What are your thoughts on training with abnormally low testosterone?

Why train then?

Yozzer said:

I am beginning to believe that training hard, even training full stop, is simply is not worth it at this moment in time. I will see very little benefits if any at all. I am going to try arimidex and clomid combined. If this does not work, then I will start taking steroids. This is the only option I will have left if i want to continue in trying to improve my body. I have worked very hard for years and seen little benefits so the only conclusion I can make is that I have always had low testosterone, and probabaly made it worse by not taking steroids correctly in my more niave days 12-18 months ago. It has been nearly 9 months since my low testosterone levels came to light and nothing has changed despite the feeble efforts of my doctor and the endocrinologist. I now also have an estrogen imbalance.

I will know in about 1 month if the arimidex has worked. If it has the doc will be off my back and i won't need test replacement. If it has not worked then i will go straight into a cycle. Then, by the time my next blood test comes around, I will have finished my course and will be on primo so my levels will be low once again and I will be prescribed test injections. This can be to my advantage. I assume I will have regular check ups being on test replacement. I will time my cycle to finish with enough time to inject the prescribed test so that my levels are within the expected range. Not only will this keep the endo happy to give me test replacement, but it will be sufficient for me to bridge with, along with the primo.

I realise test replacement is not ideal for everyone. However, this is my last and only option. I have tried everything else, and i am not prepared to be held back/prevented from reaching my goals because of low testosterone.

Any thoughts/good advice would be most helpful.

Yozzer

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Test replacement is not bad at all. Many guys do it even if they don't have bleow normal testosterone levels in bridging periods between cycles. It has many benefits. THe fact is that on replacement you can get high normal testosterone levels that over time will do tremednous things for your physique as opposed to what would happen if you had low normal testosterone levels or mid range normal testosterone levels. Try the simple replacement for a while, get your levels up to around 650-1000ng/dl and you will see great things. Try these dosages for a while, see if you can reach your fitness/strength goals, and then hit the high dosage cycling. You are on track to getting everything you need and more, just hang in there.

BTW, the doctors you are seeing should be making testosterone replacement available immeidiately if your levels have been low for so long. They are not being good doctors if they are not. You should go see other ones who will happily prescribe for you the therapy you need and are not conservative, prude, know-nothings.

The good thing about testosterone replacement therapy is that your testicles do not shrink more than 5 percent. In fact you will still be potent. Serotoli cells make up 90 percent of testicular volume. These are the cells that produe sperm and are responsive to FSH. THe leydig cells that make testosterone are only 10 percent of testicular volume and they are responsive to LH. Replacement therapy will shut off your LH not your FSH. FSH and not LH is both what makes your testicles large and makes you fertile (that is FSH makes you fertile in the presence of normal levels of testosterone, if you were trying to have kid right now, a fertility expert would probably prescribe you a small amount of test to make your serotoli cells actually function better!). The FSH hormone is not shut off unless you take supraphysiological dosages of testosterone and is not even shut off unless you take really really high dosages of non aromatising steroids (It is mostly estrogen that shuts off FSH). You will get awesome results with bridging with 100mg of a testosterone ester per week and cycling nonaromatising steroids like primo, winstrol, masteron and anavar and have normal sized testicles on top of it all. YOu will be more than happy with the small sacrifice of having to spend 5 minutes/week sticking a needle in your flesh. On top of all this, you will have a doc to monitor your bp and lipid values every 3-6 months to make sure you are not messing up your cardio vascular health.

BTW don't let some silly doctor precribe you injections of enanthate in intervals larger than 1 week in dosages over 100mg. THis will screw everything up, it will get you really high above the normal levels and then you will drop really low below the normal levels by the time of the next injection. Get the doctor to allow you administer your own injections once/week to maintain steady high normal testosterone levels. THs way your levels will only drop about 200ng/dl from start of the week to end. Don't let some old fashioned doc prescribe you something like 250mg once every 3 weeks or something.

Re: Re: Training with low test

Stew Meat said:

"Baseline testosterone levels in men increase in response to resistance training."

Staron, R.S., Karapondo, D.L., Kraemer, W.J., Fry, A.C., Gordon, S.E. (1994). "Skeletal muscle adaptations during early phase of heavy-resistance training in men and women. Journal of Applied Physiology , 76(3), 1247-1255.

Summerfield, Et.Al. (1995) "Tissue-specific pharmacology of testosterone". Molecular Pharmacology , 47, 1080-1088



Heavy resistance training can permanantly raise testosterone levels, not lower them.



-Stew

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overtraining lowers testosterone levels. Guys with low testosterone levels overtrain very easily. The studies you quote show temporary slight increases in testosteone after a training session in men with normal testosterone levels to begin with who are not engaged in heavy duty training.

The studies I quoted showed increases in baseline testosteore. These were not temporary. Further, injecting 100mg/wk of testosterone will shut down your own production. One normally produces 45-100mg per week. If you inject 100mg/wk, your body will stop producing in an effort to regulate itself. It will also transcribe additional aromitase enzymes in order for the body to reach homeostasis with estrogen/testostereone ratios.

Those who bridge between cycles with testosterone do so usually because they are uneducated as to the detremental effects that it can have on HPTA or they simply don't care. If one comes off the cycle, uses clomid and antiestrogens to jump start endogenous production, baseline levels return quickly and gains and strength are kept. If one does not and merely bridges with 100mg/wk, he inhibits his HPTA from recouperation for long periods of time which can have serious long term consequences on baseline testosterone levels.

