Weights and Plates Podcast - #82 - Testosterone, TRT, and You

Episode Date: August 30, 2024

Testosterone is one of the hottest topics in the health and fitness world these, specifically testosterone replacement therapy (TRT). While there are legitimate medical reasons for TRT, it is also abused by those looking for an edge in improving their strength and physique, and some low T clinics are happy to oblige. Dr. Robert Santana and Coach Trent Jones share their thoughts on the recent popularity surge of TRT, and when it's appropriate for trainees.   Online Diet Coaching and Strength Training with Dr. Robert Santana https://weightsandplates.com/online-coaching/     Weights & Plates on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@weights_and_plates?si=ebAS8sRtzsPmFQf- Weights & Plates: https://weightsandplates.com Robert Santana on Instagram: @the_robert_santana   Trent Jones: @marmalade_cream Email: [e-mail]  

Welcome to the Weights and Plates podcast. I am Robert Santana. I am your host along with Trent Jones, my co-host. That's me. That's me. What's up, brother? So how's life at 40 how's uh so how's life at 40 going for you man i mean you know the words of the great kid rock i might be fucking 40 but you're fucking 41 i'm surprised he didn't try to like rhyme that with like 40 you know like a 40 ounce oh he didn't go there no this was 2010 that's when he was long back to his, you know, like a 40 ounce. Oh, he didn't go there, no. This was 2010. That's when he was long back to his roots, you know. Oh, okay. Was this the American badass era?

No, this would have been the Born Free era. Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm not a scholar of Kid Rock. Well, I'm from Illinois, you know, so Michigan's next door. Yeah, there you go. The only thing Illinois and Michigan have in common is that we know nothing good comes out of Indiana.

Just kidding. Sorry to my listeners in Indiana. I'm just totally being a dick there. Yeah. Outtake. Well, yeah. I mean, I don't know. I have been to Indianapolis, and I can't disagree with you from that one experience in Indianapolis.

Well, today we're going to try to do a little bit shorter episode. I like, we always say that we're always like, yeah, we're going to do a short one. And they're always the exact same length as everything else, but we're going to try once more to do a shorter episode. And we're going to talk about testosterone today. Did I do that right? Testosterone. Testosterone. Um, yeah, I just, I just audited a seminar in wichita falls for my starting strength credential so um yeah i've got i had a weekend full of rip and his wonderful west texas accent panhandle accent it's really it's a panhandle accent is

what it is it's not a west texas accent you keep changing on this man you told me west texas for years now it's panhandle i, it's kind of somewhere, well, it's somewhere in between, right? Wichita Falls is kind of in this, like, in-between era. Like, it's not Lubbock, it's not Abilene, it's not Odessa, but it's not Amarillo either.

But it's close to Amarillo. It's kind of its own. A couple hours. Yeah. It's not that far, right? But it's somewhere, yeah, somewhere in this kind of weird nomad's land. I don't know. It's different. What is Garth Brooks' accent? Because he's Oklahoma, but he sounds similar to some people in Texas. I don't know.

I always wondered that. I don't know. I don't know his speaking voice well enough to comment on that. Well, you know his singing voice, right? Yeah, but, you know, like, people can affect that. Like, there's, like, what? Like, Jason Aldean, you know, he has an accent. He sounds there's, there's like what, like Jason Aldean, you know, he, he has an accent. He sounds like he's from New York. Isn't he from Georgia?

I don't know. They all claim that like, oh yeah. From, you know, down home, Georgia. Let's see here. You're like, he probably is. But some of those guys, some of those guys, you know, it's the point is is those accents are fake as hell. And they get fake. The funny thing is, like, they get faker and faker over the decades. If you go back and listen to, like, you know, like, I mean, he's not country. He's rockabilly. He's from Macon, George. I remember Macon.

Okay. Or Macon. Is it Macon? Macon, yeah. Yeah, we used to drive through there on the way to Florida. Right. Yeah, okay, fine. Yeah, so, you know, insert some other guy that sounds like him. Luke Bryant. making yeah um yeah we should drive through there on the way to florida right yeah okay fine yeah so you know insert some other guy that sounds like him luke bryant that guy sounds like from new york

uh but but you go back to like johnny cash or whatever and brian they don't yeah go ahead they don't he doesn't sing with nearly as much of an accent as these modern country singers so it's not like it's their their it's like they try so hard to rep a southern accent that it's just it's just comedy at this point i think i think luke bryan does have an accent but i think he has probably started exaggerating it at some point in his career because everything i've read about him is that like as far as his music goes it's fucking fake as hell in terms of country music purists. But they say as far as his credibility goes as a small town person, that that's actually, he's got cred, apparently.

Yeah. Sure. Sure. Yeah, that's as bro country as it gets to me. It's total bro country, yeah. But like. Yeah, tractor rap, whatever they call it now. I don't even know what they call it.'s you know i'm guilty of listening to some of the songs

some of them are pretty good you know um but i remember when i first heard him it was it was what 2011 i was moving my buddy here at arizona yeah and this song came on and i was just like seriously i'm like then you know then he lived here for a while. Then I started to hear, I think it was that Rain is a Good Thing song. And I thought that was fucking hilarious, the lyrics and shit. And I'm like, this is a country song. Okay, I mean, I get it. The content, I get the content.

Okay, this probably belongs in country, but the delivery, right? It just jumped out at me, right? And then we would just laugh. We're like, they just fucking made a song about that. Okay, fine. A year later, I visit visit him and we're at a fucking bar this was back when video djing was getting big and the videos would play in the background of the song that was playing and then like i think at this point it was a newer song and now he has like this exaggerated five o'clock shadow you could tell there's makeup on him. There's fucking a pop beat over the song, right?

So now his, you know, the first song that I told you I heard was on an album that was probably more country. It was older. It was like probably 2009, you know? But then now we're up to 2012, 2013. And I see him like wearing denim with a cap and like an exaggerated 5 o'clock shadow, makeup and like, just like every cliche pushed to the max. You could hear a drum beat, you know, in the background like no live instrumentation and I'm like, did they really just

take the pop slash hip hop R&B approach and apply that to country? This was back in 2012, you know, 2013 maybe. And that's exactly what happened, you know. That's exactly what happened. Then I started hearing the term bro country thrown around. He was the first person that would always pop in my mind. Cause I'll never forget that fucking video, dude.

