31, with the testosterone levels of a 50 year old. Help me weigh options.

Hello Elite Fitness,

This is my first post. I have largely been a subscriber of r/fitness and r/weightroom, but they are not very gear friendly, and certainly don't like to entertain individual situations.

I'll be frank:

I need help.

I'm a active duty military guy who's in good athletic shape, and I always have been - but I look like crap. I'm determined to change this once and for all.

Stats: 195 lbs, 6'0" , Probably 18%-20% BF. 175 max Bench / 245 max squat / 245 max deadlift. Pretty pathetic, I know. That's why I'm here.

Testosterone levels:

Test: 204 ng/dL
Albumin: 4.6 g/dL
SHBG 16.83 nmol/L
Test Free/Total 52.15 pg/mL

I don't know if it's my low testosterone levels, or if it's my
Injuries: bilateral patellar tendonopathy. Minor left deltoid tear.


My goal is 175lbs. at ~13% BF. I'll do anything it takes. Use gear cycles, eat properly, do any program required.

I've quit drinking. I've quit smoking. I can quit being fat.

Anyone that could offer advice, I'd be much obliged. If there's a generous soul that wants to take me under their wing and monitor my progress, I'll find some way to pay you back.

I would give it time to change your lifestyle choices. and if you don't start feeling better I would consider HRT, but I wouldn't give up on things quite yet

Your best way forward is to come up with a challenging work out routine that does not irritate your injuries while you get your diet together. You want to have a solid muscular base before crossing the line to gear. This will give your body time to stregthen all the secondary things like joints and tendons, and help prevent negative sides like gyno. Also, by increasing your lean body mass you can naturally increase your Test level.

I have low T as well and managed to get to 175 lbs / 10% BF with strict diet and workout regiment. At that point I had a real hard time putting on any more muscle or getting stronger and since then have taken the plunge into self administered TRT @ 200mg/ week test. I am slowly getting stronger and bigger again. The real upside here is that I developed the skills and discipline while natural to be able to get the most of my TRT.

start taking clomid @ 25mg and get a bottle of hcgenerate.....3/4 caps of that a day. both of those should bring your testosterone, LH and FSH numbers back up. It will help your mood, reduce any lethargy, boost libido, etc,etc.

from there its up to you to put in the work. Being a military guy you know nothing comes free, same with fatloss and muscle growth. I am not sure why your T numbers are so low, but the supps/serm will boost them for the shorter term. Your going to need to figure that out medically with a doc, endo, etc

id focus your training on 1 day of lifting, 1 day of cardio. so over the week you will have 2 or 3 workouts of each. Lifting days i would do a lower body one day, upper body the next. To break that up id toss in your cardio days. Mon- lift, tues-cardio, wed-off, thur-lift, fri-cardio, sat-off, sun-lift. and so on and so on.

buddhabuilder said:

Your best way forward is to come up with a challenging work out routine that does not irritate your injuries while you get your diet together. You want to have a solid muscular base before crossing the line to gear. This will give your body time to stregthen all the secondary things like joints and tendons, and help prevent negative sides like gyno. Also, by increasing your lean body mass you can naturally increase your Test level.

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I guess that's the real trouble I'm having. I'm doing all sorts of reading, and I have tons of ideas or cookie-cutter plans. but I start doing them, and it just aggravates the living crap out of my injuries. This is why I almost posted this in the personal trainer section, it's almost as if I need very specific 1 on 1 work.

I totally agree that I should have a better foundation before I hit up some gear. Thanks for your input though.

gymrat827 said:

start taking clomid @ 25mg and get a bottle of hcgenerate.....3/4 caps of that a day. both of those should bring your testosterone, LH and FSH numbers back up. It will help your mood, reduce any lethargy, boost libido, etc,etc.

from there its up to you to put in the work. Being a military guy you know nothing comes free, same with fatloss and muscle growth. I am not sure why your T numbers are so low, but the supps/serm will boost them for the shorter term. Your going to need to figure that out medically with a doc, endo, etc

id focus your training on 1 day of lifting, 1 day of cardio. so over the week you will have 2 or 3 workouts of each. Lifting days i would do a lower body one day, upper body the next. To break that up id toss in your cardio days. Mon- lift, tues-cardio, wed-off, thur-lift, fri-cardio, sat-off, sun-lift. and so on and so on.

Click to expand...

Talked with doctors and endo - they basically said that I'm fine. Now I'm going to have to assume they mean I'm fine in the sense that I'll live a long healthy life if I want to remain perfectly average. They don't understand I want to become a ripped machine, and not have it take me into my 50's to get the results I want.

The endocrine doc said "Once you hit 30, your testosterone level just bottoms out. No getting around it".

Now I guess I need to figure out a good routine/diet around my injuries. I'm tempted to get a personal trainer, but I don't see my area being very rich in those. I need the kind of 1 one 1 attention to get around my injuries, and still attain my goals.

Lately, I've been keeping a diet of about 1500 calories a day. Just trying to go for straight fat loss, but I've lost a lot of my lifting strength in the process. Almost all of my routine is cardio and bodyweight training.

I'm more or less willing to start from scratch again, and I can maintain any diet. I just could use some guidance, I guess.

ikyn said:

Talked with doctors and endo - they basically said that I'm fine. Now I'm going to have to assume they mean I'm fine in the sense that I'll live a long healthy life if I want to remain perfectly average. They don't understand I want to become a ripped machine, and not have it take me into my 50's to get the results I want.

The endocrine doc said "Once you hit 30, your testosterone level just bottoms out. No getting around it".

Now I guess I need to figure out a good routine/diet around my injuries. I'm tempted to get a personal trainer, but I don't see my area being very rich in those. I need the kind of 1 one 1 attention to get around my injuries, and still attain my goals.

Lately, I've been keeping a diet of about 1500 calories a day. Just trying to go for straight fat loss, but I've lost a lot of my lifting strength in the process. Almost all of my routine is cardio and bodyweight training.

I'm more or less willing to start from scratch again, and I can maintain any diet. I just could use some guidance, I guess.

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That's complete and utter bullshit bro. A 204ng/dl test level at 30 is NOT normal, and is definitely below normal range. If your doc thinks this is "normal" and tells you to live with it, find a new doctor quickly!

jester72 said:

That's complete and utter bullshit bro. A 204ng/dl test level at 30 is NOT normal, and is definitely below normal range. If your doc thinks this is "normal" and tells you to live with it, find a new doctor quickly!

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I've resigned myself to figuring this out myself. She said that since I'm not symptomatic, that I'm fine. I have a fair bit of fat on my body, and I'm currently cutting hard to bring that down. The problem is, I am losing all my strength gains in the process.

If you have suggestions of a routine that would work well for a cut, I'm all ears.

Active duty, does that mean you're seeing military docs? They're not exactly renowned for their brilliance. Alternatively, they could be hesitant to even talk about testosterone supplementation because they might be leery of you artificially suppressing your own production. Frankly plenty of civilian doctors aren't exactly the most sympathetic when you're in your early 30s for that very reason so ... just putting that out there.

All you should do with the injuries you have is cardio and core work. If you try weight training anything above the waist you're going to aggravate the tendinopathy and worsen the delt tear. You need to see a good sports medicine doc and address those problems. Giving up drinking and especially smoking may help the tendons a bit just because you've improved your circulation, but you have musculoskeletal issues that aren't going to get better on their own, especially if your hormones aren't right.