Yozzer, use hormone replacement as a last resort. Once you start, you may never be able to recouperate your natural production and may be on homrone threapy for an extremely long time if not for the rest of your life. Never supress your HPTA unless necessary. This is why people don't bridge with testosterone, but low dose primo and/or anavar. The longer you supress your own levels, the harder it is to bounce back. You haven't bounced back yet. If I were you, I'd stay as far away from exogenous hormone as I could for a long time. Workout and try to increase your levels nautrally along side clomid and antiestrogen thereapy.


-Stew

Stew Meat said:

The studies I quoted showed increases in baseline testosteore. These were not temporary. Further, injecting 100mg/wk of testosterone will shut down your own production. One normally produces 45-100mg per week. If you inject 100mg/wk, your body will stop producing in an effort to regulate itself. It will also transcribe additional aromitase enzymes in order for the body to reach homeostasis with estrogen/testostereone ratios.

Those who bridge between cycles with testosterone do so usually because they are uneducated as to the detremental effects that it can have on HPTA or they simply don't care. If one comes off the cycle, uses clomid and antiestrogens to jump start endogenous production, baseline levels return quickly and gains and strength are kept. If one does not and merely bridges with 100mg/wk, he inhibits his HPTA from recouperation for long periods of time which can have serious long term consequences on baseline testosterone levels.

Yozzer, use hormone replacement as a last resort. Once you start, you may never be able to recouperate your natural production and may be on homrone threapy for an extremely long time if not for the rest of your life. Never supress your HPTA unless necessary. This is why people don't bridge with testosterone, but low dose primo and/or anavar. The longer you supress your own levels, the harder it is to bounce back. You haven't bounced back yet. If I were you, I'd stay as far away from exogenous hormone as I could for a long time. Workout and try to increase your levels nautrally along side clomid and antiestrogen thereapy.


-Stew

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You are wrong stew. I said 100mg per week of an ester not of free testosterone. THat comes in at a 70mg, the most you would normally produce in a week. If you want specifics you shoudl use 60-100mg/week of a testosterone ester. 100mg is around the max for what I am talking about depending on your liver situation.

YOu can recover testossterone levels even if you are on 100mg/week( idon't know about more) for 15 years. IT will take abnout 3 months if you are on longer than 3 months.

I said that 100mg/week will shut down your own testosterone production. You didn't read my post. I said that it will shut down your own testosterone levels but not reduce your testicular volume significantly or completely shut off your sperm production.

Aromatase will not upregulate in repsonse to higher levels of testosterone in the normal range (in fact I don't think it ever will really upregulate unless their is tons of estrogen floating around). IN fact they will down regulate after a while in response to higher levels of DHT.

Do not call me uneducated. All your info on this subject comes off of the stuff you find on the internet, and alot of it is from secondary and tertiary sources that are heresay. I have extensive first hand experience with this and I am correct.

Bridging with primo or anavar is the foolish thing to do if you really analyze the situation. It shuts off your own testosterone levels and you don't get any testosterone in return, you just get these synthetic chemicals in your blood. You get bad reactions with your lipid profile this way, you can get erection difficulties, you get bone problems, and other things. Why would you want to replace testosterone with somethng other than testosterone?

Why are you telling this guy to fool around with antiestrogens that are not good to take long term for your cardio vascular health, to train as hard as possible in the false belief that this will significantly raise his natural testosterone levels, and to sufffer more and more loss of quality of life. Sure it is possible that eventually he will get his natural testosterone levels a higher, but if you listen to his goals and needs this is really not a satisfactory situation. He has alreadygone through 9 months of crap.

Horny said:

"YOu can recover testossterone levels even if you are on 100mg/week( idon't know about more) for 15 years.

I said that 100mg/week will shut down your own testosterone production. You didn't read my post. I said that it will shut down your own testosterone levels"

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Oh, ok, so it will shut down your own tesotosterone production and at the same time recover your test levels... hmmm.. OK, bro. You've impressed me with your knowlege of endocrinology.


-Stew

Horny said:

Aromatase will not upregulate in repsonse to higher levels of testosterone in the normal range (in fact I don't think it ever will really upregulate unless their is tons of estrogen floating around).
Do not call me uneducated. I have extensive first hand experience with this and I am correct."

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High levels of estrogen will cause the concentration of aromatase enzymes to increase. Yep, you're a genious!
I need to start relying on you instead of books and research for my knowlege.

-Stew

come on now don't play word games. I obviously meant that AFTER years and years and decades of supplementing with replacement therapy, ONCE AND IF YOU DECIDE TO STOP IT, you can recover your natural testosterone levels.

If you read my posts it is obvious that I am not recommending that this guy supplement with testosterone replacement in order to recover his natural testosterone levels.

Horny said:

Do not call me uneducated.
Bridging with primo or anavar is the foolish thing to do... It shuts off your own testosterone levels and you don't get any testosterone in return, you just get these synthetic chemicals in your blood. You get bad reactions with your lipid profile this way, you can get erection difficulties, you get bone problems, and other things. Why would you want to replace testosterone with somethng other than testosterone?

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Primobolan and Anavar in normal dosses will not shut down or interfere in any way with natural hormone production, genious. And they are lower in side effects than any other AS, especially testosterone.


-Stew

Stew Meat said:

High levels of estrogen will cause the concentration of aromatase enzymes to increase. Yep, you're a genious!
I need to start relying on you instead of books and research for my knowlege.

-Stew

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What are you saying with this post? You think, I am wrong?