I think it was for a, what was the song? I think it was, that's my kind of night, that video. Okay. And like in the beginning, he's like, I think he was on like a flat bottom boat, like, you know, motorboat. Bass fishing or whatever. Yeah, but like the lighting's perfect. His beard is like perfect, you know,

you could tell he's wearing makeup and i'm like really country music i'm like they're fucking destroying this too now yeah oh man yeah we've come a long way since uh you know jerry reed and waylon jennings that's for sure i mean i like 90s country i like garth brooks i liked george straight i was always a george straight over Garth Brooks fan. There was cheese in the 90s, but it was not yeah, it was not like incredibly cliche. No, not like that, dude. It started probably post 2005. I've been listening to Alan Jackson lately. Oh, he's great. And cashing up on

him because yeah, I just, you know, I don't really know a whole lot about 90s country aside from like Brooks and Dunn, but. Brooks and Dunn's the best. Oh yeah, Neon Moon. Fuck, that's such a good song. I don't care how popular it it's that's so good anytime i go to a dive i put that out of the jukebox oh yeah it's so good um but yeah dude ronnie dunn has been complaining about this for 20 years by the way yeah i think i don't know my sense is that it has um it started to change again like i don't keep you know i don't keep close tabs on what's new in country

because the country I listen to is all old stuff. The bro country, I think, is starting to die out. It's fading out, yeah. I think it's slowly drifting back. Luke Bryant, I always think of it as knocking boots. It's like, this truck needs

a half tank. You're like, what like nobody talks like that like man i've no i've nobody and again you go back to like but it's first few south that are more south more southern than any of these dudes and they they didn't talk with this kind of accent it's it's hilarious i think i gotta send you the article there's an article that talks about like his upbringing and the stuff that he did growing up. Like he did hunt. He did fish, you know, and he did all the things he always he talks about. So it was funny.

So the article was him talking about these bro country artists that have never done anything. Right. Right. And even at the end of the article, they said it was kind of funny coming from him. But then to tie up the tie the article the article up they're like but he actually has street cred in these areas of doing these things you know yeah whereas the other guys don't you know but they were saying that like it was just funny hearing that coming from him because of how bro country his music is but apparently he like did the things you know growing up

um but he's like but what he was telling the interviewer and i was just laughing he's like i could tell right away by when i hand somebody a fishing rod if they're fucking fake or not. Yeah, right, right. Oh, my God. But yeah, no, he was the first bro country artist I heard, and he wasn't even that bro yet, dude. That was from his 09 album, and I think most of the album was pretty good. But that Rain song just jumped out. We were just listening to the radio and it just popped on.

We were probably in Amarillo, Texas. This was back in 2011, so we didn't have bluetooth syncing to apple music we were listening to whatever local radio stations popped up and i heard that song and i'm like this guy just made like a bro song about fucking rain you know and harvesting and shit you know and uh i just forgot about it then like it got more and more bro like over the years that like if i put that album on now i'd'd be like, oh, this sounds pretty normal, you know? Right. Yeah. You know, I think it is pretty funny there. I'll have to dig this up. This is an old video too. There's a guy who put together like six or seven, like top 10 country hits, you know? So like Rask, it's all from like, you know, probably five, 10 years ago. It's like

Rascal flats and stuff, but it was just like top 10 country hits and he puts he puts these together in pro tools and all he did was like you know tempo match them so they were all the same tempo and he transposed them so that they're all in the same key right that's what i used to do for a living but i would play clubs by the way yeah that's right it's like you would do as a dj right so he tempo matched them and he transposed them so they'd be all been the same key. But then like he cuts between them, you know, so it'd be like five seconds of, you know, the end, he plays all, all of six of them together at the same time. And that all just lines up exactly. It's probably the same studio musicians. You know,

there's probably like the same 10 guys worked on every one of those albums in Nashville. Yeah. But it's, it's pretty funny. I think that, I think that is changing. I mean,

I live adjacent to Nashville and there's a lot more going on in Nashville than just like bro country. I think that is changing. I mean, I live adjacent to Nashville, and there's a lot more going on in Nashville than just, like, bro country. I think bro country, notice that Luke Bryan has not had an album in, like, what, last one, three years ago? It seems to be getting more organic again, but, you know, honestly, we should probably thank the bro country guys, because they just turned up every cliche about the South just to, the utter maximum and you know that that maybe that kept away some yankees maybe dude um so yeah i don't know but no that's not what we want to talk about today no we want to talk about testosterone testosterone so um i've got a little story to to to kick us off here yeah i recently heard about someone who is um they're not in the starting strength world that we're in but they but they you know they coach people and they're kind of into like power lifting and stuff so it's it's adjacent to what we do um they lift barbells okay and um basically know, they've, they've been training and they're,

they're clearly like, you know, this is a gifted dude, um, that I was talking to. He's, you know, got to a 500 plus deadlift in a few years on his own. And, you know, I think 500 squat. And I think he was doing some sort of like, from what I could tell some sort of like intermediate programming, but fairly simple stuff. Like he just, he was not that far along the development curve that we talk about in the phases of training and starting strength, right? He still was on the upward slope of that curve. He hadn't, he hadn't yet flattened out into advanced, uh, trainee territory. And basically he was just like, yeah, I, you know know things started to slow down for him um he couldn't make progress anymore so he goes to the low t clinic and you know of course they obliged and

they're like well what's what's the problem he's like well i just can't recover from my deadlifts and my lifting and they're like well i mean well what do you want to do about that and so he comes home with with a prescription for testosterone replacement therapy for for exogenous testosterone and um as far as i know from what you know talking to the guy it sounds like his numbers started going up again after taking testosterone and um i thought this was interesting. And I don't want to beat up on the guy at all. I'm not, I'm not trying to judge him like morally or anything about that. I've really, that's, hey, that's a personal decision. It's not what I would do, but it's, it's a personal decision. I don't really care about that, but I care. I wanted to bring this up because I'm like, I think,

I think we need to have a conversation because testosterone has become very, very popular. It's a very popular topic and low T clinics are everywhere now. They're very accessible. And there's a lot of people out there that are now aware of, hey, there's some guys that have low T and you can get a prescription for testosterone

and improve all of these physical aspects of life. And it sounds awesome and sounds like there's not a whole lot of downsides to it. these, you know, all of these physical aspects of life. And sounds awesome. And sounds like there's not a whole lot of downsides to it. But I think that I think that this guy may have made a mistake if he wants to coach people in doing that. And I wanted to talk about I wanted to kind of talk through that problem today. Well, first, let's, you know, go on the record saying that this really shouldn't be illegal you know in my opinion i don't know about where you feel on this i just want to go on the record say it really

should not be illegal to take that if you want to get big and strong you know it's a personal choice i and there are far more dangerous things out there that are legal yes yeah i would agree with that um i don't like taking anything. I don't even like taking medicine when I'm sick, you know? Yep. Same here. I rarely take anti-inflammatories. Yep. First time I took one for an extended period and a very long time was I had this elbow bursitis and Dr. Morris asked me to try out some diclofenac. It's Voltaren over the counter. And I put the topical on my elbow and got the bursitis down in a pretty steady amount of time. But generally, I don't like to take stuff.

