Are your numbers really that bad given your training status? I had a comprehensive blood test recently and my free T is even lower than yours (3.68) and my total wasn’t much better (240). My thyroid and SHGB were normal though. Wasn’t really concerned, seems like it’s a reality for endurance athletes. The links from Gerlach and Beals were some interesting reading ... will maybe pick up some fish oil pills. Some related googling suggests ginger and maybe Vit D as well (though my vit D lvls were fine).

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

I have low testosterone as well, measured low around age 35 and I am 47 now, still low. Low as in below the normal range, like 10-20% lower than the bottom of normal.
I also seem to have naturally high BP, despite training and being otherwise healthy. BP seems to hover close to 140/80. My father had similar issues, and I think they determined he likely had benign small tumor(s) on pituitary, which can cause both low T and high BP.

I chose to not go on TRT because:
1. Would have to stop competing in tri's. And as others mentioned, I don't think they give out a TRT for a drug like that unless you are literally in danger if you don't use it.
2. When you introduce a hormone like that, you then skew a bunch of other stuff in your body, including your BP, your estrogen, etc etc. Go on any TRT forum and read about the long list of drugs a lot of these people take to try to balance everything.

why not eat fish instead? get your protein and good fats in 1 shot. usually with the pills the oil has gone rancid.

You have to be careful what you are looking at online. There are a lot of guys with normal range testosterone using TRT purely for sports performance/body building (essentially doping). For those guys it's certainly possible they are creating supraphysiological levels of testosterone, which may have side effects. This isn't the same as someone with low testosterone putting using TRT to get back into normal range, where adverse side effects are more unlikely.

Interestingly there was call to ban those thyroid hormones not so long ago but WADA disagreed. But let's not get into wada inconsistencies which could be a huge thread in itself.

This is the wada guide for physicians about granting TUE for hypergonadism (low T):

https://www.google.com/...GYy1TkuVRd07jwO_jOTn

So I'm assuming it is possible to get one. Of course you have to be able to prove its organic not functional, which may not be so easy.

FWIW I'm a little uncomfortable with TUEs for TRT. While there are clearly examples where a guy needs it for health, there are a lot of guys playing the system and grey areas. It's a different conversation though and more ethics than a right/wrong.

Thanks for the responses. It really comes down to the continued loss of bone density and osteopenia trending towards osteoporosis. Based on the conversations it seems like there hasn't been much success with people continuing to train and compete while restoring their levels, but some anecdotal success with stopping training. Unfortunately for me when i took time off my levels came up some, but never really returned to normal...just scraping the bottom of the barrel. The documentation on the TUE looks pretty challenging to prove, but i do have the MRI scans showing my supressed pituitary. I may talk to my endocrinologist about the document and see what they think.

I'll say again it's worth checking your daily calcium intake. You need to rule out deficiencies in calcium and vitamin d as even with greater testosterone they are going to limit bone health. Cycling and swimming are not going to improve bone health. Maybe try replacing them with some resistance training or some kind of weight bearing aerobic exercise.

It all comes down to what your goals are. My personal outlook would be to take a step back from triathlon for health (osteoporosis is serious), even if that means going on TRT and not being able to compete. It's a personal decision though.

I just had my bloodwork done because I just haven’t felt normal in a couple of years. Normal as in energy levels, ability/drive/motivation to workout and so on. It all started to go downhill after I got COVID in July 2021. I had long COVID symptoms that lasted for more than a year. I posted about that before. There appears to be some medical research that points to COVID playing a role in hormonal problems in men.

Most of my bloodwork was great. Exceptions to Vitamin D, B12, and testosterone. One of the Vitamin levels (can’t recall if it was the D or B12) was borderline severely deficient. Adding some stuff to diet and taking some supplements to boost. Bloodwork again in a couple of months.

My T level was ~400, and Free T was 9.2 ng/dL. Both low average for a 50+ year old male. Before heading off to the Low T McClinic I wanted to educate myself on boosting my T levels via diet, exercise, and other homeopathic means. I’ve been stuck in the rut of wanting/needing more exercise but not having the energy to do so. Need to turn it around.

Reading through this thread has been helpful, especially Cody Beals’ insight on his website.

Cody, please chime in if you come across this. You wrote about this 9 years ago and would appreciate an update.

This thread is two years old and would appreciate other people’s experiences as well.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

Scam pseudoscience is unable to work beyond the placebo effect. Don’t waste your time and money.

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Greetings from the German Wine Route,
Roland

What about all the essential oils and horny goat weed I just bought? 😉

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

Take it all back to those horny goats and demand a refund.

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Greetings from the German Wine Route,
Roland

To be fair here, I think he's using the term "homeopathic" incorrectly. True homeophathy is garbage. But diet, sleep, and type of exercise (which he seemingly mistakenly lumped in) are proven. I think he may have intended to mean "non-pharmaceutical," which is quite different from "homeopathic."

