Barbell Shrugged - Physiology Friday: [Hormone Dysfunction] Birth Control, TRT, HRT, and Toxicity w/ Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash and Dan Garner

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged: How Birth Control can reduce testosterone by 70% Birth controls affects on your physique How to pick the right birth control What are drug induced nutrient depletions  How to best handle menopause and andropause What happens when you do not have a cycle for 5+ years What is wrong with TRT and HRT How heavy metal and toxicity affect your hormones Visit https://rapidhealthoptimization.com Connect with our guests: Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram Dan Garner on Instagram  

Truck family this week on barbell shrug physiology Friday is back and Dan Garner is getting into all things birth control talk of hormone dysfunction TRT HRT all things hormones to everybody likes to take a deep dive into as always friends Make sure you get over to rapid health report comm that is for Dan Garner. Dr. Andy Galpin are doing a free lab lifestyle Performance analysis you can access that free report over at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Barnard. Doug Larson. Dan Garner. Today on Barbell Shrugged, we are going to be talking about TRT and is TRT right for you? When is it actually right for you? When isn't it right for you? And all the questions you should be asking yourself before actually going on TRT.

Dan, this is like the one of the number one things that actually comes up in all of the, I shouldn't say all, but many of the calls that we have with people coming into Rapid is, they've got this low energy thing, they've got a low libido thing, and then all of a sudden they go to the doctor, the doctor runs their test and it says,

ah, you're at like low 400s, maybe 200s, maybe 300s, but it's somewhere below whatever is considered normal and then they get thrown on TRT and the problem is a lot of times it doesn't end up solving the issues that they originally went into the doctor for. Yeah. Is there a right time or what should people be doing when they're talking to their doctors? Because this is obviously place number one that it comes up and in their search for solving whatever these issues are.

Cool. So let me kind of open up this podcast really with something I haven't said in a podcast before because it'll probably alienate 80% of my audience. But when it comes to the way in which the body operates, I'm always like just something that constantly keeps coming up in my career and in my search for knowledge and wisdom to help people become better versions of themselves, is that lots of times we should be working with the body rather than against the body. And we just keep learning that every time we think we're smarter than biology, we're reminded that we're not.

And I just I don't think that this is a situation that is removed from that. So we have this this testosterone reference range of depending on what lab you're going with is typically from 300 to 900. It's quite assumed that when you're younger, you're going to have a higher testosterone, and as you get older, you are going to have a progressively lowered testosterone. Is that such a bad thing? Like, I think that honestly, that could actually be some form of adaptation that people aren't asking questions about yet, because I think less testosterone progressively and not pathologically over the course of time could actually serve to be an evolution into wise old man

as opposed to young bull, because you actually you become more patient, you become more compassionate. Like these are things you actually want around when you're raising your kids. You're less likely to cheat on your spouse. You're you're less likely to to have the crazy competitive drive that men have to where we'll actually put ourselves in harm's way just to win a bet or win a conversation or something like that. And with compassion, with patience, with loyalty to your spouse because your sex drive is lowering with the fact that you're not going to put yourself in harm's way due to purely alpha male competitive drive. Like, I'm not totally convinced that progressively, non pathologically lowered testosterone over time.

Is that bad of a thing? Like, am I crazy here, guys? No, that's called 32 years old for me. I don't like to call it the day that that happened. I like to tell you exactly where I was, where I was like, I don't really give a shit if I squat 500 pounds anymore. I think I have bigger things like I'm supposed to get married right now and breed some little humans and live a much saner life. And I just

happened to be 32. And then that exact second I was like, I'm gonna go do different things now. I'm a different person all of a sudden. Mm hmm. That's actually really interesting. Most people are not making a case for I'm going to go do different things now. I'm a different person all of a sudden. Mm-hmm. It's actually really interesting. Most people are not making a case for the benefits of lower testosterone. I rarely see that being done almost anywhere. But I have actually noticed that, like, you know,

I'm 39 now and, you know, at some point in the last, like, five years, like, I have noticed that, like, the percentage of the time that my mind is focused on sex has decreased. It used to be like 90 fucking percent. It was like all day long. I was just thinking about it all day long. And so at some point over the last five years, like, certainly I think about it still quite frequently, but it's not what it

was. It's not it's not like all day long, all day every day. And I had that conversation a while back with someone like, it's easier to remain faithful when I'm not like, every time I see a female in any context, the first thing my mind jumps to is like, I could mate with that thing. I could do this. Like, they're not even, when I was 25, it's like, they weren't even a person. It was just like, I could put something in that and that would feel good. And that would be good. And like, that was about as far as my mind went.

But now that I'm almost 40, it's, it's easier to be a dad and a husband when, when that's not the first thing on my mind. And so there, there is some benefit there. But at the same time, almost anyone that's coming to us to get help with energy or sex drive, they, they think something's wrong. If you're going to get TRT, you feel like something's wrong. It's not it's not like the normal decrease, like you're saying, you know, if you take it all the way to the end, as far as as far as sex drive goes, like people

have performance issues, like they, they just can't get erection or like, there's just no mojo left, like maybe their wife wants to have sex and, and they're just like, I don't know, like, I just don't feel like it, which is like, would would be a very weird thing to say. Like, I've never got I've never gotten that far where like, my wife want to have sex. And I was like, Nah, nah, I don't want to do it. But that happens to people. And then if that I

presumably if that happened to me, and or if I couldn't actually get an erection, I'd be like, Fuck, I need some testosterone replacement therapy, because this is not right. And so like for those people, you know, is TRT what they need to do? Like what's the landscape of options in that case? We don't have to just talk about sex, but you know, TRT certainly you would think has some merit or wouldn't be as popular as it is. It's like a big thing right now.