That's why I don't take it. And also, I think it's important if you're coaching people to get stronger outside of a competitive realm, you're going to deal with more people that don't want to take drugs over people that do want to take drugs. And you're going to run into problems that you have to figure out. And if you've resorted to steroid use, as soon as you run into a wall or plateau, as they call it, then you've robbed yourself of the experience of having to troubleshoot these things. Now, this really comes back to why you're doing what you're doing. If you're lifting because you just really like lifting, you want to get big, jacked, and strong, and drugs are

going to allow you to take that further, then by all means. I personally cared more about coaching than my own lifting. I didn't have any illusion that I would ever be competitive in any type of sport or strength sport for that matter. And I didn't care to compete in bodybuilding. I just wanted to look better, feel better, move better, and I wanted to do it in a way that was sustainable and a way that I can pass on to others. So that's always been my motivation from the beginning, which is kind of funny, you know, because it all kind of worked out. So I think my decision to not mess around with anabolics at any point in my career, you know, came from the right place. You know, like I don't think I'm morally superior to anybody, but my motivations are different.

You know, like I don't want to get as big as I can and beyond. And I don't want to compete in a strength sport or a physique contest. You know, I'm not trying to do any of that. So, and I'm not in competitive legacy sports either. So it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for me to get on that. Unless I just wanted to see how that stuff changes things, in which case I'd talk about it. You know, I'd go on here and say, yeah, I got on some TRT and fuck X, Y, or Z happened. You know, I'd go on here and say, yeah, I got on some TRT and fuck, X, Y, or Z happened. You know, I don't know. There's, you know, like with drugs, there's variability in responses to drugs.

So you have responders, you know, people that respond well to them or people that respond to them. Then you have high responders, people that respond extremely well to them. Then you have non-responders who have no effect. And then you have adverse responders who have negative responses to the drug. And that's with any drug, and that includes anabolic steroids. So I don't know which one I would fall into because I haven't done them. But, you know, there's this curiosity in me that's like, okay, you know, there's a justification to get on it because I have a hard time being compliant with things like that. I'd probably get on it and I'd talk about

have a hard time being compliant with things like that uh i'd probably get on it and i'd talk about if anything you know what changes if anything you know uh yeah advanced lifter and i'm over 40 so i'm not gonna i would imagine i won't have the same response as a teenager or 25 year old a teenager should not be taking this shit by the way but they do they do and you see crazy results from it it's stupid but they do it right. And guys in their 20s take it. Guys of all ages take it, let's be real. Women take it too. And it just never made sense for me. So my argument is not so much moral, you know.

I generally don't like drugs in general for myself. But for me, it was, all right, this needs to be sustainable. You know, I'm probably more reflective of my clients from the standpoint that, you know, I factor health into the equation. And it's never been about competition other than, you know, I want to beat my own logbook. I want to get a little bit bigger, a little bit stronger, but I also want to keep doing it. You know, I also want to keep doing this. Self-improvement, you know, it's more self-improvement than competition maybe. Absolutely, and it has been from theprovement than competition, maybe. Absolutely.

And it has been from the beginning. It has been from the beginning. So that's why I was never seduced by that. Right. There was one brief time where I was open to it, but I was in college and what was this? Probably what? Mid-2000s, 2005, 2006, maybe. And I was doing a lot of drinking back then like a lot of college kids you know i

thought college was supposed to be like animal house you know my opinions on that have changed too but you know like i'm a health practitioner i was going to a health related field and i knew that steroids were harsh on the liver and given how much drinking i was doing i'm like i don't know about all that then also there's the hair thing i don't i didn't want to go bald so i was always terrified of that. Then also there's the hair thing. I don't, I didn't want to go bald. So I was always terrified of that. I was already terrified of the hair thing, but there was a point where I'm like, well, you know, maybe, and then I'm like, I can't, I'm, I'm drinking too much too often. I don't want to fuck my liver up, you know? And between those two things, it never happened. Then by the time I stopped drinking like a frat boy and, you know, Stopped drinking like a frat boy and you know became an adult

I Didn't see a reason for it to be honest, right? Yeah. I mean I sure many of the same sentiments Yeah, and I don't have any moral arguments to make against it Yeah, I think that's just you know, it's it's a personal personal decision. And I think yeah if you were a competitive athlete Yeah, if I was a competitive athlete, I would probably, you know, at a high level, I'd probably be on it. I'd be on some sort of supplementation. And I wouldn't even know what because I just don't have any experience with that world. that are on drugs, if you're coaching athletes, there's an argument to be made that you probably have to have some experience with them. And that's not my argument. That is an argument made by a colleague in the industry who has coached people through that. He's also used and then coached other people on how to use because then now that becomes part of the competition. So you have to understand that. And to that point, I want to be very clear

in what I'm saying here. Santana's not saying, go get a steroid coach. You know, there's, this is multi-layered. Obviously, if you're going to work with a strength coach and you're using, it probably helps if that person had experience using. And then you also want to have a medical professional on board as well to deal with any side effects or physiological things that happen that are undesirable, you know? Right. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've only, I've read, you know, like, so I've read a lot of Dante Trudell's writings in the last year or so, and I've gotten into that. So I've caught up on like some of his old bodybuilding.com stuff. And yeah, he's a guy who's, you know, clearly used a fair

amount of pharmaceuticals in the past. Um, maybe he still does. I don't know. He's in his fifties now, but he has a lot of experience with it. And, um, and he's, he's very opinionated. He's as opinionated about that as he is about training. And yeah, like if you want to get into high level bodybuilding, you need to talk to a guy like that. You know, you need to have, you need to have someone like that coaching you. Um, in my opinion, because that's, you know, there, yeah, there, there are, I don't, I certainly would, I can coach people to be strong and I can just observe what I see in terms of like how the rate of adaptation and, you know, picking a, what I think is a wise course of action with programming. but there's also a,

there's a, there's some art to programming, right? There's, there's a feel that you have to get for a lifter of like how, especially when it's remote, like the even more so online of sort of like, how, how hard am I pushing this guy with the programming that I'm doing? And, you know, you, you, you sort of take that into consideration. And ideally, you want to make changes to programming before shit starts to fall apart, right before technique starts to fall apart before they start just running into the red line where everything becomes like a new our rep max, right. And there's a lot of factors that go

in this, you know, know like what kind of mindset does this person have how competitive are they you know what's their age um all this stuff and yeah i think if i had a high level athlete who was on drugs that i was trying to coach i would probably i would be naive to their rate of their ability to adapt and also like maybe other considerations like how hard do i push this guy because maybe their ability to adapt exceeds the their ability for their connective tissue to adapt and we've seen that a lot in competitive sports and strength sports especially i've seen that at a fairly low level where people who i don't know that they were used on drugs but i suspect have come back from injuries or come back from layoffs pretty fast and then tried to compete in powerlifting and and had some pretty nasty connective tissue injuries on the platform.

I've seen that happen a couple of times. Again, I don't know all the details. I'm just just, you know, me as a third party observer, but it certainly happens. Right. just, you know, me as a third party observer, but it certainly happens, right? So yeah, there are, you know, so I'm not coming at a from a perspective of having any expertise whatsoever on anabolic steroids, because I don't. What I did want to talk about, though, today is I wanted to talk about like, who should like, when is testosterone indicated? And I don't mean from a medical professional standpoint, right? We're not medical professionals. We're not doctors. We're not going to give any medical advice here. But in our experience, like in your coaching, the people you've worked with, what are some cases that you've seen where testosterone was a good answer to their training problems and how did it play out?

