The Training Style That Maximizes Testosterone in Men Over 40

There's clearly a influence of hard work at the neural level and then at the muscular level for increasing testosterone and whether or not you combine endurance activity and weight training, whether or not that has any effect if you do the endurance activity first or second. Heavy weight training but not weight training to failure where completion of a repetition is impossible. So now let's talk about how exercise in its various forms, weight training, endurance work, weight training to failure or less intense weight training can impact testosterone levels. If you look on the web, people say, "Oh, you know, testosterone is increased by weight training. You want to do big heavy compound movement, squats and deadlifts and chins and things of that sort." But what about the scientific studies? Like what's the actual basis for this? Cuz if you just take a step back and look at this from the perspective of a scientist, you'd say, "Okay, what is a squat? A squat is loading up a bunch of uh weights on a bar and then you know sitting down essentially and standing up over and over again. Um what's a deadlift? It's lifting heavy weights from the ground. Why would that increase testosterone? Right? This is what's often not discussed in the weight training or even the exercise science community. What what would actually stimulate the release of testosterone from the adrenals and or testes? And which one is it? Adrenals or testes or both? And that's often not discussed, but as a neuroscientist, these are the kinds of things we think about because we think always that genes don't create behavior. Immune systems don't know when to be activated. Lungs don't know when to inhale or exhale. Hearts don't know when to beat except for the information that it gets from neurons. The nervous system controls all of that. And so really, the answer has to be in the neural system that's related to these particular types of weight bearing exercises. So what's interesting is when you start digging into the more mechanistic studies, what you find is that heavy weight training, so this is weight training where the the sets are done with anywhere from, you know, kind of one to eight rep range. So this translates differently depending on ratio of muscle fiber type and so forth. But where basically people are working at anywhere from like 70% to 95% of their maximum or sometimes even going right down to their one repetition maximum. really kind of uh you know max effort what you find is that using the nervous system in a way in which they're moving heavy loads so that I would translate to recruitment of high threshold motor units for you muscle physiologists and there's a rule in muscle physiology about the neur neuron recruitment for moving muscles where you basically use the minimum number of motor units of neurons to activate muscle as you possibly can as loads increase you have to recruit more and more neurons It's you always hear about recruiting muscle fibers, but really it's recruiting more neurons to recruit more muscle fibers. And what you find is that heavy weight training, but not weight training to failure, where completion of a repetition is impossible, leads to the greatest increases in testosterone. Now, I'm sure there are a bunch of exercise jockeyies out there that are going to, you know, come at me with a bunch of things where, oh, yeah, but high volume and this and training to failure and that, sure. um if you're willing to kind of put things side by side, adjust for um exogenous testosterone treatment and all the the rest which was done in these studies, what you find in general is that weight training with heavy loads, so anywhere from one rep maximum to somewhere in the you know 6 to eight rep repetition range increases testosterone significantly and it does it for about a day, sometimes up to 48 hours. And the studies that I found which seem to hold the most rigor or weight based on where they're published as opposed to being published in the journal I've never heard of it. They're published in good quality exercise physiology journals. Many of these actually include Duncan French who runs the UFC training center who I've had the the privilege of meeting and discussing some of this with before um as well as other authors of course. But they all point to the fact that there's something about the engagement of the neurons that recruit high threshold motor units in muscle when moving heavy loads but not to failure that has to provide some sort of feedback signal either to the gonad to produce more testosterone or is increasing the activity of receptors in the body. Now why do I say that? Well this is the puzzle right? How is it that a particular movement just like how is it that interacting with your child is increasing or decreasing testosterone? This is the kind of fundamental question at the mechanistic level and we answered the question for child rearing. It has probably something to do with smell and pherommones although I'm sure there are other cues as well. But there's clearly a influence of hard work at the neural level and then at the muscular level for increasing testosterone. And there's also clearly an effect of working too hard and presumably increasing cortisol too much, although I'm speculating there, in terms of reducing testosterone. And so, the reason we're getting nitty-gritty about this is because ultimately we'd really like to understand what are the optimal protocols. You know, out there in the literature, you hear move heavy objects to increase testosterone. Some of that will be converted to the more powerful androgen, DHT, by five alpha reductase, etc. But we really don't understand yet how these