When I was growing up, it was like steroids were bad. have some merit or wouldn't be as popular as it is. It's like a big thing right now. When I was growing up, it was like steroids were bad, and then all of a sudden there's TRT clinics everywhere, everywhere you go, and all of a sudden steroids are awesome. Wait a minute. They're like all of a sudden totally accepted because it's not steroids, it's TRT. Yeah.

Right? So there's a big landscape there filling the gaps for me. For sure. And I think that's why I said, I think a few times in that explanation that I said non-pathological, because if you like, there is pathological, low testosterone, there's also dysfunction. And the outcome of the dysfunction is low testosterone. So for example, arsenic is a certain heavy metal and it can actually bind to testosterone receptors.

And you can imagine a testosterone receptor like a parking lot space, arsenic will take that parking lot space so that testosterone cannot park there and exert testosterone action on the body. Like there's a big difference between hormone and hormone action. One is just something in circulation. The other is the thing in circulation is doing the thing that you want it to do. So arsenic can actually take up parking spots.

Another heavy metal is mercury. Mercury actually impacts an enzyme called 11-beta-hydroxylase, and this enzyme converts progesterone into cortisol. So 11-beta-hydroxylase converts progesterone to cortisol, but it does it at an accelerated rate. So it actually feeds that pathway, so we're going to have more cortisol than we otherwise would have. Cortisol runs antagonistic to testosterone. So the very fact of having higher cortisol levels is going to result in lower testosterone levels purely due to the teeter-totter antagonistic relationship that they have. So you have something like arsenic blocking receptor sites. You have something like mercury accelerating enzymatic pathways to take resources away from testosterone. There are

certain things like plastics and environmental pollutants that have been shown to accelerate estrogen pathways at the expense of testosterone. There's many things dietary and lifestyle related, such as stress, such as sleep, such as the amount and quality of fats coming in the diet. There are many things that can impact one's testosterone level. And I suppose the point that I'm turning around to here is that those are true dysfunctions and low testosterone is basically the outcome of those dysfunctions. So then you do experience things such as fatigue and a loss of libido and the many other things that come with low testosterone.

So those pathologies and dysfunctions absolutely can and should be addressed to improve overall systemic health. But the relentless pursuit of a thousand nanograms per deciliter of testosterone. I just don't think based on how the intelligence of our body, I don't think that that's necessarily the pursuit everybody should be chasing. Because if you ask the average guy, like, hey, how dumb are you when you were 25? How dumb were you when you were 20?

They'd be like, oh, dude, I was so stupid back then. Like, I didn't do it. Testosterone's the cause. It's not the cause. But I think that progressively lowered high testosterone mentality can sometimes allow you to enter that type of wise old man state. And I think a point that I didn't mention

is that it also allows you an opportunity to enter a state of willingness to be the mentor, as opposed to the one always having to be on the front lines grinding. You're actually thinking about the next generation. You're contributing to them in ways where you're not actually after the credit. So I think that non-pathological, progressively reduced testosterone levels isn't necessarily a bad thing,

provided you're not symptomatic. If you do struggle with erections, if you do struggle with a lot of fatigue, if you can't build muscle, that's a problem. I've had tons of clients, CEOs, athletes, whoever it's going to be in their 40s, 50s, 60s. I even had a guy in his 70s build muscle and drop body fat at the exact same time. The before and after was insane. That's somebody who is functioning. So if you're symptomatic, 100%,

we have to identify where your low testosterone's coming from and restore it to a normal level so that you're no longer symptomatic. But the hunt, the never ending hunt for like some sort of crazy number, for the sake of having a crazy number, I don't always think as a wise pursuit for long term health. Yeah, I think there's also like a psychological element to it for people. It's almost like when if you were to

get to 12% body fat, you'd look in the mirror and go, well, I also need to be at eight now. Dr. Andy Galpin here. As a listener of the show, you've probably heard us talking about the Arte program, which we're all incredibly proud of. It's a combination of everything Dan Garner and I have learned over more than two decades of working with some of the world's most elite performers, award-winning athletes, billionaires, musicians, executives, and frankly,

anyone who just wanted to be at their absolute best. Arte is not a normal coaching program. It's not just macros and a workout plan. It's not physique transformation and pre and post pictures. Arate is something completely different. Arate is incredibly comprehensive and designed to uncover your unique molecular signature, find your performance anchorsors and solve them permanently. You'll be working with not one person but rather a full team of elite professionals, each

with their own special expertise to maximize precision, accuracy, and effectiveness of your analysis and optimization plan. Arte isn't about treating symptoms or quick fixes. It's about unlocking your full potential and looking, feeling, and performing at your absolute best physically and mentally when the stakes are the highest. To learn more visit AreteLab.com. That's A-R-E-T-E lab.com. Now back to the show. It's almost like when if you were to get to 12% body fat, you'd look in the mirror and go, well, I also need to be at eight now. And then you get to eight and you're like,

well, why can't I get to five? Like, I still have this like, I can grab skin and pull it out. Like I'm not completely emaciated. And like, it's like, dude, you're 12% body fat. What, like, what does eight get you? And if someone's at like 400, they see 800 as like, well, that has to be where I'm low.