And then I want to talk about sort of some of the reasons why you shouldn't use testosterone. So we'll take it from there. I don't know that it's ever. The answer to that question is complicated. Yeah, sure. Because answer to a training problem, I mean. It's not the answer to a training problem.

Let's put it that way. It's not a good way to put it, you know, because I'm thinking of a guy, another colleague, who was in the U.S. military. He's probably listening. And he had low T for medical reasons. And, you know, it was legitimate. It wasn't I can't recover from my squats. I need T. You know, he needed to get on testosterone and uh then he was deployed somewhere and his

military doctor changed and this guy to get paint a picture of him he's pretty athletic he's a mesomorph so he's naturally lean naturally muscular veryascular. He looks like a bodybuilder, you know, naturally, you know, and he goes to the military doctor to, you know, get a new script. And the guy tells him, I don't feel comfortable prescribing this to you based on the way you look. Yeah. You know, so this resulted in him being off replacement therapy after being on for so many years, off cold turkey for two years. And what he told me, and maybe I can get him on the show sometime, but what he told me was that the training was fucking grueling and horrible, but the results were some of the best he

had in years. He just got through it. He troubleshooted it. You know, he has an intact brain. He knows how to deal with stress recovery adaptation. He made it work, is what he tells me. He said he felt like complete dog shit, but he somehow got good training out of it. So I don't know that it's necessarily ever the answer, but it raises the ceiling, that's for sure. And that's not what we're talking about with this guy. This guy, you know, has been training for a long time. His progress is slow and steady steady he's juggling other responsibilities he's not a competitive athlete so you know he still has room to make progress with or without it obviously because of what he just told me you know but uh the point is it's not like okay your t's low and you feel like shit

therefore you can't get stronger you can still get stronger it's just you know right not a very pleasurable experience if you have legitimately low t and this guy was double digits you know that's how low it got because he went from being on to being off and he still managed to work through it and he had some of the best training of his life in terms of the outcomes he just felt like you know um so you know that's on, you know, if you're a recreational lifter and you just have shit recovery, you could still get stronger. It's slower and it's, you know, you feel like shit. Okay. And you got stuff you got to work around.

Now, if you're a competitive lifter and you're going into competition and let's say there's money on the table and you got to, you know, compete at a high level and your sport doesn't ban it. At some point you got to get on it, you know, because the other guys are going to get on it, you know, compete at a high level and your sport doesn't ban it, at some point you got to get on it, you know, because the other guys are going to get on it, you know. Right. Yep. And if you can overcome steroid. Unless you're an outlier that can overcome all the steroid use in sports today, you know, but, you know, I don't know if that's happened

and I don't know if that will happen. Right. It takes you to a whole other level. Like, think about guys in the Olympic stage. They've been on steroids a long time, people. people you know they just pop certain ones over other ones just like the whole lance armstrong thing the guys following him were on a bunch of too you know yeah yeah they had to like yeah yeah yeah so but my whole point is that you got the best of the best of the best of the best of the best and then on the world stage they probably have pretty good work ethic too i would hope you know I

don't know that for sure but I'm you know it's a reasonable assumption that they get to the world stage there's probably a level of work ethic that's there you know right and they're taking drugs you know yes there's no technique steroids people right yep no there's no technique steroids you know the steroids get you stronger they put more muscle mass on. They increase your recovery time. They don't improve your technique. They don't increase your vertical jump,

and they don't change your muscle fiber type distribution, your insertion points, penation angles, any of that stuff. They make you stronger. They allow you to recover faster. That's why every sport's kind of a strength sport to some degree. Otherwise, people wouldn't be taking fucking steroids for all these different sports, you know, I remember This was this is a Winter Olympics from it wasn't the last Winter Olympics. It was the one before that

There was a new event it was curling but it was like men and women couple it was a couple So instead of having teams you want to find that cuz it's not it's not bicep curling obviously no no i mean i mean like you know pushing the little like what are those i don't even know what they call them the stones you know they like push the stone you know and slide it and they you know runs into the other stones you have to like put it in a circle and bump the other yeah that that curling so normally it's done with like teams and uh but they did a variation of it which is you had one male one female and that's the team and it's a head to head. So it's like a shorter game. And it's on ice.

Yeah. It's on ice too. But yeah, so this is a male, female, it was this duels, you know, curling or whatever they called it. Anyway, Russia won and later they got popped for steroids and curling they got banned from the Olympics. And curling, right? It's ridiculous. Yeah, that was pretty funny. Curling team popped for steroids.

But yeah, so to get back on track though, so let's talk a little bit about like what, you know, what does low T look like? Like a lot of other things, to be honest. You want my honest opinion i'm not yeah well number one when you're competing in a sport and you're trying to beat the other guy or reach your genetic maximum at some point you have to use every edge that's available to you. And sorry to say, steroids are one of

them. You know, that's why people use them. And honestly, I say this because I'm leading to a broader point. The sport itself is probably worse for your body than a lot of these steroids. I'm not saying all of them, you know, that I'm not an expert on pharmacology or pharmacokinetics of each and every one of these drugs. But it's rather obvious that if you're in the NFL, right, where you don't hear about them quite as much because, you know that these guys are probably going to get more hurt not being on them. And the sport's going to be a lot less entertaining with them not being on them. So it's a lose-lose, you know? Right. Some of these drugs, like growth hormones, famous for this, help with healing injuries, recovery, increasing bone density, you know?

increasing bone density, you know? So an argument to be made is that being on these drugs not only enhances performance to a level beyond what is possible without them, but it also probably prevents injuries when you're performing at a level that high, you know, depending on which drug we're talking about, right? Again, I'm not an expert on any individual drug. I generally know what some of these things do. I know that testosterone builds lean body mass, reduces fat mass, and there's various analogs of that that people take. That's what people commonly refer to as steroids. Then you have growth hormone, which people take as well. Barry bonds was famous for this that has a lot of uh there's a lot behind that one that is associated with improved recovery i know people that have reported taking it to recover from various injuries and then you have insulin which is taken by diabetics to lower blood sugar when

it's high these bodybuilders like to take it because it helps shuttle nutrients into the muscle faster so they're able to partition nutrients more efficiently the trade-off with that is that uh they can become insulin resistant long term they get the big roid guts as people see um but again we're not diving into what all these different drugs do the point is that in professional sports, I want to put bodybuilding and physique contests aside because there's different risks associated with that, given that they have to take, given that they often take a lot more compounds than other athletes. At least that's what I think.

I don't know. I haven't gotten an inventory of what different athletes take, but bodybuilders take steroids purely to build as much muscle and minimize the amount of fat they put on. So one could surmise that they probably have to take more steroids than a baseball player, you know, because a baseball player just wants to perform better at baseball. May not need as many, you know, as a bodybuilder. I would think not. It's a logical assumption to make without being an expert, but I could be wrong. We need to bring somebody on that knows more about this. However, my point is getting sacked by four 300-pound defensive linemen is probably worse for you than taking some testosterone. You know, that's not me making a definitive statement, by the way.

