Around the age of 30, a male’s natural testosterone production begins to decline. Regardless of whether your testosterone levels are dramatically low, or only slightly, there are a variety of things you can do to help raise them naturally. Along with taking a few key vitamins and supplements, reducing your sugar intake, and maintaining a healthy diet, men can also naturally raise testosterone levels with exercise and physical activity. Making exercise a part of your regular routine is beneficial to your health for a multitude of reasons, but giving a boost to your testosterone is definitely a perk.

How Does It Work?

Many know the general benefits our bodies get from exercise – improved cardiovascular health, increased strength, a boost to the metabolism, etc. But intense physical activity also promotes a release of testosterone in your system.

For those who are overweight, exercising helps aid fat loss, which gives a boost to both the metabolism and testosterone levels. Low testosterone is a common problem for those suffering from obesity, so exercise becomes doubly important. Not only does it increase testosterone levels, but it also helps combat the array of other negative side effects that come with being overweight.

Benefits of Strength Training

All types of exercise, from endurance cardio to resistance and strength training, can be beneficial in moderation. However, the best type of exercise to increase natural testosterone release is strength training. The more muscle groups you include in your workout, the better. Compound movements like pull-ups, chest dips, deadlifts, and squats target many muscle groups at the same time. These will provide a greater benefit than isolation exercises. Such as bicep curls, which only exercise one muscle group at a time.

To capitalize on testosterone release, aim for lifting a challenging weight. Furthermore, with a lower repetition range as opposed to an easy or moderately easy weight for higher repetitions. If you want to increase the intensity, take shorter rests in between sets. For example, rather than performing three sets of an exercise with a minute rest in between, take only a thirty-second rest and then continue.

You can also increase intensity by moving slower. It may sound counter-intuitive, but performing an exercise slowly actually allows your muscle to access the maximum amount of fibers possible. The slower motion increases the intensity, and actually, serves to make it quite challenging.  

HIIT Cardio

In addition to strength training, performing High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) Cardio is another form of exercise that can naturally raise testosterone. HIIT cardio combines periods of high-intensity cardio with periods of moderate intensity cardio. For example, a HIIT exercise may be to sprint for 30 seconds, and then walk or jog for 30 seconds. That would be one circuit, and you would repeat that circuit 10 times with no rest period.

HIIT cardio can be done on the elliptical, treadmill, rowing machine, bicycle, etc. You can also alter the amount of time to suit your needs. Some may need to start off sprinting for 30 seconds followed by a full minute of jogging or walking. Some may find that they would prefer to sprint for 45 seconds and jog for 30 seconds. For instance, maybe they’d like to go for 15-minute circuit instead. It’s highly customizable, but also relatively short, which makes it easier to fit into a tight schedule.

Talk To Your Doctor

When starting any new exercise regimen, it’s important to talk to your doctor about possible risks. If you’ve never exercised regularly, you won’t have the same endurance or strength as those who’ve been exercising all their lives. Your doctor will be able to help you understand your own physical limitations. Exercise alone will not solve all your testosterone worries. Although, compounded with a healthy diet and supplement regimen, it will help you naturally raise testosterone.

Naturally Raise Testosterone with Dr. Maita

Lorraine Maita, MD is an award winning physician, speaker, and author of “Vibrance for Life: How to Live Younger and Healthier.” She can make you slim, sharp, sexy and supercharged. She is an expert in anti-aging medicine, bioidentical hormone replacement, weight loss, medical nutrition, supplements, and executive health.  Dr. Maita was the medical director for 3 Fortune 100 companies and has a private practice specializing in Functional, Integrative, Personalized and Anti-Aging Medicine in Summit and Basking Ridge, NJ. She educates virtually at www.vibranceforlife.com. She is also an advisory team member for Change Your Attitude, Change Your Life on WOR radio, the #1 talk radio station in the NY Metropolitan area.

Dr. Maita specializes in a variety of services geared towards helping you feel like yourself again. If you have low testosterone, or you feel like you’re experiencing the symptoms of low testosterone, contact Dr. Maita’s office today to schedule your consultation appointment.