Testosterone is one of those topics every man thinks he understands… right up until life hits the late 30s and early 40s and the wheels quietly start falling off.
I’ve been listening and reading a lot of Poliquin stuff lately. A world-renowned strength coach and the man behind the success of many Olympic athletes and Coaches now who came out from his courses, seminars and on the back of his massive uprise in the 2010s before he died in 2018, Charles Poliquin used to say that optimal testosterone is the bedrock of a man’s strength, power, confidence, clarity, assertiveness, and even his willingness to take risks and follow through on what he says he’s going to do. It influences our resilience, our recovery, our leanness, and the intensity behind how we show up in our lives.
What most men don’t realise is that testosterone isn’t just a “muscle hormone.” It is a living hormone, and it’s not just ageing that’s knocking this out of us; it’s the way we’re living, working, resting and recovering, or lack thereof, that is also affecting us.
Robb Wolf, a former biochemist and health expert and author of many paleo-oriented health books, talks about this a lot! How the modern Western lifestyle is a perfect cocktail of testosterone-killers!
Chronic stress, Terrible sleep, high body fat, low muscle mass, processed food, alcohol, environmental toxins, plastics, endless sitting, and the death of genuine physical intensity. Put bluntly, we’re designed for challenge, and most men are living like domestic animals while wondering why they feel flat, tired, irritable, or weak.
Another Author I’ve been going back and researching lately is James LaValle (He took my Level 2 Biosignature back in 2014 and wrote a fantastic book I skimmed through for this blog post called ‘Your Blood Never Lies’) who puts it in an even more straightforward way: ‘your hormones are a running report card on your daily decisions’.
And Paul Chek has said for decades that if you want to know what’s happening inside your endocrine system, look at the way you eat, train, breathe, think, sleep, and manage your space. Testosterone is not random. It is not “luck.” It is highly responsive to the life you build around it.
If you were to look at our primitive nature and the history of previous generations, I think it is safe to say the decline most men notice in their late 30s isn’t inevitable. It’s simply the point where the mismatch between responsibilities and physiology becomes obvious. Careers ramp up, kids arrive, stress rises, sleep drops, training becomes inconsistent, nutrition becomes chaotic, and suddenly the engine feels like it’s running on half the cylinders it used to. Men chalk it up to ageing… but it’s not ageing. It’s an accumulation. An accumulation of what this modern world has produced for us to deal with, and to be honest, if you are reading this, you are probably on the road to fixing it, but this also might be the understanding, and a kick in the pants you need to do even more to get your mojo back.
The great news is that testosterone is one of the most trainable hormones we have. You can move it dramatically if you attack the right levers. And none of this requires exotic hacks or magic supplements, just the fundamentals executed with intent.
The first lever is training and exercise. Charles Poliquin was ruthless about this!
Intensity builds testosterone!
You can’t pump your way to better hormones with light weights and machines. The male body responds to heavy compound lifts such as squats, deadlifts, presses, and pulls performed in low-rep ranges. Olympic lifting, explosive work, and sprints all create the hormonal environment that tells your body you’re a man with a job to do.
Long, slogging cardio does the opposite. It elevates cortisol, and cortisol wins every fight against testosterone. The more stress you create with no recovery, the worse your hormones get. No one is saying they think a marathon runner is hot… No one… and where are we putting Hyrox in this equation? We will have to wait and see!
Then there’s how you eat. Wolf and LaValle both point out that testosterone thrives when you eat real food! That means high-quality protein at every meal, healthy fats to support hormone production, carbs timed around training, micronutrients like zinc, magnesium, vitamin D, and B-vitamins, and minimal processed rubbish. Low-fat diets and low-protein diets crush your hormonal output. High sugar and seed oils do the same.
And it’s not just the macros that matter, it’s the consistency! Your hormones respond to patterns, not occasional good days.
Thirdly, Supplements can help, but only when the foundations are set. The basics like magnesium, zinc, vitamin D3, omega-3s and creatine are almost universal. After that, there are targeted testosterone boosters (We stock the Legit Alpha T-Booster, Tongkat Ali, Turkesterone, and Shalajit). Still, Poliquin, Chek, and LaValle have written extensively about the power of using herbal concoctions to raise testosterone, recovery and sleep in ways that make considerable contributions to your health. They’re multipliers, not miracles. No supplement can override insufficient sleep, poor training, or poor nutrition.
Lifestyle is the part most men underestimate, but it’s also the biggest domino. Testosterone is produced while you sleep, and research shows you can lose up to 30 per cent of your daily output if you’re not hitting at least seven solid hours.
Stress is another silent killer when cortisol is chronically elevated by things like deadlines, finances, kids, or never switching off, and testosterone drops. Dispenza talks about breaking out of habitual stress loops, someone I mentioned in the previous post, and using the prefrontal cortex as the “brake” on emotional reactivity and that mental training matters just as much as the physical.
And then finally, there’s body composition. The leaner you are, the better your testosterone functions!
Fat tissue literally converts testosterone into oestrogen. So the men who stay strong, lean, and capable into their 40s aren’t genetically gifted; they’re consistent.
They’re intentional.
They build the kind of lifestyle that their biology thrives under.
The truth is, most men don’t have a testosterone problem. They have a habit problem. A stress problem. A weak physical stimulus problem. A modern environmental problem.
When you build the proper training, the right nutrition, the right sleep routine, the adequate stress habits, and the right level of physical challenge… your testosterone doesn’t just rise…your identity increases with it.
Your confidence shifts.
Your discipline feels easier.
Your decision-making sharpens.
Your drive comes back.
Your Testosterone will come back!
And that’s the whole point of this blog, like many of my blog posts, is that you can’t become someone new while living like your old self. Testosterone is just one example, one biological lever, that demonstrates how quickly things change when your inputs change.
You build the man you become.
And the hormones follow your lead.
So get up. Get after it. Become Extraordinary.