I'm not even at like the 500 number, which is some, some sort of like average normal. And then the psychological side of it kicks in. And I would imagine that's actually more detrimental because they start feeling like they're losing the game that doesn't even exist when it's really their body saying, this is where you're at. Let's just be as healthy as possible. And our testosterone levels will just land where they land instead of worrying about where you are on this like scale of 200 to 1000 and hoping insurance is going to cover your, uh, your, your new drug addiction. I don't want to call it drug addiction, but your new injectable decision making process. Like you got to go to the clinic, you're at 412 and you're like,

what? Uh, okay. Yeah. Hello. My friends are going to make fun of me. It's like that doesn't, if you're healthy, your body's going to be where it's at. And those psychological games just get in the way of just making you feel worse than you actually already, or than you actually really feel. Totally. And like that, that's why I like it. One big thing that I've said in my career is don't lose weight, get healthy. When you focus, when you put health at the forefront, those are the things that are actually going to make you feel better. Like to assume that it's all because of one hormone and that's going to change your life forever,

it's never going to happen. Just like magical supplement doesn't exist, a magical hormone doesn't exist, a magical anything doesn't exist. You have to look at health holistically as a whole. And when you look at it holistically and you see everything working in tandem together, there's such a thing known as efficiency too. Like there's plenty of, I've had UFC fighters with testosterone in the 400s. And you would think that, what? Like shouldn't they be 900 or a thousand or something wild?

No, because there is such a thing as efficiency. You can have anabolism, you can have protein synthesis, you can have all of the things that you want from testosterone at a lower level if you're efficient with this conversion and utilization in free testosterone. So if you're someone who actually has a testosterone of say 400, 500 or something like that, but your sex hormone binding level is high and is binding up a lot of that testosterone and you're not able to utilize it for its action within a cell, then you'll have symptoms of low testosterone. But if that testosterone binding, that elevated sex hormone binding globulin was due to other hormonal factors or perhaps low magnesium or low boron or low zinc,

all of these things can drive up sex hormone binding globulin and you get rid of that, then testosterone can actually stay between like 400, 500, but free testosterone goes up. And all of a sudden, here comes the libido, here comes muscle mass, here comes fat loss, here comes daily energy, all of these things come back. So like looking at health holistically as a whole, sometimes you're chasing one rabbit and it's something completely different that you could actually have focused on. And I mean, even here at Rapid, when people come to us, I mean, how often do people have a symptom of fatigue? Oh, we're going to do a whole show, maybe a whole month. We have energy.

Yeah. And that's my point. It's like, once I'm McMahon, I'm fatigued. Maybe I should go on TRT. It's like that's an enormous assumption. That's a big jump. That's a leap. It's a huge leap. Yeah, like you're not considering all the other factors associated with fatigue that we'll get that we can get into for a month. Like there are lifestyle factors, there's environmental factors,

there's biochemical factors, there's genetic factors. There's so many things that will contribute to something that we're categorizing, umbrella categorizing as fatigue, and then also assuming it's testosterone. Now, with that, go ahead. Nope, finish. Cool. So with all of this said, in no way, shape or form, am I against TRT? That's like the big message I want to get across, because somebody might listen to this so far and be like,

this dude wants low testosterone. He said something about being a wise old man. And now he's talking about health like what was Garner on about? Didn't he just bet? So I thought this dude cared about us. So can you get to a thousand? Is that possible? Yeah, I hear words coming out of your mouth, but I'd like a thousand. Yeah, exactly. So I'm not against the RT at all when it's required.

That's the thing. I feel like testosterone has really gotten, has become like the catch all for everything. And I don't talk to all of the people in the world, obviously, that are on TRT, but most of the people that are coming to us that are already on it suffer from the exact same symptoms that they had before they went on TRT and then thought TRT was going to solve all of those problems. And it turns out it had nothing really to do with the actual testosterone levels or some something was going on inside their body that was just hindering the the energy levels or the libido or whatever, whatever

was the symptom of that. And whether it was their doctor, whether they went in specifically asking, maybe they went to a clinic, which imagine that the clinic is like very good at giving you the thing that they sell. But most people think that testosterone is going to like solve all of the problems. And it solves the problem of putting more testosterone into your body. But it doesn't really solve all the energy problems. It doesn't solve the libido problems, that stuff has to come from a different place. If you were to go, actually need TRT, like you're in the 200s and it's not... What is testosterone TRT actually going to solve when you go to... I mean, it's obviously going to raise your levels, but like, if it's not... For the people that we're working with specifically, if it's not for the people that we're working with specifically, if it's not solving their energy issues, if it's not

solving their libido issues, if it's not solving muscle mass, what problems does it solve or does it just create more problems because they are pouring gasoline on a fire that. Is is not that is already on a system that's already

broken, really. Yeah, and you mean you really answered your own question there in a beautiful way, because is not that is on a system that's already broken, really. Yeah, and you mean, you really answered your own question there in a beautiful way, because what happens is low testosterone was the outcome, but not the issue that led to the outcome. So what happens is people then get low testosterone, and of course they're gonna have symptoms of low testosterone because they are low testosterone, but then they low testosterone and of course they're going to have symptoms of low testosterone because they are low testosterone but then they inject testosterone and then they feel fantastic. You

will have more energy, you will have a better libido, you will put on muscle mass. These things are incredibly well documented. All of this will begin to take place but the reason as to why you had low testosterone to begin with, that huge question that you should be asking never actually got addressed. Do you have environmental pollutants in you? Do you have a parasitic bacterial fungal problem in your gut? Do you have heavy metals?

