PART II. EXERCISE
INTRO Exercise can either be used as positive stressor on the body, i.e one that causes growth and adaptation, or it can be used as a negative stressor on the body, ie. one that causes catabolism (break down) and degeneration.For this reason I will break this section into optimal forms of exercise and ones to avoid. It is important to note that an optimal diet or lack thereof will either support or hinder your athletic performance and strength development.
Optimal Exercise vs Types To Avoid
(MASCULINE PHYSIQUE, NEUROMUSCULAR & ATHLETIC TRAINING)
For optimal exercise we will utilize a principle that demands that we activate the most amount of muscle tissue as possible, done explosively while remaining under a stress threshold. This ensures that training is a positive stress on our bodies and encourages anabolism (growth) instead of catabolism (breakdown).
There are a variety of these kinds of exercises but a basic example of this would be a pullup. It activates a massive amount of muscle tissue, it can be executed explosively and because the exercise is self limiting (at a certain point you can’t complete another) it ensures that we stay below a stress threshold. Ideally we want to be getting as close as we can to this stress threshold without going over it, to ensure adaptive change in the body. This brings me to my next point.
In order to continue receiving an increase in testosterone from our training, we must continue to drive adaptive change. This means constantly pushing ourselves to become stronger in the gym.
We simply won’t receive the hormonal benefits from resistance training if our bodies become used to the stimulus. This means doing the same weight week after week without challenging our bodies will not be very beneficial.
Other examples of pro testosterone exercises are compound movements done correctly, Weighted Dips, Shoulder Press, Muscle ups, Squats, Sprints, etc. For all of these exercises we must also make sure that we are getting ample rest between sets and keeping our sessions short and intense.
This gives us time to recover and ensures that our cortisol stays low throughout the workout. I recommend resting a minute and a half - 3 minutes between sets. It also means that we should pick 5-7 exercises and not drag out our gym sessions.
An ideal gym session is anywhere from 45 minutes to slightly over an hour. This will be good news to some of you who hate to spend a lot of time in the gym, and it will be an adjustment for your average gym rat.
An added benefit of this style of training is that it works with our bodies to build a natural and masculine physique. The reason for this, is that we will utilize exercises that activate the parts of our bodies most dense in androgen receptors.
Androgen known receptors are the receptors in our tissue that anabolic hormones bind to and cause growth. Certain areas of our bodies like the shoulders, traps, chest, and back are particularly dense in these, and are also the areas that lend to a masculine looking physique.
As a final benefit these exercises are athletic by nature. Many bodybuilders train isolution movements that lead to very little functional transfer in the real world. You’ll be able to take the power, speed, agility, and coordination you get from these workouts and be able to utilize them in athletics, and general daily activities.
TYPES OF EXERCISE TO AVOID
First, the kind of exercise we want to avoid are exercises that chronically raise cortisol (the primary stress hormone in the body) Cortisol and testosterone have an inverse relationship which means as cortisol rises, testosterone decreases and vice versa.
Activities such as chronic endurance training (long bouts of distance running, cycling, etc.) are notorious for elevating cortisol. The body is in a constant state of stress as it is engaging in this type of exercise thus it doesn’t get a chance to properly rest and recover.
Those who engage in these activities chronically often experience issues such as adrenal fatigue. For optimal health we must do our best to limit these kinds of exercises, and while some of us will never give up on endurance sports completely, we can at least limit our participation.
PYRAMID TRAINING
Pyramid training vs Reverse pyramid training
Most people in the fitness world are familiar with the idea of pyramid training.
It is essentially when we start with a lighter weight for higher reps and slowly work our way up to a heavier weight with lower reps. This is typically used on compound exercises like the bench press, where the goal is to essentially get the strength and hypertrophy benefits of both methods of exercise.
The only issue with regular pyramid training is that it does not optimally utilize our CNM (Central Nervous System) This is because by the time we arrive at our heaviest weight we’ve already done a large amount of work on our previous sets. For this reason reverse pyramid training is a superior approach to take.
For RPT we essentially flip our sets, we start with our heaviest set at the beginning of our workout, when our central nervous system is fresh and work down in weight while slightly increasing our repetitions.
We can make continued strides towards strength and muscular gains by training our compound movements in this fashion. In addition we should also be incrementally increasing the weight on these movements to continue pushing for adaptive change.
Illustrated comparison of each training approach - by Brad Pillon of “Lean Gains”
Optimize vs Toxify
As we can see all of our daily actions from the way we train to the household products we use, contribute massively to our overall health. A simple way to think about this, is that at any moment we are either picking actions that optimize or toxify. When we can consume some burger king, we’re toxifying, when opt for a healthy home cooked meal we’re optimizing. To many these actions might not seem big in the short term, however over time they shape who we are from the cellular level up. What might our lives look like when we are operating from these different places?
