How Much Does Testosterone Actually Help Running/Endurance?

100/week and 250/week are totally incomparable.

We're talking roughly high natural values vs twice the natural values (assuming you eventually suppress your natural levels, which will be of course faster and more pronounced with 250).

Anyway, anecdotal evidence tells that at 250 the downsides for endurance outweigh the upsides.

Yes, you can probably train harder and recover faster, but you're feeling bad endurance-wise and you're much less efficient. You also risk injuries when doing faster stuff, because well, you're more powerful and your muscle tension is higher, but your tendons etc are not up to that power level yet. Your resting heart rate raises significantly (10 beats+), so you have less of the heart rate reserve.

But! Once you're off the stuff, you will have a couple of weeks of pure upsides without downsides, your endurance level skyrockets, I am guessing the higher rbc count takes about 3 weeks to go to the baseline levels.

Personally, I would not abuse T for performance benefits, it's a useful drug that can be beneficial and doesn't deserve the bad rap it received in the last few decades, but it's not fun to train on it and it's not fun to race once you're off it, because you can never tell if your new PR was your training or just a very temporary boost from T. And if you're in the money, it's just not fair to competitors.

Darby wrote:

Anyway, anecdotal evidence tells that at 250 the downsides for endurance outweigh the upsides.

Yes, you can probably train harder and recover faster, but you're feeling bad endurance-wise and you're much less efficient. You also risk injuries when doing faster stuff, because well, you're more powerful and your muscle tension is higher, but your tendons etc are not up to that power level yet. Your resting heart rate raises significantly (10 beats+), so you have less of the heart rate reserve.

But! Once you're off the stuff, you will have a couple of weeks of pure upsides without downsides, your endurance level skyrockets, I am guessing the higher rbc count takes about 3 weeks to go to the baseline levels.

What makes you say this?

Isn't test responsible for the extreme majority of differences between male and female performance?

Another point.

Don't think about cortisol as your enemy, that prevents your from recovering.

Cortisol and testosteron are the two sides of the same coin that is recovery.

Catabolism and anabolism will balance each other out and shape your most efficient running body, if you just let them do their job and provide enough nutrients.

One word - Caster Semanya. All the proof you need of how effective it is.

Broscience_the_real_1 wrote:

Darby wrote:

Anyway, anecdotal evidence tells that at 250 the downsides for endurance outweigh the upsides.

Yes, you can probably train harder and recover faster, but you're feeling bad endurance-wise and you're much less efficient. You also risk injuries when doing faster stuff, because well, you're more powerful and your muscle tension is higher, but your tendons etc are not up to that power level yet. Your resting heart rate raises significantly (10 beats+), so you have less of the heart rate reserve.

But! Once you're off the stuff, you will have a couple of weeks of pure upsides without downsides, your endurance level skyrockets, I am guessing the higher rbc count takes about 3 weeks to go to the baseline levels.

What makes you say this?

Isn't test responsible for the extreme majority of differences between male and female performance?

Yes, it is. But between males, do you think the best runners are those that have higher T? :)

Those differences you're talking about are coming from years of going through puberty under influence of either male or female hormone profiles (it's not just T/E), forming very different body types. And we're talking about 3 times natural T levels here, do you really think it's linear improvement all the way?

Darby wrote:

Yes, it is. But between males, do you think the best runners are those that have higher T? :)

Those differences you're talking about are coming from years of going through puberty under influence of either male or female hormone profiles (it's not just T/E), forming very different body types. And we're talking about 3 times natural T levels here, do you really think it's linear improvement all the way?

Kind of. For track events, old guys do not set records. 25 is over the hill.

I cannot see why the same test levels do not also help as they build more endurance later for the marathon.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

One word - Caster Semanya. All the proof you need of how effective it is.

First, see my response about going through puberty and forming a body type.

Second, I was talking about endurance. Semenya is middle distance coming from sprints.

Third, I was talking about very specific additionally injected levels of T, which have nothing to do with Semenya.

My guess is having naturally high levels of T is beneficial to any athlete, because you're adjusted to those levels from puberty and they are usually balanced out by your brain for you to function well.

Microdosing T might be beneficial, I have no proof if it is or is not and I was not talking about that.

I think that the biggest benefit of testosterone, like many other PEDs, is shortened recovery time and reduced injuries.

Testosterone is an anabolic steroid, so the increased muscle growth and bone density won't make you a better distance runner but you will be able to do a higher volume and intensity of training, which will you make you a faster runner.

I

Broscience_the_real_1 wrote:

Darby wrote:

Anyway, anecdotal evidence tells that at 250 the downsides for endurance outweigh the upsides.

