Testosterone is one of the most vitally important requirements to build muscle, as well as important for overall health. It is the direct trigger for the body to rebuild back muscle. The workout is just as important as that is the stimulus. Testosterone then comes in to massage the body to repair muscle and build it back stronger! Of course, you also need to have nutrition sorted out and adequate amounts of protein(the building blocks). Then there is also rest/sleep for the recovery, where most of the muscle repair happens. Everything works together and you cannot neglect any of them, however, testosterone is the hormonal messenger that carries out the whole process.
Testosterone is one part of an entire complex pathway coming from the adrenal glands. Testosterone is one of many androgens produced by the adrenal glands. However, testosterone is one of the most important hormones in building muscle because it acts on the muscle directly for rebuilding. Testosterone is produced the most during exercise and sleep. This means that sleep is just as important.
The only problem with our testosterone is that our body cannot use all of it. A large amount is unusable as it is bound to proteins called SHBG’s(sex hormone binding globulin). Out of the total testosterone we have there is only a small amount that is ‘free testosterone’. Shockingly there is only 2%-5% of our total testosterone that is free testosterone and usable. That means there is 95%-98% bound and unusable.
What makes things worse is that our testosterone levels have been declining in the past 50 years. The specific level of testosterone that would be considered ‘low testosterone’ is not well known, however there is a clear decline in testosterone over time. This could be due to any mix of poor quality of food, poor diet, poor sleep, pollution in our air and water or evens levels of stress, especially chronic stress.
The causes of chronic stress is typically misunderstood as far as where it is coming from. Very little comes from the emotional stresses in life, those are typically short lived and are referred to as ‘acute stress’. The difference between ‘chronic stress’ and ‘acute stress’ is the duration. Acute stress is short lived and typically coming from the emotion of stress during stressful situations. Chronic stress is long term, constant stress, such as the type that would be experienced all day when you only got 4 hours of sleep. Or when you forget your lunch and wallet and have to go the entire day hungry, while still having to put your body through work physically or mentally. It could be the test or exam that you’ve been dreading all week. Or the performance meeting you’ve been trying not to think about all week. Even just the day to day timeframes, appointments and meetings you have to be on time for. These are all long term stressors that contribute to our chronic stress.
The chronic stress is typically coming from our overly busy and overscheduled lifestyle that we have made normal. Additionally, our lack of sleep and lack of eating regularly and properly add to our levels of chronic stress. The big problem is that stress opposes testosterone by action, but also affects the direct production of testosterone.
Pure Testosterone contains Tongkat Ali(LJ100®) is a patented adaptogenic nutraceutical, scientific backed with 15 clinical studies. We added Tongkat Ali to help regulate stress hormone and free up more testosterone. Tongkat Ali has been shown to help reduce stress hormone levels(cortisol), which is a hormone that opposes testosterone. Tongkat Ali has also been shown to help free more of your total testosterone by releasing more free testosterone from SHBG(sex-hormone-binding-globulin). LJ100 is an extract of Longjack (Eurycoma longifolia) which has been shown to help support total testosterone levels via the HPG(hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal) axis.
Testofen ® was also added to Pure Testosterone. Testofen ® is a patented specialized saponin glycoside extract from Fenugreek(Trigonella foenum-graecum seed) by Gencor™. Testofen® has been shown to significantly increase free testosterone in a 12 week trial at 600mg dose. This may be due to the inhibition of aromatase and 5α reductase, reducing the conversion of testosterone to estrogen and dihydrotestosterone, leaving more total testosterone. Free testosterone is the most important testosterone because it is the only usable testosterone in the body.