Was it a problem, a psychological problem in your life that's resulting in certain stressors that is suppressing your testosterone? Sometimes it doesn't have to be fancy, you guys. Like, like, honestly, the amount of people like what percentage of people complain of fatigue, a high percentage. Right. What percentage of people are on their phone before bed? Right. Like sometimes it doesn't have to be wild.

Like that blue light exposure has been demonstrated, already documented to reduce melatonin 40 to 70 percent. Like, I mean, sorry, yeah, 50 to 70 rather. Five zero to seven zero. That's an enormous reduction in melatonin, which results in enormous reduction in sleep quality, which by itself would have caused fatigue, let alone the fact that poor sleep also causes low testosterone.

So when we don't address these things, we actually didn't address our sleep issue. All we did was eject testosterone. How many other things asleep connected to again? Seven million. Yeah, when it comes to cardiovascular health, when it comes to all of the other hormones, testosterone is one of hundreds of hormones in the body. Sleep is connected to so many things and likely since sleep by

itself would have overcome your fatigue in a huge way and would have allowed you to have more regular testosterone levels. In my opinion, looking at holistic health and actually solving people's issues at the root causal level, I think that would have been way more beneficial. Nothing makes you feel better than having a good night's sleep. That's why I say don't lose weight, get healthier. That that whole holistic thing makes you feel so much better than if you just fire some shot in the dark to overcome symptoms.

Yeah, I was just having a half-baked thought while you were talking about that of like, what if instead of like testosterone clinics on every corner that you could go to to inject testosterone so you get more energy, it was like, well, here's the clinic down the street that's going to reduce cortisol so you actually actually sleep better, be a lot cooler. We'd be able to get to sleep, have less stress in our lives and everything else would kind of work itself out. Although all the shit that like we should kind of already have, like, how about the guy in the corner that actually teaches you how to optimize

your taxes? Like that's we don't learn that in school. How about the guy in the corner that tells you how to have a productive schedule? Because a lot of people aren't productive. They're just busy. And busyness leads to a lot of activity, but no results, which is a very stressful and shitty way to live. So what about the guy to teach us about our taxes? What about the guy to teach us about optimizing our schedule?

What about the guy to teach us about our sleep? What about the guy to teach us how to eat healthy? Like how many people have fatigue issues who also don't eat healthy? I don't think these correlations are wild. Well, isn't that also like the balance between I mean, really in our in our world and our program between you and Galpin? It's like we have to have the internal health dialed in. We also have like the performance and lifestyle optimization plan

to go along with it because we can we can do the inside, but if you're still just beating your head up against the wall and you can't figure out how to structure a day, if you can't figure out how to go to bed at night, you don't wake up early enough. You don't go out and get some sunlight at least sometime in the morning to set your circadian rhythm like you're kind of just spinning your wheels. It doesn't it doesn't work unless you have both sides of it. For sure.

And there's almost always some sort of root cause problem like happening, like the amount of people like I asked you guys previously, how many people come to us fatigue? How many people come to us with some sort of gastrointestinal symptom? A ton. Yeah, a ton, right? Yeah. So the percentage is enormous. Now, what percentage of those people did a stool analysis before they came to us? Zero. Basically, nobody. I would say zero to five percent, maybe. Right. Lots of times we'll uncover a gut issue that led to an issue

somewhere else. And the reason why that issue was allowed to exist is because, A, they're not actually looking for root causes, they're looking to manage symptoms. But B, because of those symptoms, the solutions that they have are incorrect. Like when we were in Boulder together and then we did that podcast with that guy that was smarter than all three of us combined. Cody Burkhart. Yeah. Yeah. That was the only ask questions like, how do we train people to get on Mars? I'm like, I was thinking like maybe adding a couple pounds of muscle lose body fat. What is this?

Do some lateral raises. We're going to be solid. Take this thing all the way to Mars. Yeah. So you're not asking the right questions. Well, I hadn't thought about Mars. Well, that's the thing that he had a quote that wasn't even his answer. He said, we're not in the stage of problem solving. We're in the stage of problem understanding. And I was like, God damn, like he's about to answer something else. And I'm already writing down his non-answer because he's so smart. I'm writing down his preface rather than his actual answer. Let me just see your framework here real quick.

I'm going to steal your preface. But he said we're in the stage of problem understanding and not in the stage of problem solving. Man, that hit me like a frickin brick because that's what people do right now. They have a certain symptom. Dude, you're not ready to problem solve. You don't know what the problem is. You're solving the problem with TRT

when you don't understand the problem that led to low testosterone. You need to actually take a step back, my man. You need to start problems understanding rather than problems solving. You skipped a huge step, and now we have no idea what's going on underneath the surface, because now you feel good.

You are on to your team and you will feel good. But I'm telling you, your body on the inside does not. And whatever was there is not going unaddressed. And I use that example of like somebody coming to us and having never done a stool analysis before. And they have gastrointestinal symptoms Like, yeah, we're going to find something that is probably the reason why the root cause behind whatever issue you came to us with, be it fatigue, and you've only done blood analysis before. Or, you know, another thing, how many people do you think have been exposed to environmental pollutants?