Exactly this. I did misuse the term.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

I'm 48 and I started to experienced symptoms of low-T late last year, in the aftermath of a late-summer Ironman. Things that worked for me were:

1. dialling back training, cutting weekly hours from 10-12 to 8-10
2. doing more interval work on the bike ( I went back to 90 minute interval sessions, instead of the longer, lower intensity riding I had done to get ready for IM)
3. cutting out early morning training completely (I only train at lunch and after work now), this gave me an extra hour in bed every morning and means my day starts in a more relaxed manner now. I had been going to a masters swim club two or three times a week, and the sessions started at 6 am, so I was waking up at 5.30 to an alarm. I decided that was one of the first things that had to go to let me recover.
4. replacing some of my triathlon training with rowing on my C2 and boxing (hitting the heavy bag) - which again is more intervals and strength based.
5. cutting some of the sugar from my diet.

I'm not sure to what degree each one was responsible for it, but after a month or so I started to feel way better: more energy, more vitality, less grumpiness and irritability. I didn't take any supplements or medications. I'm back in an IM build now, so I've started doing one LSD ride or one LSD run each week, but I am still doing mostly interval training as it makes me feel way better than lots of high-volume, low-intensity stuff. Not sure why, but my body and mind feel way better when I train 50/50 (as in 50% low intensity, 50% high intensity).

I private coach an NCAA xc/track and field distance runner who was diagnosed with RED-S among other things. I was brought in to help this athlete get through xc/T&F bc there was a history of stress fractures under the collegiate coach........every single season iirc.

The one thing that surprises/surprised me is how long it's taking to get this athlete back to healthy and return to competition. In my estimate it's going to be a minimal of 18mo from diagnosis to them beginning to start training, not actually training like, just beginning to train like a normal xc/t&f collegiate runner should. The recovery can be very slow from years of chronic low energy intake.


I can't speak to the rest of your issues. I might suggest if you can find one healthcare provider who can act as the point person for everything and give you advice globally vs each specialist giving you their suggestion. It seems that when everyone is giving you their treatment plans with a lack of overall coordination it's a clusterfuck.

good luck, hope you get healthy quickly

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

people perhaps like the op perhaps like many on this forum and perhaps like the subject of your post may really benefit from low dose t for health. These are very active and potentially over trained people but who just love grinding it out and pushing through in all parts of their lives. Lots of stigma about t but there is a big chunk of athletes who use t - there is the enhancement side but there is then just the health maintenance side to handle the training and not drop the red blood count too low. Those athletes and those advising them know they need it for their health.

Not a black and white issue imo

I hear you and wouldn’t necessarily be opposed in the grand scheme of things but I still want to do some racing and taking T is verboten unless one gets a TUE, which I hear is next to impossible to get. So I’m stuck going the non-pharmaceutical route.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

I would see the Wellness clinic, let them know your background.
Low-T is horrible, and if you do go on a plan then screw everyone, keep it to yourself, do the right thing with racing, and then taper off it.
The misnomer that once you submit to the treatment you’re in it for life is bull shit.
If it’s going to make the quality of your life better, I’d do it. If it’s going to make your partner ( being PC here because Slowtwitch has become sensitive ) happy in a few ways, I’d do it. Life it too short, and you’re getting ready for retirement here soon as well. Time to really enjoy life is coming up.

And while on it, go on a two to three year plan for a come back into the hobby of competition.

Insert reason #162712671562 why the "open" division should be for everybody, and that if you want to be in the "competitive" AG division, you submit to further WADA scrutiny on this stuff.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Let me give reason for no on this open idea. Some banned substances would also be open... Meth, etc.. requiring need for more medical staff

Pretty sure there's a relatively healthy in-between we can find on that front.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Was going to post on a different thread but since this is current, I'll say that for years (>20) I've always tested below normal in hematocrit and hemoglobin. I always thought this contributed to me sucking air on intense workouts. Last year I decided to try eating a spinach salad every day at lunch (with a salmon and cream cheese bagel) plus taking a women's multi-vitamin w/iron. I didn't eat that every day but probably came close to ~330 lunches. Went for my annual wellness visit last week, took obligatory blood tests, and what do you know? First time I ever remember both hematocrit and hemoglobin testing normal. I moved the needle with diet (not huge but several points). It's hard for me to correlate the increase with performance improvements due to aging but I do feel somewhat better/stronger. Of course, in my life every win comes with a caveat. A low back x-ray that was ordered for my sore back detected plaque in my aorta so now I have to follow up on that :(

Thanks for writing this

I wouldn’t be surprised if the demand of a 10-20 hour training week for a masters athletet with a hard job and life stress plus kids is higher than the demand of a 20-30 hour training week for a young pro - from a metabolic and hormonal perspective

there is a self harm element if you just continue to thrash yourself with low t

Get back in the gym and bang some weights.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.