Well, they are massively different in about every way imaginable. For example when we are giving our bodies the necessary vitamins and minerals it needs, practicing mindfulness, exercising properly, and minimizing our toxic load we can approach the world from a place of empowerment and proactivity.
Now if we contrast that with a lifestyle of toxification, processed foods and stress, we will approach all situations from a disempowered reactive place. Everything from the way we feel, view ourselves and the way we show up in relationships start from the actions we’re taking consistently towards our health. We reap what we sow.
Our bodies are just like a garden and just as a garden tended to properly will bring forth bountiful fruit, a garden tended to poorly will only bare weeds.
SLEEP, STRESS REDUCTION & PLAY
1. Sleep Each extra hour of sleep can mean roughly 15% more testosterone for the day ahead. This means that it is absolutely crucial that we optimize the quality of our sleep.
A study from Penev et al Where the researchers gathered up a group of healthy men and tested their testosterone levels first thing in the morning showed that the guys who had slept for 4 hours, had testosterone levels hovering around 200-300 ng/dl. In comparison the guys who slept for 8 hours had testosterone levels at around 500-700 ng/dl.
The results are simple and show that the more sleep you get, the more testosterone your body produces. So how can we optimize our sleep quality? We can take a few powerful measures. First, we can ensure that we reduce our exposure to blue light from electronics at least an hour before we go to sleep. Blue light is notorious for halting the secretion of melatonin which primes our bodies for sleep.
This means cutting down on screen time before bed and instead opting for activities like reading. For those of us who absolutely have to work at night, I recommend downloading an app called FLUX on all of your devices. Flux turns your screens orange at night, which will reduce the effects of electronics on sleep quality.
Next we must make sure that our room is set for sleep. I like to imagine the ideal room for sleep as resembling a cave, dark, quiet and slightly cool. For this I recommend sleeping with a fan/turning down the thermostat. Using black out curtains, and sleeping with white noise from a fan or earplugs for those of us who don’t have to wake up to an alarm. As a final note having a dinner rich in high glycemic carbs will give us a “carb crash” when we need it right before bed!
In the training section we touched on stress as it relates to training (physiological) however there are also two other types of stress, psychological stress and environmental.
Psychological stress typically stems from work and interpersonal relationships. This type of stress is best mitigated through mindfulness and relaxation exercises. A 2013 study by the department of psychiatry showed that daily meditation has a significant effect on lowering serum cortisol levels in adults.
In addition we must check our body language. Open and expansive body language can have a direct result on our feelings of wellbeing and greatly impact our cortisol to testosterone ratios.
The next type of stress is environmental and relates to eliminating our exposure to toxins in our environment through our water sources, household products, and other factors which I will touch on in the next section.
Play -
When was the last time you devoted a few hours to actual play? Not sitting in front of a video game for hours, but actual joy invoking play. As kids, running wild, we would often make a game out of anything and everything.
Unfortunately as we get older we lose touch with this capacity for play. Many start to believe that it’s just for children, and that adults should be more serious. In actuality play can be one of our greatest tools in living happier lives. In fact it can restore balance to us, and allow for a positive outlet.
Personally I’ve found some of the best ways to play, are the activities that incorporate the people we love, and our sense of adventure. This might look like gathering a group of friends to play paintball, creating a scavenger hunt, or just playing some frisbee.
Music can be another awesome avenue to play and is my personal favorite. When you play music, your imagination is firing, you’re naturally engaged and you can even collaborate with others to make an even more incredible creation. The ideas are endless but the more engaged we are with the type of play we’re participating in the better.
LIMIT EXPOSURE TO HOUSEHOLDS, KITCHEN & SELF-CARE PRODUCTS
(things to avoid & use)
It may be shocking for many of us to know that we are exposed to a chemical cocktail on a daily basis. These toxins come in the form of our household products, for instance many shampoos, soaps, cleaning products and deodorants we use are laden with BPA, Phthalates, Estrogen mimickers and other harmful chemicals.
To combat this we can opt for natural soaps, shampoos, and self care products. We can check the ingredient lists on our household products, and make sure that they don’t contain these components. We can also opt for natural detergents, and household cleaners. Some awesome alternatives are Dr. Bronners, Mrs. Meyers cleaning products and Seventh Generation.
Our water sources are also typically less than optimal. Unfortunately toxins such as fluoride, chlorine, and heavy metals are often in our tap water. We can mitigate these effects to a large degree by purchasing a high quality water filter.
I personally have been using a water filter for years and beyond having cleaner water I even notice a difference in taste from regular tap water. The next piece is eliminating cooking products such as non stick pans, teflon, plastics tupperwares/bottles and substituting for glass, ceramic, and stainless steel alternatives.
Studies have shown the average man's testosterone in today's society is nearly 25 percent lower than in the 1980s. This to a large degree is attributed to plastics. Cheap plastics are one of the most commonly used materials today, despite being potentially carcinogenic they also leach a large amount of xenoestrogens into our body thus further increasing our estrogenic load.