A ton of them. Well, when's the last time somebody got a heavy metal tester environmental pollutant test? Almost never. So we find these things freaking all the time. And it's just a huge systemic solution to improve someone's total health rather than just isolate it into one thing. So like I can't I don't understand how many more ways I could get that through to people because I I'm a fan of TRT. I really am. It's safety profiles. Good. The benefits are kick ass. But I really think that you should run through the enormous list of things that result in low testosterone that you should address, but also result in a lot of other unfavorable things that don't get solved if you got all your labs done, you want a short term relief, could you do TRT for a period of time while you're cleaning up all the other things that led to it?

And or if you go and try and clean up all the things that may have led to it, but then for some reason, it still doesn't change. Then are you a candidate for TRT? Like you just said that there's you like the safety profile. There's benefits to it, etc, etc. Like at what point does someone say, OK, now's the time? So at that point where I would personally say now is the time is way beyond just symptoms.

It's like lots of times people just say now's the time based on symptoms. I would actually want to do blood, urine, saliva stool. We're going to find something. So then let's solve that thing for the next six months and then retest. If we've confirmed that we've solved the thing and then your retest is still low, yes, in my opinion, now you are a candidate. You're a candidate for whatever it was.

It could be estrogen, it could be DHEA, it could be testosterone directly, it could be androstenedione, it could be just the conversion of androstenedione to testosterone, which is a lot of times a problem. You need vitamin E, lipoic acid, CoQ10, and zinc, all just to convert androstenedione to testosterone. And many people are low in vitamin E and zinc. That's hypercommon. So these things, they're out there and they exist.

And in many, many, many cases, you will exhaust people's root cause issues and their hormones will restore to balance. And because you took a health first approach, many other things restored to balance along with hormone status. But if you have removed all root causes and it's still low, then yeah, knock yourself out, man. It's pretty common that you would have about one milligram per kilogram in medical TRT dose, one to two milligrams. So if somebody is 100 kilos, then they would have 100 milligrams of testosterone per week. That's on the lower end. And then if symptoms don't improve in the medical world, they'll bump you up to two milligrams per kilo. And then you're at

a, so that's a 220 pound person. Now take it 200 milligrams of testosterone per week. And mostly everybody feels pretty darn good in there, but more off-label underground kind of dosing is like alpha male type TRT is more like 3 milligrams per kilogram. So if somebody was 220 pounds, they'd be on 300 milligrams per week. But basically in the medical world, you'll get one to two milligrams per kilo. But if you talk to somebody in the underground, work in an endocrinology for sports performance, you're probably going to be around three milligrams per kilo. So that's for testosterone specifically, but you just mentioned DHEA and Anderson Dian and other androgens. Like when you say TRT, do you usually mean testosterone? Is that

like 90% of the time that's the case? Like when, how does somebody know if DHEA is the answer or any of the other androgens? So they don't unless they get tested. So TRT is testosterone replacement therapy. HRT is hormone replacement therapy. So I would just change my verbiage to HRT if I was talking about DHEA or angiostin-dion or anything like that. And in that scenario, you would only know if you did your your testing, eliminated root causes, and then did your testing again.

And then you could fill in the gaps where you need to fill in the gaps. But DHEA is an over the counter option that actually has an excellent long term safety profile. So it's kind of an it's an underrated one, especially if you've already exhausted your other root cause, your other root cause issues. When we started the show, you mentioned the range for total testosterone and then and then mentioned later that free testosterone really is the thing that that matters the most. Like, why, why do people continue to mostly reference total testosterone when free testosterone

really is the thing that is that kind of actually getting the job done, so to speak? I wouldn't even be able to answer that because that's an excellent question. I would say probably because, and this is a guess, but it would be because adding free testosterone to a lab is a lot more expensive, so it probably just gets researched less. So that it's just basically availability of data and what they can calculate total serum testosterone to rather than serum testosterone plus free testosterone. But I completely agree. And that's where efficiency comes into play. And you won't just see that in testosterone world either. Thyroid's enormous for that. You can have a low TSH and a fairly low T4 output. And I don't mean pathologically

low, I just mean trending low, but then an optimal T3. You're like, damn, that's just efficient conversion taking place. That's efficient conversion within the gut bacteria, within the mitochondria, within the liver and bile is doing its job. So that's that total amount, you'll see it in thyroid, you'll see it in testosterone, you'll see it everywhere. And efficiency matters, and that's why I like here at Rapid, we do a full hormone panel looking at absolutely everything because you wanna see what that entire pond

and stream looks like and see what enzymes are being overactive and begin your overall diagnostic process from there. being overactive and begin your overall diagnostic process from there. So you take a person who they jumped the gun, so to speak, didn't get any of the lab testing, never searched for a root cause and they just jumped right to TRT and they do feel good. And maybe they're taking on the higher end of the dosing, they're on the two milligrams per kilo or beyond, or maybe they're just straight up, quote unquote, doing steroids and or using their their access etc. And they're hearing this and they're thinking man