particular behaviors increase testosterone and whether or not it's doing that by modulating the receptors or it's modulating testosterone release directly. Presumably testosterone released directly and sensitivity of the receptors. That's what most of the muscle physiology studies that I was able to find point to. But this basically boils down to a particular set of protocols where if you want to increase testosterone for whatever reason that weight training with heavy loads but not to failure seems to be the best supported at least scientifically supported solution to that. Now it may not raise your testosterone levels as high as you want but it's definitely taking things in the correct direction. Now, many of you might be endurance athletes or also enjoy exercise besides heavy weight bearing exercise. And there are several studies exploring whether or not endurance activity can increase or decrease androgen levels and whether or not you combine endurance activity and weight training, whether or not that has any effect if you do the endurance activity first or second. And the takeaway from all of this was that endurance activity if performed first leads to decreases in testosterone during the weight training session as compared to the same weight training session done first followed by endurance activity. In other words, if you want to optimize testosterone levels, it seems to be the case that weight training first and doing cardio type endurance activity afterward is the right order of business. Now, when these are done on separate days, it doesn't seem to have an effect. There is they showed no statistical interaction, but it seems that if you're going to do these in the same workout episode that it's move heavy loads first, then do cardiovascular exercise. So, there's a little bit of data looking specifically at how endurance exercise impacts testosterone and its derivatives. And it's very clear that high-intensity interval training, sprinting, etc., which somewhat mimics the neural activity that occurs while moving heavy weight loads is going to increase testosterone. There's ample evidence for that in the in the literature and that endurance exercise that extends beyond 75 minutes is going to start to lead to reductions in testosterone presumably by increases in cortisol. But of course, the intensity of the exercise is going to be important too. you know, no one ever I don't think anyone really believes that hiking for the three hours is going to reduce your testosterone. It whereas I think if one were to go out and run hard for three hours that you can imagine there' be reductions in testosterone by way of increases in cortisol. And so while this area certainly needs more research, it's pretty clear that limiting the endurance exercise to 75 minutes or less, not making it too intense, is one way to keep cortisol from going through the roof. But I've talked on previous episodes and there are a lot of others who have talked out there about how to clamp cortisol, how to keep cortisol more reduced. This is also one of the reasons why you can imagine that various individuals either for competition or just for their own purposes are rely on testosterone therapy, exogenous testosterone, not just for weight training but for endurance exercise. So this is one of the reasons why every once in a while professional cyclists will get popped for performance and hecting drugs meaning they'll get caught. And it's not just that they're increasing red blood cells through EPO and things of that sort. Often times they're also taking testosterone, not because they want to be large or have massively hypertrophied muscles, but because they because they're injecting testosterone, they don't have to worry about cortisol induced reductions in testosterone. They can just clamp or keep their testosterone levels high. Not something I'm recommending, but I'm justifying the rationale for why an endurance athlete would want to do that at

This episode breaks down the neuroscience of testosterone through strength training, exploring how heavy lifting without failure triggers powerful hormonal responses that keep men strong, vital, and sharp well into midlife. We look at what actually happens when you load the body with 70–95% of your max effort, the neural recruitment patterns, the high-threshold motor units, and the feedback loops that tell your body to release testosterone. The data show that these brief but intense efforts can elevate testosterone for up to 48 hours, creating the hormonal conditions for long-term vitality and performance. But the other side of the equation is just as important. Overtraining, marathon cardio, or training to failure can push cortisol too high, blunting the same hormones men are trying to boost. That’s why the order of your training matters. Science shows that doing weight training first, then cardio, optimizes testosterone and keeps cortisol in check, while endurance sessions over 75 minutes start to reverse the benefits. For men over 40 and 50, this isn’t about chasing numbers, it’s about protecting the systems that drive energy, recovery, and resilience. This conversation explains why strength training is as much a signal to the brain as it is to the body, and how smart programming can help you stay strong and hormonally balanced for decades. Join #1 men’s community for strength, fitness & longevity. Ask questions, share knowledge, and get support to stay strong for life https://www.skool.com/theory-of-man-5968 Subscribe for more practical, science-backed tips to improve your health and well-being: https://www.youtube.com/@UCgT9oGaVMnQovXUCLPMJu_A Podcast Host: Andrew Huberman YouTube: @HubermanLab #testosterone #strengthtraining #longevity #menshealth