You know, we're not medical professionals here. That's an obvious thing. Think about it. Three, six foot five, 300 pound men jumping on top of you, including your head. I know you have a helmet on, but it still ain't going to feel fucking good. Have you looked at the concussion rate in NFL? Especially going back before the rules got stricter?

They're still getting hurt. Getting thrown up in the air and falling at a high velocity. Boxing, getting punched in the air and falling, you know, at a high velocity. Yeah. Right? Boxing, getting punched in the fucking face. Do I give a fuck if a boxer is taking testosterone? Why should I give a fuck about that?

Right. Yeah. He's getting punched in the fucking face, you know, with a lot of force. Yeah. Think about it. Yeah. These guys probably have the strength and power of a major league pitcher with a longer reach, you know? So imagine that.

You know, a guy who's probably, you know, I don't know for sure. I don't know if they've ever had boxers pitch, but it's safe to say they could throw a pretty fast fastball if they wanted to. You know, the guys that are gifted for boxing, right? Oh, yeah. Right. They're explosive. They're explosive. Let's say that, you know, they're hitting you with for boxing, right? Oh, yeah. Right. They're explosive. They're explosive.

Let's say that, you know, they're hitting you with high force production at a fast rate, right? In the fucking face. What the fuck do I care that they're taking a little testosterone? You know, they've signed up for the sport. If you're going to ban testosterone, ban the fucking sport. Right. The brain damage that fucker's going to get, he knows it. That's why, you know, he's doing it.

These guys aren't stupid right you could take somebody with a low iq and ask them if you get hit in the face a bunch of times you think that's good for you you know right yeah like that's obviously you're getting hit in the face a bunch of fucking times you know or a pitcher throwing 100 mile per hour fastballs thousands of times over a career do you think he doesn't know that's bad for his shoulder but you're you're worried that he's taking growth hormone? Right. How long is that shoulder going to last without it, right? So these guys are putting their bodies through punishment before they ever touch a needle.

Let's take it back to before these things were rampant. Playing any of these sports, Natty, is really bad for your body. Natty is what the internet calls people that don't take steroids it's short for natural for those of you who aren't aware i think everybody's aware of that but if you're playing any professional sport natty at the pro level it's already bad for your fucking body probably worse than the fucking steroids you know i would agree with that so i need to make that point very clear because, oh, it's cheating. No, it shouldn't even be disallowed, first of all.

It should be permitted under the rules because what you're subjecting these people to physically is worse than some of these fucking drugs. Right. Yes, I agree with that. And that's why I'm not making any moral judgment on using them because when you're— There's a lot to be said with that. And that's why I'm not making any moral judgment on using them because when you're- You know, there's a lot to be said about that. We could do a whole episode about that right there. Absolutely. You know-

That's an important point to make when talking about this though. Yeah. As soon as you, and as soon as you start banning things too, what you do is you create asymmetry in the playing field, you know? So if the point of banning steroids is to make a more level playing field, then you got to realize that you start banning them. And that means that your athletes now, like certain athletes, not all athletes get tested the same amounts, right? We see this in the world stage you ban steroids and weightlifting, that means that the countries that have agents that can just like pop in and test you at random, they have to cycle off their drugs earlier than countries like Russia, where if a world doping agency, anti-doping agency, WADA, whatever they call it, if they want to go and enter Russia, they have to apply for a visa. It takes a couple weeks. So while they, when the, you know, WADA agent applies for a visa,

guess what happens? They, they ring the weightlifting coach and they're like, hey, you're going to get tested in at least two weeks. You know, it happens, stuff like this happens. So, but that's not- Because money was spent. That's right. That's right. So, you know, it, the point being is that, um, you know, uh, a lifter in great Britain is not, doesn't have the same opportunity to take drugs that the lifter in Russia does, right? It's, it creates, so it creates lots of problems. You try to ban it, it creates more problems. Okay. Let's set that aside. Now that's professional sports. It's very high level. Let's bring it back down to earth with regular folks, the people we coach. So what I wanted to talk about is like, so what

does low T look like from our perspective as coaches and doing what we do, strength training, and then get into, you know, what testosterone therapy looks like for a lifter and what, in our opinions, you know, how we like to guide people on that. So first thing, low testosterone, you can go on the internet and look up like common symptoms, but you know, some of the things that you start to see with someone who has low testosterone is the obvious stuff is sexual side effects, like erectile dysfunction, loss of sex drive in general, right? That's what everybody thinks of. That's definitely an issue. That's a common symptom. But there's other stuff too that's a little less obvious,

right? Like low testosterone could be like a constant brain fog or lack of ability to focus, to focus, lack of ability to make a decision and be decisive, to be assertive. These are all common symptoms of low testosterone. I've heard like even people that had low T, like confirmed low T, talk about sleep disruptions, like they just didn't sleep particularly well. In terms of lifting and training specifically, one common symptom i see is a lack of ability to recover that's separate from the obvious stuff like are you eating enough and are you sleeping decently well right so people that are eating properly to recover and grow and they're sleeping well enough they'll just have like constant aches and pains that seem to be random. Like there's no real pattern to them. Like, you know, sometimes their knee hurts, sometimes their

elbow hurts, then they tweak their neck, then they tweak their hamstring. You know, it's just sort of a random pattern of, of, of connective tissue issues. And they don't, and they don't seem to recover very well for their rate of advancement as a lifter compared to an average person, right? And that's a wide range, but I see that, right? So somebody who is a novice and they get their squat up to, let's say maybe like 205 and it's just like the squat day is just wrecking them. They're just, they're sore, they're beat up, um, stuff you don't normally see with somebody training like that at that level of advancement. And so, you know, those are some symptoms that I see very commonly in people I've worked with

that have had low testosterone. That's not an exhaustive list. And there's other ways that it functions. And there's also other confounding variables there, right? There's a lot of things that could make you feel like you're, you know, have a lack of focus or brain fog all the time, but it is something that is tied into low testosterone. So I think when you start to have, if you have those symptoms and I'm working with somebody and they come to me and they're clear, usually this conversation starts because they're not recovering well from their training or their training is stalling out prematurely

or very early in a way that we didn't expect. Then that's one of the things I wanna know is like, are there any of those kinds of symptoms present? But here's the thing, I don't know about you, my first thought is when I see all that is not, well, I wonder if you've got low testosterone or like, let's go get your hormones checked. That's not my first thought at all. My first reaction is, well, let's dial in your recovery better, right? Let's try to figure out how we can, you know, you're probably not eating well. You're probably not sleeping well.