I've been doing this for a long time but I'm kind of worried what it's doing to my body under the hood. Maybe I should take a step back maybe get off of it or reduce my dose or get off of it and try to find the root cause. They want to revamp their whole situation. How would you go about doing that while managing the inevitable symptoms that are likely to arise? I don't think you have to come off to do labs. I would really... Because the testosterone is not going to take away your mercury. It's not going to take away your arsenic. It's not going to take away your environmental pollutants. It's not going to take away all these other contributing factors. We'll still see it. It'll pop up in your

biochemical circadian rhythm function between cortisol and melatonin. It's going to pop up in your heavy metals. It's going to pop up in your environmental pollutants. It's going to pop up in your stool analysis. Testosterone is not going to impact your stool analysis at all. Like, and so we're going to see all of those things in there as well. So I actually wouldn't even come off. If you're feeling good, I wouldn't even tell you to come off. I would just get all of your testing done anyways, because we're all going to see any kind of issue anyways. But as you were answering, as you were asking that question, I realized I didn't even answer your previous question about somebody if they could go on

while they work on the root cause and then come off. I wouldn't recommend that because I think it's probably just going to delay suppression. The quickest way for your body to stop doing something is to give a free source of it. So if there's any incoming exogenous hormones, say testosterone, if you inject exogenous testosterone, your endogenous production will absolutely shut down. The quickest thing to shut something down in the body is to give your body a free resource of it. Why? Because your body is the ultimate efficiency machine. If it doesn't need to do something, it won't. If you don't use it, you lose it kind of thing. That's real in the body. Your body reacts very quickly. So if somebody has low testosterone and they want to supplement with testosterone while they work on the root cause,

I think it would be a defeating tactic because you're going to feel pretty good on the testosterone and then you're going to remove the root cause. But then when you come off the testosterone, you need to restart the wheel again on the hypothomic pituitary-ganadal axis. And that takes a while. Your body is basically talking with my hands for the audio listeners. Imagine there being like a high line, a high horizontal line and a low horizontal line. When your body, for hormones, exists between these two lines. When hormones pass the high horizontal line,

that's when there's gonna be endocrine shutdown because your body says, hey, I've seen this much currently in circulation, so I'm not gonna make anymore. So your body, once it passes a certain threshold, it's gonna shut down the hypothalamus, pituitary, gonadal axis and completely shut down hormone production.

Now, hormones have a half life. So for example, testosterone, uh, Sipionate is going to have a half life anywhere from say seven to eight days or seven to 10 days, depending on what research you look at. So that half life is going to take a while to come down. So like, for example, if you inject 500 milligrams of Tespionate this week, and then you inject another 500 in seven days, well, let's pretend that the half-life is a magical seven days. If you inject 500 milligrams today, and then you inject another 500 milligrams next week, which is very common in bodybuilding cycling dosages, well, half of that went through its half-life.

So that means we still had 250 milligrams of testosterone in our system by the time of our next injection of another 500. And then that went through its half-life. Well, now we have 500 left in the system and we injected another 500. So now that goes through its half-life and you can see how that matters

when designing a performance enhancing drug course. But you are designing every single drug you take needs a purpose. It needs a function. You need to understand the half-life. You need to understand the metabolization rates because this is all going to work in your favor or not, depending on how you design your cycle. Like if you just go on a forum and like someone says, yeah, week one to 10 do this, week one to four do this. It's like there's barely any utility to that. It's a fucking horrible way to approach this. You need a real coach.

But you know, I'm getting sidetracked here. As those half-lives continue to build up, you've got a lot of testosterone in your system and it's going to take a long time to metabolize down to that lower line that I talked about in the beginning of this insane rant. So you are going to metabolize on all those half lives for probably eight to 10 weeks, which is another fucking stupid reason why people start their PCT after their last shot. Like, motherfucker, you're going through half lives for like eight weeks.

I don't know why you're starting your PCT right now. Doesn't make a lick of sense. But again, I'm going to get in another rant. So let's not do that. You're going to half life your way all the way down until you reach the bottom line. Now, the bottom line is hypogonadism. Your body says, holy shit, there's no hormones here anymore. Now I've got to restart LH and FSH to go kick off testosterone production again.

So that huge long rant was basically outlining when your body passed a certain threshold of injectable testosterone, you're going to suppress your natural testosterone because you're eliminating your root cause during that entire time, you're going to be building up levels via half life in your system to quite high amounts. And that has to half life its way all the way out of there. So that's going to take eight to 10 weeks until you hit hypogonadism. Then once you hit hypogonadism, then hypothalamus, pituitary, canadal access restart takes place, which doesn't happen overnight,

which is another climb of your body trying to get LHA, LH and FSH and testosterone back online to then you'll finally fucking feel good. Maybe 12 to 14, 16 weeks later, sometimes longer. So I'm very big on eliminate that root cause and then let your own natural levels go up without the suppression. If you do the suppression, the whole process will take longer for what you're trying to accomplish. So you keep mentioning the hypothalamic pitpituitary-ganadal axis,

and you just mentioned LH a couple of times. Like, at what point is Clomid a better option than straight injectable TRT? Or is that not a good option in your mind? Dude, like this is contrarian, but it's not. So if you go on like forums and shit, you are suggested to run, say like a combination of NOVA and Clomid and HCG, a lot of these HPTA restart things. If you go to an endocrinologist, they'll just take you off of everything. Like it's very, very common. It's

just like, oh, you've been on steroids for that many years and you've lost your fertility and now you're trying to get pregnant again. OK, come off everything. I'll see you in six months. There's no long, drawn out bodybuilding Nova, Clomid, and this is from an endocrinologist, somebody who's actually a specialist in this field as tons of formal education, tons of clinical experience,

