Went back and re-listened to this last night. The things they mention, aside from strength training, are all things I’m already doing. Seems like the only real training modification is going to be finding the right place and time to add that into my training rotation
I’m still hopeful there’s a solution where I can modify my on bike schedule and volume to find a better balance, but there doesn’t seem to be much research or even anecdotal evidence of things people have tried (successfully or otherwise)
Either way, it has been shown to be very hard to obtain. Perhaps USADA has given out more exemptions since early 2017 (TUE or RCTUE) but 4 in roughly 2 years isn’t promising. The process looks time consuming, expensive, and possibly fairly stressful.
I had an issue like this several years ago. My t levels dropped to the double digit readings which is super low if people don’t know. Rest is important. You mention 7.5-8 hours a night, if you can up it another hour a night. Make sure that you are getting good fats in.
Endurance training is going to lower your t levels. Maybe switch to two harder workouts a week, a couple endurance ones, and a recovery ride. As much as I’ve liked TR and the plans I feel like once you get out of base and go into the build it can put in too much intensity which can really ware you down and drop those levels.
I wake up every morning without an alarm and feel fresh and awake all day. I’d like to get more sleep for a testing point but I’m not sure how I could do it since my body wakes me up in the morning consistently. It is nice to not have an alarm set on work days I must say
This is similar, but slightly different, from what I’ve switched to. I’ve dropped the 90 minute TSS fillers from my Wednesday and Friday evenings and this is allowing me to do pretty hard efforts on Tuesday and Thursday.
I’m hesitant to add back in the recovery/endurance rides for the time being as I think those are the least beneficial compared to their impact on my levels. I definitely worry about excluding them entirely though as eventually my, currently very solid, aerobic base will decay and I will need to rebuild it
Nothing too dramatic. My results on the bike were very strong this year, but my results on the blood draws stayed consistently low. My best T numbers came during a relatively intense period towards the end of my season when I was racing consistently and well - but my numbers the rest of the season were well below the lower limit
I tried a number of different modifications to my training, recovery, and diet…unfortunately none had any measurable impact
Things I tried -
changing workout time to morning to improve sleep and overall recovery timing. This did lead to better sleep but didn’t budge my numbers
More rest days, same volume. Increasing the amount of days off the bike per week from one to three, but maintaining the same volume
Decreased volume - shortened or removed nearly all endurance work and maintained intensity
Increased high quality fat % in my diet (avocados, olive oil, eggs)
Dramatic decrease in volume - two weeks right before a blood draw with no intensity and 50% total volume by time
Recently I’ve been playing around with Polarized training, which doesn’t seem to have changed anything
Coming up next week I’m going to take my official off-season and spend about 19 days completely off the bike - obviously hoping to see some increase here
I’ve also had a couple of appointments with an endocrinologist and will likely be getting some further scans done to see if the cause is something other than my training volume
Assuming the 2.5 weeks off and MRI don’t move the numbers then about the only thing left to try would be a more prolonged period off the bike to see if I can get back into normal. I have a further two weeks off (vacation) scheduled at the end of the year and if my October rest doesn’t do anything to reset my levels then I will go back to high volume training for November/December and possibly extend that two weeks at the end of the year until things start to look normal again
I have not - I will ask my doctor about both although based on some research (not much tbh) it sounds like DAA is more likely to help me. Thanks for the suggestions
@trpnhntr I’ve never taken exogenous testosterone & I’ve been pretty seriously comitted to never taking exogenous testosterone for a couple decades now. Whatever your doctor says I would really steer you away from that path. If you think your testosterone is low now wait until you take exogenous test for a couple months and then stop. However you are now, you’ll never be able to get back to that same person once you cross that line.
For a long little while I was committed to NOT taking testosterone but competing in sports that WERE committed to taking exogenous testosterone. Ha! So I spent a lot of time and money trying to figure out how to modulate my testosterone without using pharmaceuticals. I can report that I spent a few thousand dollars on hormone blood panels but had not much success with any OTC or dietary product. The two most effective things were:
1.) Recovery.
2.) Suet.
And Suet is a distant second. But it does at least reliably move the needle. I’m not sure why it’s true that suet worked but other types of animal fat (like just butter) didn’t seem to. But there it is.
What type of doctor diagnosed you with low T? A general practitioner, an Endo or other?
Were you diagnosed with primary or secondary hypo-gonadism?
What were your T levels and lab reference ranges?
Did your doctor just test for Total Testosterone? Or did he / she also test for Free Testosterone, SHBG (sex hormone binding globulin) and E2 (estrogen)?
I looked through the thread but didn’t see what your T numbers actually came in at? The range is big for Testosterone. The lab where I get my results show 250-1100 ng/dL as the range. At the end of the season I get down 4xx but I know it rebounds back into the base period and back into race season for following year. (37 year old / cat 1 mtb racer)
I just bought kidney fat and rendered it. Then poured the rendered fat into a silicone mini-cupcake pan & sat it in the fridge for an hour or so. After that you can pop them out the mold and keep them in the pantry if you want. I kept them in the freezer, though.
You can use it during cooking whenever you would use a pat of butter or a tbsp of olive oil.
I’m an older cat 2 (almost 45). Same W/kg. Same annual hours.
My body can’t handle 3 “on” weeks anymore (except for base period), but it does great with 2 “on” weeks followed by 1 rest week. Overall I feel great, not as warn down constantly. I can push my Saturday rides a little bit harder/longer with this as well. I’ve also noticed that I can’t push my high end as frequently and get the same results. I can go high, just can’t do it constantly (2x per week rather than 3x). Endurance keeps getting better and better. I only ramp up to 3 hard days per week for important stage race prep, then back off.
First showed up in routine blood work from my GP, but have since spent a decent amount of time with an endocrinologist
Neither
250-1000 reference ranges, I consistently test between 100-175
I’ve had all of those except estrogen tested although I don’t know the values off the top of my head
I’ve experimented with a ton of different training approaches over the past 12 months - none have shown any change in my T levels (or had a noticeable difference in my results or performance on the bike). Perhaps I’ll try an extended period in January/February where I switch to a 2 on 1 off approach
With T levels that low im not sure how you are training at all. Do you have any Low T symptoms such as fatigue, brain fog (trouble concentrating), depression, trouble sleeping, night sweats?
I have low T (diagnosed with secondary hypo gonadism) about 5 years ago and the 6 to 9 months before my diagnosis and start of a TRT program were absolutely miserable and my levels were the low 200’s. Pretty much had all the symptoms listed above.