See if we can figure that stuff out first and then, and see if some of these symptoms resolve. Let's see if your training goes better. And if, and if once that's nailed down, if, um, if we're still having symptoms like that, okay, well, let's see if we can adjust the training. Let's, let's make your, you know, let's move on to the next advancement of training, right? So if you're, if you're in a novice program and you're squatting every every every day, adding five pounds every workout, I'm sorry, squatting every workout, and you're adding five pounds every time, let's try to throw a light squat in there, let's take a squat out, let's go to a weekly progression or a bi weekly progression, whatever, wherever you are in that in that chain of programming progression. Let's advance to the next step and see if spreading your stress

out allows you for more recovery. So I try to look for lifestyle modifications first, and then programming modifications next, and then work that for a long time. Like I, you know, that's like six months to a year, at least of effort right there being spent trying to figure things, these things out before I even start to think about, okay, we've tried a bunch of things. Maybe now we need to get our hormones checked and see if there's an issue going on there. What do you think about that? I would completely agree, man. You want to try and troubleshoot as much as you can before you do this because it's a decision. Your lifestyle is going to change, you know? Right, right.

You have to inject things. If you're taking testosterone, you're injecting that once or twice a week. Right. That's typically what I hear from people that are taking it. And if you haven't dialed in your nutrition and your sleep, taking testosterone is not going to fix that. It's not going to make your nutrition good. And guess what? If you take testosterone and you have shitty nutrition and shitty sleep, I've worked with a couple people that are like this that were on TRT, but they had a very poor lifestyle. Guess what?

They still lifted like shit too. Like it didn't help. So, so the, these lifestyle factors are, are extremely important and I think they deserve most of the effort. Absolutely. And I know guys, I've guys that are on testosterone lifting less than I am because their life's fucking crazy, you know? Right. And they're also not, you know, they just have a harder time with lifting, you know, lower responders. Sure. Absolutely. So yeah, I wanted to, I wanted to point that out because I think that's, that's important. That is a very important way thing factor and how I think about, you know, testosterone and TRT in the context of lifting and strength training is just like, you've got to get all the other factors nailed down first

before you even start thinking about hormones. But it has happened with several people I've worked with where we do this for a year, year and a half. And, and they, they still have a lot of these symptoms. And they just are stubborn, they don't improve at all. But at this point, these people, even if they're fairly low responders to training, they usually get like decently strong. Like, um, I had a guy that I've worked with, um, the last couple of years and he is on testosterone replacement therapy now, but it was like a year and a half before we even considered that. And he's still deadlifted three 15. You know, he's still squatted in the high twos. He's still bench 200. I forgot what he pressed because he had a neck issue pop up, but I think

he pressed like 140 or 145. So this guy, like for an average person, this guy achieved some pretty decent lifts with very low testosterone. And he's a low responder too. This guy's just not a very good athlete. He's, he's, he's definitely a standard deviation or two below average. Um, but the guy still pulled three plates off the floor, right? He worked his ass off to do it too. So that's another thing too, is like the effort level and his program was there. So his, he did a reasonable job of dialing in his nutrition. His sleep is not perfect, but he did a reasonable job of dialing in his nutrition. His sleep is not perfect, but he did a reasonable job of improving that. And then he worked his ass off in the gym and he really gave it everything he had. And he, and he did push his strength up to a, to a decent level,

again, compared to your average person off the street. So then after all of that effort, So then after all of that effort, after having these symptoms I was talking about earlier, then he started to consider TRT. And that was because I prompted him, I said, you know what, I really think you should get your hormones checked and just see if there's something going on there that could be interfering with your recovery. Because, you know, especially with like random aches and pains, this guy would have and like connective tissue tweaks that just would pile up and he'd be sore, you know, for a long time, or he'd have, you know, tendonitis pop up is really more tendonitis than soreness. But he would have soreness sometimes. So after after that, I was like, you know, I think you should get your hormones checked let's just see if there's something going on there and and also like we we would know that he had done everything under his power to improve his natural testosterone levels going into this so he gets his hormones checked and his testosterone his testosterone is like 200.

this guy's in his early 40s okay early mid Early mid 40s, right? There's like 200. I forget what his free was, but it was very low. It was like 15 or 19 or whatever. So then that started a conversation of like, well, are you interested in testosterone therapy? That's when you need to go seek a professional out. But that's the way I look at this as a coach is if somebody, if I suspect that's an issue, I want to exhaust every avenue possible. And I want to see a very high level of effort with their training before I even bring it

up. I won't even bring it up until we've done that. You can't drug your way out of a bad lifestyle, you know? No, absolutely not. And I'm of the same opinion. You want to tighten up everything you can, all the factors you can control before you resort to that. Because my understanding is once you start down that path, there's no getting off of it. That's right.

Yeah. Technically there is. Technically there is. But, you know, there's no guarantees there. And in general, my understanding from doctors, people using it, and other professionals that know more about this than I do is once you're on that path, there's no coming back. And just think about it. You get older, it gets lower. Right.

So the chances of getting decent production if you've started, let's say, at my age at 40 and you decide at 50 you want to get off of it, you're probably going to be right back on it. Right. So that's a commitment. And I've thought about it that way. It's a commitment. Yes. You're changing your lifestyle. You're adding another variable.

It may not be a big deal to some people, but you're adding another variable, another expense. There's a lot to think about. Right. You want to make sure that everything else is tight before you go to that. And if you're a coach, then you're going to be coaching people that are never going to use, which I would say is most people. Troubleshoot this stuff.

Get pretty fucking advanced before you start fucking with that because how are you going to help people? You get a guy to intermediate and his neck hurts or his back hurts or his elbow hurts. What are you going to do? Tell him to get on testosterone and he says, no, fuck that. Okay, now what. Now what? You know, why is he struggling so much with 325 on a deadlift? Well, it's not that heavy. Well, you know, it's not for him, but you know, his tendons think otherwise, his vertebrae think otherwise. What are you going to do now? You know, tell him to get on growth hormone, you know? Right. Right. Yeah. Are you even a strength coach anymore? You know? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. You have to have the thing. The thing is, there's so many like there are so many soft variables to training and coaching that you have to be doing this everyto-day life. There's no way you can become a coach without training yourself and continuously doing it because you have to have the experience and then you have to have the ongoing

experience and you have to, you have to go through the ups and downs psychologically as well as physically of training so that you can relate to people. And, um, yeah. And a big part of that is just, is learning to work through problems. And, you know, I've had issues in my, and I'm only in my mid thirties. Right. But I've had issues where I'm like, shit will just randomly hurt sometimes for months. Like I was talking to you earlier offline that I had this like issue in my pack. I just, I thought like maybe it was going to tear my pack or maybe I tore it a little bit already, or I couldn't tell what it was, but I had this like really sore, painful, tight area of my pec for like months. And I was, you know, sort of babied around it and worked around it and adjusted.