all kind and has to manage a ton of risks due to insurance and things like this. a specialist in this field, there's tons of formal education, tons of clinical experience, and has to manage a ton of risks due to insurance and things like this. It's very, very common for them to just, hey, come off of everything and allow the body to restart. And I think that in a lot of ways, we can kind of trick ourselves by moving, by doing a kind of protocol that includes say, nova clomid, that kind of thing. I know where you're going because clomid is good for FSH stimulation as well. So we can get some rheumatogenesis in addition to LH getting testosterone synthesis. So clomid can do those things, but it is a fertility drug. And I think in a lot of cases, we kind of make ourselves feel better,

but we kind of only just went from one drug to the next. We're just going from then then we're chasing another rabbit and then we're chasing this, we're chasing that. And there's no actual systemic break for the body from drug use. So again, that this this actually does depend upon blood work because you will have predispositions where someone may be more predisposed, I guess I'll stick with that word, for NOVA use or predisposed for Clomid use or predisposed for HCG during a cycle to maintain fertility. There's a lot of things that would either support or negate use of these compounds. But the fact that they're mandatory is garbage.

And the fact that they are prescribed blindly without labs to bodybuilders everywhere and strength athletes in general, I think is complete garbage as well. So a lot of that was said within the context of post-cycle therapy. I mostly meant for the person who's not doing steroids and they're not looking to do. Who's that guy? I know, like crazy. Hold on, what are we talking about?

Yeah, we've lost our whole audience. Dan said it's OK to have low testosterone, if I heard him correctly at the beginning, because it makes you wiser and then no steroids. Bummer. No, no, do all the steroids. The moral of this episode is to get on every cycle with no labs or professional direction. Just take all the drugs. Yeah, just take drugs. You'll be fine. Go to go to Tijuana. I don't know if you've ever been to Tijuana. If you walk around with anyone with any amount of muscle mass,

you will be offered steroids at every street corner. They're like Diana Ball at your local pharmacy. It's like, yeah, OK. Well, once one small handful with breakfast is the prescription. So then you're just you're good to go. You don't really need to do any of this stuff. Just go to Tijuana Yeah, it's really crazy. Actually how have you been down there? It's literally like I've never I've never It's it's like on the front window as it's like we've got a retreat. We've got Claritin

We've got Diana ball. You're like, whoa that really really got escalated quickly They got it all and I trust and I trust none of it. I'm like, I have no idea what's in that box. I'm not taking it. If you're going somewhere where the Diana balls beside the Advil, you're like, wait. Yeah. How did you get here? So that question was mostly if a person is just, they have all the symptoms, they go

to the TRT clinic, and then maybe they get some type of testing, aside from just testing their testosterone levels, and their LH is low, and then the guy says ongoing, you can take Clomid to stimulate LH production and thereby testosterone production, and then you don't need to do injectables at all. So it's not post cycle therapy. It's just, it's just in perpetuity, you could just you could do this, take a pill rather than an injection. How does that compare? What are the pros and cons of each?

How do they compare to each other? The problem with Clomid is actually connected to poor mental health outcomes. So it makes problems to bring this question back to bodybuilding PCT. It makes PCT worse a lot of times because people are already losing their muscle, they're losing their strength and decreasing their testosterone due to shutdown. But then Clomid actually exacerbates certain mental health issues on top of that. But if you're somebody who doesn't have any adverse mental health effects to Clomid, and your doctor has looked at the context of your case study and said, yeah, it makes sense here for ongoing hepatic ignition, we'll say

to keep this thing rolling. Then I don't really see any problem with that. It won't compare to DRT. That's for sure. Because you're still going to be within the confines of your own production. So if like a real hammer solution is what you're after, nothing still going to be within the confines of your own production. So if like a real hammer solution is what you're after, nothing is going to be injectable testosterone. And injectable testosterone will likely have positive mental health benefits rather than negative ones. So I would be more inclined based on my knowledge and also probably likely heavily biased from the populations I've worked with, I would be much more inclined to utilize injectable due to it avoiding the mental health

outcomes and still having an excellent safety profile when reasonably dosed. Gotcha. Because I know a lot of clinics, they probably have a handful of clientele that show up and they go, well, I kind of want the benefits, but I really don't want to take a shot all the time, you know, every other day or once a week or whatever, whatever track they're on, you know, for the rest of my life. What do you got for me? You got anything else that doesn't require, require me to, you know, not just take the shot, but like have needles around all the time and take them with me everywhere I go and then all the hassle around disposal and like, you know, a lot of people just don't want the headache. Sure. So you can get a pellet injected into your body that slowly breaks down over time and releases hormone test gel also exists as well. So you could go with testosterone gel. You could go with the pellet. You could go with something like Clomid or Nova, or you could

just get your shit together and find out why it's low because I think 99% of the people listening to this have some sort of root cause that just goes unaddressed due to a lack of analyzation of their hidden stressors. You mentioned the zinc and boron and a handful of different vitamins, minerals and whatnot. As far as vitamin and mineral deficiencies, what are the big ones that could really cause trouble with testosterone or any of the other important hormones just for feeling happy and normal and full energy, et cetera? Sure. Yeah.

