Squats = increased Testosterone. True or False.

[KnightTemplar]

I've read that regular free weights training, especially focusing on big, compound lifts, increases one's testosterone. But are Squats better than Bench, Deadlifts etc or just the same?

 

[Justice 4 All]

I heard/read squats produce a high quantity of HGH.

 

[KnightTemplar]

Same here. I was interested in reading the opinions of Sherdog's more advanced Lifters on the subject.

PS: Love the avatar. Always good to meet a fellow Geek!:icon_chee

 

[PCP]

No this is mostly bullshit. Hormone levels are only elevated for a very brief period of time after exercise after which they return to normal. It is an inconsequential side effect.

 

[InFunkWeTrust]

Hey TS, I just noticed you're the guy w/ the broken foot thread. Man, I was bummed out when i broke my shit. I had just started Rippetoe two months earlier and was making serious gains. No doubt, squats and dead's can change your entire body type. They are hands down the two best lifts for overall strength, imho. I've watched Rip's youtube vids plenty of times to really help me focus on form. Anyhow, squats are king and should be hailed as such. good luck recovering.

 

[Steakeater**]

True but irrelavent

 

[KnightTemplar]

Hey TS, I just noticed you're the guy w/ the broken foot thread. Man, I was bummed out when i broke my shit. I had just started Rippetoe two months earlier and was making serious gains. No doubt, squats and dead's can change your entire body type. They are hands down the two best lifts for overall strength, imho. I've watched Rip's youtube vids plenty of times to really help me focus on form. Anyhow, squats are king and should be hailed as such. good luck recovering.

Thanks, man. Hope I'm back into heavy lifting before too long.

 

[Justice 4 All]

Thanks, man. Hope I'm back into heavy lifting before too long.

I fractured my toe and bruised my ankle falling down some stairs. Luckily it didn't interfere with my lifting .

It shouldn't take too long for your foot to have sufficiently healed for lifting. But be careful.

 

[KnightTemplar]

I fractured my toe and bruised my ankle falling down some stairs. Luckily it didn't interfere with my lifting .

It shouldn't take too long for your foot to have sufficiently healed for lifting. But be careful.

I intend to be. Taking it easy sucks, but it's a lot better than the alternative.

 

[gspieler]

more muscles used and more weight lifted= more testosterone production, hence more during squat and deadlift than bench.

 

[Big H]

they deffo help full body muscle growth, keith wassung-

(Excerpt from "Squatting for Strength and Development")

Squats and Systemic Growth

You may be wondering, "Just exactly how do squats promote growth throughout the body?" To begin with, the squat involves multiple joints and muscles which in turn increase the level at which the nervous system must coordinate movement in conjunction with the lifter's muscle-skeletal system. In the squat there are numerous muscles of the body working simultaneously to provide the stability and mobility needed for this exercise. It has been estimated that there are up to 200 muscles involved in the squat.

The hormonal or endocrine system combined with the nervous system makes up what is known as "neuroendocrinology". This term describes the relationship of chemical substances that have both neural and hormonal functions. The endocrine glands are stimulated to release hormones by a chemical signal received by the receptors on the gland or by neural stimulation, which is what occurs during weight training. Ever wonder why you feel particularly upbeat and euphoric after a hard workout, even if you are physically drained?

It’s because of the increased presence of hormones in your body, hormones that also influence our moods. This is similar to the “runner’s high” experienced by long distance runners.

The increase in anabolic hormone levels observed after a hard workout can increase hormonal interactions with various cellular mechanisms and enhance the development of muscle protein contractile units. On neural stimulation from an alpha motor neuron to initiate a muscle action, various signals (electrical, chemical, and hormonal) are sent from the brain and from activated muscles to a number of endocrine glands. Hormones are secreted during and after the workout in response to the physiological stress of resistance exercise. This simply means that the nervous, muscle-skeletal, and hormonal systems are responsible for the effects promoted by exercises like the squat.

There are various hormones, which produce this effect, and the one that most people are familiar with is testosterone. It's been demonstrated that testosterone serum concentrations can increase with exercises such as the squat.

Squats can increase growth throughout the entire body because they use numerous muscles and this means they stimulate more muscle fibers than say an exercise such as a leg extension or a leg press. The greater the fiber recruitment, the greater the process for potential growth and development in the muscle. Only muscle fibers that are recruited by resistance training are subject to adaptation and the more muscles used in an exercise like the squat the more the muscle fibers are stimulated.