And then it went away. Hasn't bothered me since, but that was like seven months that hung around. So shit like that happens. And it wouldn't, if I, you know, if I, this wasn't a part of my lifestyle so all right so off the soapbox there um yeah i think the thing is too that's that's interesting is like you know if you if you don't have a good lifestyle and you go get your hormones checked like how do you know that that test is really accurate like is that really an accurate reflection of your hormonal milieu? It's a snapshot in time, right? But like it there, you can do, you can improve things a lot. Um, I have one guy that I've worked with who is also on TRT and, uh, he's in his mid fifties now. He had some severe

sleep issues. And so as he was working through all this stuff, he cleaned up his diet a lot. He lost a lot of weight, um, got down to a good, healthy body weight. He's a big old endomorph kind of guy, got much stronger. So he did a huge cleanup on his diet and his body composition, but he still had a lot of sleep issues. Well, so he went and got a sleep study. Okay. So this is the other thing too, right? So if you're sleeping terribly, you can do you can get a sleep study and you probably should. Guess what this guy had pretty severe sleep apnea. So he was just not getting much rest at all. So he got fitted for a CPAP, started using that. And several months later, let's say like maybe three or four months later, he got his hormone hormones checked again. And his testosterone went up like 100 points, just from fixing his sleep. Right. So there, so there, you know, these lifestyle factors can have

a huge impact on, um, on how the testing goes. So like why, you know, so how it doesn't even make sense to me to like, to want to just jump on testosterone and having a shitty lifestyle because you have no idea what your baseline would be just living a normal, healthy life. style because you have no idea what your baseline would be just living a normal, healthy life. But, but I see this, I see people who do that and like advocate for that or want to do it and their, and their life's just a disaster. No. And I echo your position on this. You know, if you're going to get on that, then you need to address all the other things.

That's my opinion. Right. Right. You know, if, if you're competitive in any type of way, then that's a different opinion right you know if if you're competitive in any type of way and that's a different situation you know right yeah totally different situation yeah so you know so there's there's a lot there's a lot of stones to unturn first now if you go through all of that stuff and your testosterone is still really low and you still have a bunch of symptoms, that's the thing too.

This is what I've learned from, you know, colleagues of ours that are actual physicians, right, that have expertise in this, is that they go by symptoms, not numbers, right? There's no arbitrary number that they're trying to get you to. And, you know, people can be very athletic and perform very well at a wide range of testosterone levels. So it's not like every great athlete out there that you see with a good body has like sky high testosterone. That's not true there. I think there are some pretty high level power left power lifters that have been tested and had testosterone levels like in the four or five hundreds. So so there you go. So you go by symptoms primarily not numbers, but you know, so, but all

the symptoms are still present and the numbers are low. So it's kind of confirms that you've got, you know, hypogonadism, you've got low testosterone and your body's just not producing it. If you get to, if you go through all this and that's the case for you, then I think it's worth at least considering it and going and seeing a hormone specialist that you can work with and figure out some solutions. Not that you have to do it, but it's worth at least taking a look because at this point, your body's not making it and you're living a healthy lifestyle. You've busted your ass in the gym. You've done everything you could to naturally get your levels to a healthy point, and it's just not happening.

So for these folks, I see testosterone replacement therapy as a reasonable choice. Now, all that being said, there's one final disclaimer. Testosterone makes training easier until it doesn't. Eventually it gets hard, and you have to work through the same problems that you may have tried to avoid by getting on it in the first place. Stress recovery adaptation persists even when you're on. So I never say that. That's why I said it before. There's no technique steroids.

Steroids aren't, you know, they're not going to make it easier forever. You know, they'll get you past the point you're at. Right. And then eventually you got to work through the same shit. And I know this because I've trained people that have been on testosterone. And the same rules eventually apply. It gets you to a place faster is what I think. Yes.

That being said, it's going to change your body in ways you can't do naturally. Yes. And nobody wants to spell that out. Yes, you could build muscle mass. Yes, you could lose body fat. But you're not going to build as much muscle as you would taking steroids, and you're not going to walk around as lean as you would being on them. Right.

That's the reality of it. It's what they do. They put more water into your muscles, so you have a denser, more harder look and feel. You know, if you touch somebody's deltoids that are on steroids or their arms, feel like rocks. It feels more dense than somebody who's just as lean, not on steroids. So you're simply not going to look like a steroid user unless you're a steroid user. You know, these guys, like I said, you touch their arm muscle, right, their bicep or their deltoid. It's like rock-hard, dense muscle. Training ain't going to do that.

I learned this the first time I got super lean. I was working with a coach who had done physique shows. And I'm like, dude, I'm like seeing all these muscles, all this vascularity. Why is my delt still soft? Why isn't it hard like, you know, these other guys? Oh, dude, because you're not on drugs. You know, it's like an eye-opening moment for me. So, yes, there are things that only steroids can do to make your body look a specific way.

It's going to change your body in ways hard work and training and diet will not do. It won't happen without the drugs. So if you want to look like a drug user, you have to be a drug user. I'm sorry, that's the reality of it. But you can look pretty damn good without it, and people can tell. It's like you can tell when somebody's had certain plastic surgeries. You can tell if somebody's on steroids. right you know you don't and human beings don't look like superheroes right and i would say too like there it's important to note here that

there's a big difference in the like dosage right so typical trt dosages that i've seen are like 100 to 200 milligrams a week really and really on the low of that, it's more like 100 to 150 is like, those are the common sort of amounts that I, I have heard. And that's, and that's, I'm sorry, I said milligrams. I think it's nanograms per deciliter is the more common way to say it. Yeah, it's what one cc is. I thought it was milligrams. Maybe it is milligrams. See, see, I'm not an expert. No, nanograms per deciliter is the, that's how you measure the blood. Oh, okay. Maybe it's, yeah, maybe that's what it is. Yeah, the was milligrams. Maybe it is milligrams. See, I'm not an expert. No, nanograms are deciliters. That's how you measure the blood value. Oh, okay.

Maybe that's what it is. Yeah, the blood value. So anyway. Milligrams are the dosage. That's the dosage. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

See, I'm not a doctor. But yeah, it's more like 100 to 150. Whereas like, I mean, I've heard, you know, again, this is just like water cooler talk, but I've heard people in the industry that are coaches that are like the guys that are taking it they might be taking two to three hundred so not like super high amounts but more than you would get from like just normal from a doctor prescribing you trt and then of course you have bodybuilders that are taking you know as much i mean enormous amounts right they might take like a gram or two grams yeah dorian yates said he was on a gram of all of it combined, supposedly.

Yeah. Right. And yeah. So you hear these ridiculous numbers. So yeah, the effects are much more mild that the effects you just described are much more mild at the TRT levels, but it is true. Like I, I have a friend, not, not someone I coach, but I have a friend who recently got on TRT and this guy's really into jujitsu and had, and it started lifting and had a lot of these low T symptoms. And he, he did get on, you know, I think he's like a hundred a week. Um, so it's a very modest dose and yeah, he had some belly fat around the middle. And this is a guy that like, dude is just like super well conditioned, right? Cause he rolls jujitsu all the time. Like this stuff is brutally hard. The guy's in great shape shape but he had just kind of the spare tire look around the middle

that that went away that trimmed up after getting on trt now he's not like huge and massive and jacked because he's just he's a lean lanky you know guy but the spare tire around the middle went away i'm sure his traps look different. His forearms look different. Yeah. He definitely filled out in the upper body and his, and his results in the gym, like definitely improved like hugely. He started making much faster progress in the gym on his, on his barbell lifts for sure. But it's not this like enormous difference, right?

