Hormones and Fitness

Nate Wilson

Testosterone, insulin and cortisol. Although there are many active hormones in the body, these are probably the most commonly mentioned. If you haven't heard of these, it may be a good idea to become acquainted with them, as they all play their part in building muscle, burning fat, regulating your moods and many other important processes in your body.

Regulating these hormones is largely attributed to exercise and diet and sometimes medication. Getting your levels checked on all of these can be a smart move as you age, or if you feel like your body is out of sync. Let's talk about what all of these hormones do and how they can be controlled.

Testosterone is a hormone that is seen in men and yes, women too. Testosterone is produced in the testes of men and in the ovaries of women. It's largely responsible for protein synthesis and repairing damaged muscle tissue.

Testosterone is very important in sex drive, but there is also an important mental health component that I think is particularly interesting from the perspective of a neuroscientist, Andrew Huberman. Although I couldn't find his original quote, it was something to the effect of "Dopamine makes the achievement of something after effort feel good, while testosterone makes the pursuit/effort of something feel good in itself." In short, testosterone makes effort feel good.

For those who have low testosterone, a common prescription to increase T-levels is exercising, specifically strength training. This is mostly true, but it should be noted that too much exercise can decrease testosterone levels. Typically, the effects from exercise on testosterone will be determined by intensity and longevity of the workouts over periods of time. For instance, hardcore exercises that include compound lifts for excess of 2 hours or so will more than likely decrease your testosterone levels as it will be placing too much demand on your body. It's tough to say what the perfect amount is, but typically an hour to an hour and half of exercise with some compound lifts with plenty of time for recovery should keep you producing healthy amounts of testosterone.

Let's talk cortisol. For those who have done a little digging into the subject, this hormone is often demonized as too much release of this hormone and it could decrease testosterone and decrease some of the positive anabolic effects from strength exercise. Cortisol is considered "catabolic" as it suppresses muscle and tissue growth.

This sounds sad and melancholy, which sometimes it is, but cortisol plays an important role in regulating things within the body. Cortisol plays an important role in controlling your mood, just as testosterone, dopamine or any other component in your body does. It's probably a little more like the strict parent we need in our body, where as testosterone and dopamine are more of the feel good, get strong party hormones. Cortisol is the yin to the yang.

Cortisol also contributes to regulating inflammation, metabolism, blood pressure and even memory formation. But there is also reasonable concern for cortisol as this is the main stress hormone in the body. This hormone is released when we become stressed, whether it be situations at work, or enduring a workout at the gym. When we exercise, cortisol actually increases during the exercise itself, but decreases to lower levels after the workout and throughout the day because of the exercise. This is a good thing. Monitoring your stress levels throughout your days and weeks can assure that you don't accumulate excess cortisol which can lead to some serious health concerns if it goes unchecked for a long period of time. Some short term indications that cortisol might be too high include headaches, decrease in libido, or excessive anxiety. The good news is, if you are exercising, you will be helping regulate this hormone in your body!

Last but not least, insulin levels are a huge factor in determining if we are staying healthy or not. Insulin is produced in the pancreas and is released in response to foods we ingest, especially carbs and sugars. Insulin helps your body use sugar for energy by taking it from your bloodstream and placing it in cells all over your body. Through genetics or a bad diet, your body can become "Insulin resistant" meaning their body does not produce enough insulin to disperse sugar throughout the body, thus blood sugar levels will rise. Along with higher blood sugar levels, this means the body will not be able to produce muscle, as insulin is an important building block for becoming stronger. Insulin resistance is caused by obesity or being overweight, genetics and the possibility that there is too many carbs and sugar in your diet. In order to remedy this, low carb diets, weight loss and vigorous physical activity can help your body to regulate blood sugars more efficiently.

Having your hormones checked regularly by your doctor can be an essential preventative factor in diseases and comorbidities. Furthermore, if you are not seeing results you wish to see in the gym or you just don't feel right, then it could be related to hormone imbalances. In the end, though, as you all you know I believe, if you are active and you make an effort to eat right at least 80% of the time, your body will feel much better

Nate Wilson is a certified personal trainer through NASM and is the owner of Elite Fitness LLC. He is certified for Fitness Nutrition and is a Behavior Change Specialist. Contact Nate at 640-0668 or [email protected].

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