I put zero faith in the Bebop and Rocksteadys of Instagram that are promoting shirtless ketogenic diets or metabolic boot camps.
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