Keith Wassung

 

[Ghost Ape]

they deffo help full body muscle growth, keith wassung-

The second part of the bolded text is true. However the first part seems a little misleading. Sure testosterone levels may increase a little bit after squatting or deadlifting heavy, but that doesn't mean it stays at an elevated level for a long enough time to make any noticeable difference on the body.

 

[zhangmaster12]

Acute testosterone and cortisol responses to high ... [Fiziol Cheloveka. 2010 Jul-Aug] - PubMed result

No changes were observed for either Cort or the Tes/Cort ratio. HLa significantly increased post-exercise (mmol x L-1 ; pre = 1.00 +/- 0.09, post = 4.85 +/- 1.10). The exercise protocol resulted in no significant changes in Tes, Cort or the Tes/Cort ratio, although the Cohen's D value indicates a very large effect size for the Tes response. The acute increase for Tes is in agreement with previous reports that high power activities can elicit a Tes response. High power resistance exercise protocols such as the one used in the present study produce acute increases of Tes. These results indicate that high power resistance exercise can contribute to an anabolic hormonal response with this type of training, and may partially explain the muscle hypertrophy observed in athletes who routinely employ high power resistance exercise.

Found this study, make what you want of it.

 

[Endeavor]

Walking moderately for 30 minutes has also been shown to cause a spike in hormone levels. But that spike, just like the spike caused by heavy compound lifts, is inconsequential.

The benefits of heavy compound lifts on the entire body comes from their ability to engage many muscle groups at the same time and their ability to challenge the CNS, not from the hormone spike that they cause.

 

[turbozed]

No this is mostly bullshit. Hormone levels are only elevated for a very brief period of time after exercise after which they return to normal. It is an inconsequential side effect.

I think there was a long discussion about this a few months back. There was one study done that showed only acute hormone response that later subsided. However, squats weren't even involved in this study. They did like 10 leg extensions or something like that.

The study that was just posted in this thread actually used squats, so it would be more relevant. Still, it contains baffling lines like this:

Although not significant, post-exercise Tes exhibited a very large effect size

Given the sparse and inconclusive research on this subject, I wouldn't say that the testosterone effect has been proven to work (at least in the way that most sports trainers argue it does). For the same reasons, though, there's not enough evidence to conclude with any certainty that it's bullshit either.

So the answer to TS's question is: maybe true. The more important question is how much.

 

[pliftkl]

Watching porn elevates testosterone, and requires less recovery time than squats.

I don't know if squats elevate testosterone or not, but they make me big and strong.

 

[Chest Rockwell]

I don't know if squats elevate testosterone or not, but they make me big and strong.

pretty much sums it up. Do you simply want 'higher test levels' or do you want
to have 'more muscle, strenght, and power?'
If you answer the latter then squats are your best friend

 

[BayAreaGuy]

Question for the people who think it does:


Does doing heavy squats for 10 reps boost your T-levels more than doing moderate weights for 20 reps?

 

[Tosa]

I think there was a long discussion about this a few months back. There was one study done that showed only acute hormone response that later subsided. However, squats weren't even involved in this study. They did like 10 leg extensions or something like that.

The study that was just posted in this thread actually used squats, so it would be more relevant. Still, it contains baffling lines like this:


Given the sparse and inconclusive research on this subject, I wouldn't say that the testosterone effect has been proven to work (at least in the way that most sports trainers argue it does). For the same reasons, though, there's not enough evidence to conclude with any certainty that it's bullshit either.

So the answer to TS's question is: maybe true. The more important question is how much.

I'd say that for practical purposes not knowing enough about whether there's enough of a tesoterone elevation to benefit, or how one would train to maximize this benefit is the same thing as there being no benefit...as I'm going to be squatting regardless.

Watching porn elevates testosterone, and requires less recovery time than squats.

...So the answer to getting stronger is squats and porn. But seriously, do you have a link to a study or article on this? I'm interested on knowing more of the specifics.

 

[PCP]

I think there was a long discussion about this a few months back. There was one study done that showed only acute hormone response that later subsided. However, squats weren't even involved in this study. They did like 10 leg extensions or something like that.

No, they basically compared guys who were doing a high volume of leg extensions and single limb movements to guys doing squats and other heavy compound movements in addition to the single limb movements. The idea was that one group would elicit a high hormonal response from their training and the other group would have little to no hormonal response, and they would measure the difference in hypertrophy in specific limbs. They measured the muscle tissue that was worked (ex:the quadriceps) and noticed no real difference between the two groups. The conclusion was that the acute, brief release of hormones as a response to training was inconsequential in terms of overall hypertrophy and strength gains.

This was a valid study that dispels a lot of the bullshit myths you read on the internet about squatting to raise your testosterone.