So vitamin E and zinc are big in converting interesting nylon over into testosterone. Magnesium and boron are very important in breaking and unbinding testosterone from sex hormone binding glybulin. Vitamin D deficiencies are associated with lower testosterone as well. And same with just magnesium and zinc for that matter. Beyond the pathways I just discussed, zinc just magnesium and zinc for that matter, beyond the pathways I just discussed. Zinc, magnesium and vitamin D are extremely well demonstrated in the literature. When low, when restored back to good status, they will increase testosterone, but more isn't better. Once you've got adequate status of those vitamins and minerals, you will have

improved testosterone, but not if you have too much of those vitamins and minerals. Those are all a big one as well. Vitamin B5 is required when combining cholesterol with vitamin B5 to form pregnenolone. Pregnenolone is your mother of all sex hormones. You need it to make anything. You need pregnenolone to make progesterone, cortisol, androstenedione, testosterone, DHEA, all of the estrogens that all begin to Pregnanolone. And that

requires B5. That's synthesized with B5 and cholesterol in the mitochondria of cells. So that's a big component as well. Vitamin B6 is another one that's kind of underrated and under discussed, but vitamin B6, like go ahead and just Google vitamin B6 in mental health, vitamin B6 in mood. B6 is deeply connected to a lot of mental health outcomes and mental health is deeply connected to testosterone levels. So I really think like through the back door, B6 plays a big role. B6 also lowers prolactin. So if somebody has slightly higher prolactin, you'll be more prone to looking at B6.

But B6, as far as its effects on dopamine, its effects on serotonin, its effects on melatonin, there's even B6 deficiencies connected to schizophrenia. Like B6 is wildly important for mental health, protein synthesis, and all these hormone pathways. So to relist all of those would be quite a bit, but it was that vitamin E and zinc for androstenedione, zinc, magnesium, and vitamin D for testosterone in general, but specifically magnesium and boron for unb general, but specifically magnesium and boron for unbinding it from sex hormone binding, vitamin B five for the formation process of

pregnant alone. And then, um, and then, uh, what was the, the, the final one that I went into, I've just lost it. Uh, very last one. Yeah. B. B6 is the last one for the backdoor reasons. Yeah. So all of those, you know, that's a big reason why I'm big on actually multivitamins and multiminerals. Some people kind of pick on those, but multivitamins have some of the more research behind them than anything else. Like vitamins, if I was going to go to an island, I wouldn't be taken and sit in a weird

situation where you can only take one supplement with you to this island. It'd be a malty. That's what I would take. When you look at nutritional biochemistry, it all involves vitamins and minerals and curcumin is not on this list. That's a rate limiting factor. These certain herbs and adaptogens, they're good within certain contexts, but no pathways operate optimally without max optimal vitamins and minerals. And again, how many people have had those tested? Very little. So a lot of the people jump into these things, which again, by the way, if it's not obvious, I'm not against it. I work with a ton of people on TRT. I also work with a ton of people who take illegal TRT. I work with a ton of these people.

I'm just a big fan of promoting health first and only using it when you need to. So as a blanket statement for most people, no need to find a root cause like before you take a multivitamin. Just go take a multivitamin. It's a good catch all for the vast, vast, vast majority of people. The downside is very low. The upside is potentially high. Yeah. And the classic old supplement ZMA is actually pretty good. ZMA is a combination of zinc, magnesium, and B6. And people are notoriously low in all three.

Plus, that helps with sleep quality. So the fact that you can take that, that's why ZMA does have some connections to testosterone in the literature, purely because of what it contains. So that enhancing sleep quality, plus providing the minerals for optimal hormone synthesis, I would say a multi plus ZMA would be an excellent overall kind of foundation to make sure a lot of these hormonal pathways

are operating the way that they should. Yeah, for a quick recommendation. For the most part, we offer our clients and we take ourselves that Thorne two a day multivitamin. If someone's looking for a good source, that's a good option. Yep, absolutely. I have, yeah, Thorne, their multi,

their basic nutrients is excellent. Their elite athlete, AMPM is excellent as well. They have a magnesium bisglycinate as well that I'm a real big fan of for basically just foundational use. And then I really like their basic B complex. Just as a foundational supplement, very, very common. I'll put it in people's protocol. But also they have a basic B complex six, which is still the full B complex, but a greater emphasis on B six for a lot of situations just like this. Dan Garner, where can the people find you?

I can be found at Dan Garner nutrition on Instagram. Don't send me your lab work with your testosterone levels on. I got a bunch of this, those after a recent podcast. I was like. I can imagine with Mark Bell, they just sent you all a picture of it. Can you just do the same thing? I just get DMs of lab, screenshots of labs. I'm like, guys, I can't just do this on Instagram DM.

It's way more complicated than this. But give me a follow at Dan Karner Nutrition on Instagram. Check out my courses at CoachGarner.com. Get your blood work at InsightTracker.com slash Garner. And that's it. You never know what the downstream effects of doing something incredible are going to be. Like doing a live lab reading and then your DMs get loaded with everyone's labs.

Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah, that's incredible. Yeah, fantastic. Turns out you should probably be a client of mine in that process. That's so good. Doug Larson. Yeah, and by the way, you can go listen to that. It's like you did like four hours or something like that with Mark over a two-part episode on Powercast. So yeah, five hours of Dan Garner spitting knowledge to Mark Bell. So go check that out. I'm on Instagram, Douglas E. Larson.

I am Anders Varner at Anders Varner and we are Barbell Shrugged at barbell underscore shrugged and make sure you get over to rtalab.com. That is the signature program inside rapid health optimization where you can go and experience all the lab lifestyle performance testing analysis and coaching to help you optimize your health and performance. And you can access all of that over at rta lab.com friends. We'll see you guys next week.