It's not like he'd be taking a gram and like getting yoked. He still looks like a lanky guy at the end of the day. But yeah, so I think here, like the last thing I want to talk about is like, who should not do this, right? So, and we've kind of touched on that already. And that's that, you know, I think that right now there's so much out there in the podcast land and elsewhere on YouTube, you can learn so much about TRT and there's so many out there in the podcast land and elsewhere on YouTube. You can learn so much about TRT, and there's so many guys hyping it up and talking about it. From what I understand, the side effects are fairly low as long as you have them managed.

You know, you're going to a doctor and getting regular blood work. But there are some things we've pointed out that are disadvantages that I don't think get talked about a lot. Number one, you mentioned it, it's a lifestyle change. It's something you're going to have to do for the rest of your life. You're going to have to inject this every week for the rest of your life or take pellets, like a pellet suppository or however, there's different ways they do it. But that's a lifestyle commitment you're going to have to make for the rest of your life. So that's one thing.

Another thing that doesn't get talked about a whole lot, but is a potential issue is that, you know, we just saw a couple years ago during the pandemic, we just saw certain drugs that are essential for human functioning for some people go through major shortages. Like there was a time period where insulin was, people were worried about getting insulin. Like there might, there were drug shortages that affected it. If you need insulin and there's no insulin available, you're going to die, right? It's a big problem. Well, right? It's a big problem. Well, testosterone is not that dire, but you know, it could happen that there are testosterone is not available in the future, right? If you're going to take this for the rest of your life, that's a risk that for various reasons, it could just be unavailable to

you. Maybe you have, maybe it's a prescription problem, like, like your, your friend you were talking about. Maybe it's a drug shortage problem who knows it's a it's a potential risk um it could also be criminalized it could be banned right um even like you know the federal authorities could make it something that's a you know a controlled substance that can't even be prescribed anymore. That's a very good point because they just did this. So a popular steroid or testosterone analog, Anivar is what the name was. The generic name was Oxandrolone. It was popular in CrossFit circles and bodybuilding. It was known for putting on lean mass. People tended to be leaner when they were on it. I don't know much about how it exactly works. I know that a lot of CrossFitters use it

or used it. A lot of bodybuilders use it too. A lot of powerlifters use it. But it got approved and authorized for use in 1984, I believe. You know, you can check that sometime in the mid-80s. And then last year, or the year before, it was recent, they decided that there wasn't enough evidence for its effectiveness, so they withdrew authorization 40 years later. So this has already happened. Okay. Obviously, we both know, anybody listening to this that's been around this shit knows that it's highly effective. Yes. You know? But, you know, they decided, oh, you know, it doesn't work. Right.

Right. Their political wins can change. Let's just put it that way. Right. And that affects, you know, the legal status of drugs, too. the legal status of drugs too. So there are some risks besides just the side effects, the potential side effects of testosterone that you need to consider. And I think that I would, if somebody, so let's go back to our low T guy that has busted his ass in the gym,

has really done a good job of managing their other lifestyle factors, and they still have low testosterone. If they went through all that and they're like, you know what? I don't want to get on it. I just, I understand it could be better. I'd, I'd rather not. I would completely understand. I totally understand that. And I would support that. I would agree. Yeah. The other thing too, is kind of interesting. And I'll just say this as an aside is, um, actually one of the clients that has recently gone to, um, has gotten some, it's not testosterone replacement therapy because he's not on testosterone. Um, there's a guy who went to a clinic and they, they looked at his blood work and they said, you know what? Like, I wonder, like they, they had a suspicion that, um, he had just too high of estrogen levels.

So they put them on, I can't remember what it is off the top of my head. I'd have to ask again, but they put them on something that's not exogenous testosterone. It's just some sort of aromatase inhibitor AI. And so it's basically there to, I guess, reduce production of estrogen, which for men, obviously, if you produce too much estrogen, that's a problem. Yep. So anyway, he did that. And guess what? His hormone levels went, like they shot up.

I mean, sorry, his testosterone levels, they shot up. So simply taking that addressed the problem. He is not on exogenous testosterone. Now, I don't know if he has to be on aromatase inhibitors forever. I don't know how that works, but yeah, it's kind of interesting. There's, there, it's not the only solution to a low T problem. If you do

want to seek pharmaceutical intervention is not, it's not just testosterone. There's other ways to address it. Um, and there, I would say like, you know, the good, you got to find a good provider. That's not just going to write you a script. You know, you pay your cash and you get the script and then go, you want to find somebody who's willing to work with you. And like, you know, over a period of time and wants to see that they've addressed your lifestyle factors clinically as well. Yeah, I would agree. So there we go. I don't know. That's not very popular. You know, Joe Rogan's probably pro-TRT. He loves TRT. Yeah.

He's like, why would you not take it? Right? You don't want to be strong? You don't want to be jacked? Come on. You can do whatever the fuck you want. That's kind of where I'm at. You know, these are just our opinions.

Yeah. Just my opinion. You know, you can do whatever the fuck you want. You know, there's plenty of people taking a bunch of shit that live like shit. You know, maybe they live shittier without it. I don't know. Yeah. But that is our point on this, and i think we've hammered it pretty well yep there you go all right well so much for that uh shorty yeah hour-long shorty hour-long shorty

hey man that's uh that's that's right that's that's what you get here you get a good good tight hour with uhights and Plates. All right, man. Why don't you sign us off? Thank you for tuning in to the Weights and Plates podcast. You can find me at WeightsandPlates.com, where you can also hire me for a consult or for online coaching. We have diet training in both. You could visit me in Phoenix, if you're in Metro Phoenix. We've got Weights and Plates Gym here off of 32nd and Broadway, just south of the airport in the South Mountain Village.

here off of 32nd Broadway, just south of the airport in the South Mountain Village. We have private training and gym memberships where you can learn how to perform the basic barbell lifts or, you know, chat with me about diet. And lastly, I'm on Instagram where I post most of my content these days at the underscore Robert underscore Santana. The gym has one at weights double underscore and double underscore plates. And you can find us on youtube where you should subscribe i've just finished uploading all the old episodes and we're about to drip in the last 11 episodes that were all video based with the exception of 78 at youtube.com slash at weights underscore and underscore plates yep there you go and you can find all those links down in the description, whatever podcast player you're using. They're there for every episode.

Yeah, you can also find the links there for me on Instagram at marmalade underscore cream. That's my handle on Instagram. And if you want to email me any coaching questions or you're interested in online coaching, that is a service that I provide. You can find me at jonesbarbellclub at gmail.com. All right, we'll see y'all again in a couple weeks. Bye.