Low Testosterone from running?

there is an interesting thread with a guy running 100m/w and having very low testosterone.

I can't give you the link as I don't remember the title.

High mileage does impact testosterone negatively.

I started that thread referenced above. Long story short, do NOT mix high mileage, weekly racing, workouts, and a caloric deficit for many months.

i would agree with what some others posted. my sex drive got very low when i was doing high mileage, and not eating enough

LIFT

You need to eat more. The male athlete triad (low T, low energy availability, low bone mineral density) is just as real as the female athlete triad, and stems from failure to maintain adequate energy supplies to compensate from your increased training load. High milage/high training loads are fine if you can support them, but will negatively affect your reproductive health if you aren't maintaining adequate energy availability.

"in male athletes participating in high-volume training, the findings of decreased testosterone and abnormal semen profiles (Table 1) likely reflect the failure of these athletes to increase energy intake in a manner that accommodates the increased energy expenditure associated with a high training volume [53, 54]."

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-019-01217-3

nturner wrote:

Im a pretty serious high school runner and am getting into pretty serious high mileage lately. I’m not gonna go into detail but I think my sex drive is seriously low lately and I think it’s a result of running so much. Has anyone else experienced this and is it even possible?

make sure you are eating and sleeping enough

When the Arabs castrated slaves they were of the opinion that they were stronger and could work harder. Makes you wonder.

nturner wrote:

Im a pretty serious high school runner and am getting into pretty serious high mileage lately. I’m not gonna go into detail but I think my sex drive is seriously low lately and I think it’s a result of running so much. Has anyone else experienced this and is it even possible?

A few more things to add for you...having been there before...

1. Get your levels tested. Go to an endocrinologist the FIRST time. Don't waste your time with urologists.

2. You can function this way for awhile before it catches up with you. I had the best road racing season my life before things really went wrong, more below...

3. Once you start to notice the drop in T (low sex drive, cold chills in the afternoon for no reason, weight continuing to drop despite an increase in caloric intake) DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Don't continue to run high mileage and expect things to 'go back to normal.'

4. I assumed by stopping racing/workouts, that things would go back to normal. My T PLUMMETED after racing ended even more (to below 100). The MILEAGE is more harmful than the WORKOUTS.

Drop your mileage, maintain your workouts if you want (better off taking it easy altogether for now and start eating more. You can bounce back. I went on TRT for a few cycles, but you can avoid that if you do something about it NOW.

Awful advice.

If they are in high school they should stay the hell away from TRT. They are still way to young to be messing with a developing endocrine system

jimbo23 wrote:

Awful advice.

If they are in high school they should stay the hell away from TRT. They are still way to young to be messing with a developing endocrine system

Well, duh. I never recommended he start TRT.

LowTRunner wrote:

Drop your mileage, maintain your workouts if you want (better off taking it easy altogether for now and start eating more. You can bounce back. I went on TRT for a few cycles, but you can avoid that if you do something about it NOW.

Why are you messing around with the T? That stuff is for the old cats!

Need to up your calories specifically in protein and fat intake. Figure out how many calories you are burning with exercise and then balance it out with food intake. Fats will help with cholesterol building and cholesterol will end up as hormones.

Additionally you should begin strength training. No crazy power lifting but the basics.

Crusty Old Runner wrote:

LowTRunner wrote:

Drop your mileage, maintain your workouts if you want (better off taking it easy altogether for now and start eating more. You can bounce back. I went on TRT for a few cycles, but you can avoid that if you do something about it NOW.

Why are you messing around with the T? That stuff is for the old cats!

I wasn't "messing around" with T. It was prescribed to me on a short term basis (3 months, 6 doses of 1mL) to help alleviate my symptoms and get my levels back to normal. I'm off it now and feeling just fine.

I had problems with this. Ran very high mileage (>130mpw) for a long time and eventually I lost a lot of speed and had basically no sex drive. When I did masturbate, which was basically once every two months at this point, I had no semen whatsoever. This went on for a few months.

I took a break for a few weeks following a string of injuries and sex drive came back and so did semen production.

If I could have done things differently, I would have reacted and taken some time off earlier and let myself reset rather than having months of mediocre training. Don't expect this issue to magically resolve itself. If the issue persists for more than say, 5 weeks, it isn't just short term fatigue associated a temporary increased load, but your hormones are probably out of whack.