Yes, you can probably train harder and recover faster, but you're feeling bad endurance-wise and you're much less efficient. You also risk injuries when doing faster stuff, because well, you're more powerful and your muscle tension is higher, but your tendons etc are not up to that power level yet. Your resting heart rate raises significantly (10 beats+), so you have less of the heart rate reserve.

But! Once you're off the stuff, you will have a couple of weeks of pure upsides without downsides, your endurance level skyrockets, I am guessing the higher rbc count takes about 3 weeks to go to the baseline levels.

What makes you say this?

Isn't test responsible for the extreme majority of differences between male and female performance?

Seems more like it's female hormones that explain the majority of differences.

Darby wrote:

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

One word - Caster Semanya. All the proof you need of how effective it is.

First, see my response about going through puberty and forming a body type.

Second, I was talking about endurance. Semenya is middle distance coming from sprints.

Third, I was talking about very specific additionally injected levels of T, which have nothing to do with Semenya.

My guess is having naturally high levels of T is beneficial to any athlete, because you're adjusted to those levels from puberty and they are usually balanced out by your brain for you to function well.

Microdosing T might be beneficial, I have no proof if it is or is not and I was not talking about that.

In running events a highly masculine physique isn't necessarily helpful. Hormone profile matters much more than having a male-type puberty during your growth spurt.

msb21 wrote:

I think that the biggest benefit of testosterone, like many other PEDs, is shortened recovery time and reduced injuries.

Testosterone is an anabolic steroid, so the increased muscle growth and bone density won't make you a better distance runner but you will be able to do a higher volume and intensity of training, which will you make you a faster runner.

The other issue is that really high volume of training depresses testosterone levels. So while having more T than an average male may not be helpful for distance runners, supplementing it can still be helpful to bring them back toward the normal range.

msb21 wrote:

I think that the biggest benefit of testosterone, like many other PEDs, is shortened recovery time and reduced injuries.

Testosterone is an anabolic steroid, so the increased muscle growth and bone density won't make you a better distance runner but you will be able to do a higher volume and intensity of training, which will you make you a faster runner.

That's the general idea. Here's a short video on EPO & testosterone use with endurance athletes - the testosterone segment starts @ 3:50 in:

If it is not really a net positive for endurance athletes why has a certain US distance runner been on it since high school. His "former" coach seems like a guy pretty knowledgable in the science of distance running.

Darby wrote:

Broscience_the_real_1 wrote:

What makes you say this?

Isn't test responsible for the extreme majority of differences between male and female performance?

Yes, it is. But between males, do you think the best runners are those that have higher T? :)

Those differences you're talking about are coming from years of going through puberty under influence of either male or female hormone profiles (it's not just T/E), forming very different body types. And we're talking about 3 times natural T levels here, do you really think it's linear improvement all the way?

Among people in the natural range of young men the correlation of performance with T levels is pretty weak. Low T (or being female) has a much stronger link to poor performance.

Here is an interesting article I came across when doing a lit review recently for school. Basically says that testosterone can increase red blood cell count through increased natural EPO and reduced hepcidin.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4022090/

Apples to oranges, since dude in Icarus was taking a lot more than just T, but didn't he improve his cycling performance like 20+ percent from one year to the next? This is from the first part of the documentary, where it's more about just his personal science experiment, before it goes into, btw, massive Russian state-sponsored doping scheme and cover-up.

As for just testosterone, that's basically the premise of The Doper Next Door. It's been awhile since I read it, so I forget his conclusion... I think it worked, rather than not worked, but maybe not as well as he had expected. This was all re: cycling, in his case.

The ‘increased bone density harming performance’ isn't legit. We’re talking maybe half a lb. Bones are far lighter than one would assume- the difference between a small woman and a very large man’s skeleton is only about two pounds, from what I remember.

22twos wrote:

The ‘increased bone density harming performance’ isn't legit. We’re talking maybe half a lb. Bones are far lighter than one would assume- the difference between a small woman and a very large man’s skeleton is only about two pounds, from what I remember.

I don't have an opinion on T with regards to performance, but the above is correct. I had my bone mass measured recently--I'm 5'8 and my bone mass is 3.2kg (about 7lb). I was very surprised with that, our bones really are cool little troopers

3hr-marathoner wrote:

Darby wrote:

First, see my response about going through puberty and forming a body type.

Second, I was talking about endurance. Semenya is middle distance coming from sprints.

Third, I was talking about very specific additionally injected levels of T, which have nothing to do with Semenya.

My guess is having naturally high levels of T is beneficial to any athlete, because you're adjusted to those levels from puberty and they are usually balanced out by your brain for you to function well.

Microdosing T might be beneficial, I have no proof if it is or is not and I was not talking about that.

In running events a highly masculine physique isn't necessarily helpful. Hormone profile matters much more than having a male-type puberty during your growth spurt.

Phil, your arrogance led you to a moranic conclusion again. What a toolbag.