5 Ways to Fix Your Depleted Testosterone Levels
by Chad Howse

There’s a war being waged against our manhood. Okay, it’s not an “overt war”, as in the world isn’t conspiring to remove us of our masculinity, but it’s doing a pretty damn good job without even trying.

Here are the scary facts:

• Men are producing less testosterone with each decade.
• Men are producing even less testosterone with each generation.

So, why is this such a bad thing?

When most of use think about “testosterone”, we think about steroids, and aren’t steroids bad?

Yes! Steroids aren’t the greatest thing in the world simply because they’re a synthetic version of a hormone your body produces naturally. When you take steroids (or testosterone injections from your doctor) your natural production of testosterone is slowed or even stopped.

But testosterone is a great and wonderful hormone.

High NATURAL testosterone levels:

• Help you burn more fat.
• Help you build more muscle.
• Reduce your risk of cancer and disease.
• Lower your risk of depression (testosterone is actually good for your mental health and not the rage-producing hormone we’ve been led to believe it is).

If you want your body to perform optimally, and if you want to get ripped or get jacked, you have to first fix your testosterone levels.

Check out this article: 3 Myths KILLING Your Testosterone Levels

Week 7 – My jacked Journey

Keeping Track of Your Gains
In the past, I have recommended pretty standard methods for tracking your progress outside of the gym. The typical recommendation was, pick one day out of the week and weigh yourself on that day, every week. I have recently realized that, although this method could work, it certainly is not the most optimal. This is simply due to the fact that, our weight fluctuates a great deal from a day to day basis.

In my opinion, taking your weight on a daily basis and calculating the average is far superior when it comes to tracking your progress.

Tracking Your Weight Gain Correctly
So here is a quick rundown of how I calculate my average weigh in for that week and how I calculate my progress (or lack thereof).

1.  I weigh myself every single day, first thing in the morning (Starting Monday and Ending Sunday)
2. Once I have completed my last weigh in for that week (Sunday), I add up all of my weigh ins for the entire week and divide them by 7 (the amount of days I weighed in that week). The number that I get is the average weight for that week.
3. Finally, I subtract my previous average weigh in from my latest average. The number I get, is the amount of weight (on average) that I have gained.

Example: Week 1 Average Weigh-In 152.3
Monday: 152.4
Tuesday: 153.8
Wednesday: 153.4
Thursday: 153
Friday: 152
Saturday: 152.4
Sunday: 153.2
Week 2 Average Weight-In 152.8
152.8 – 152.3 = 0.5 lbs Gained

Weight Gain Update!
This morning I weighed in 0.4 lbs heavier than last Monday, but my average weigh in was a whopping 1.3 lbs heavier. I did have an oddly high weigh-in yesterday, and I may even consider removing that weight from the equation.

Week 7 Macros

Diet Update
Considering the amount of weight gained, calories will (as of now) remain the same for the entirety of week 8. If the weight starts to decrease, I may slightly bump up the carbohydrates.

Before I answer the question, let me quickly explain exactly what failure is.

Muscular Failure: Repeating an exercise to the point where a repetition fails due to inadequate muscular strength.

That’s right! The meaning of “training to failure” is actually taking your set to a point where you cannot finish a repetition. But let’s be honest, if this is failure, then 99% of gym goers never actually train to muscular failure (if you go according to the definition).

So…the simple answer is, HELL NO!

BUT WAIT!
Let’s talk about the more practical train-to-failure method. From this point forward, when I mention failure, I will be referring to training to a point where your form breaks down and bar speed slows down dramatically. If a rep takes more than 5 seconds to complete, you have successfully failed (pun intended).

Yes and no…what I mean is, you should only aim for what I like to call, performance failure.

This simply means that you should always stop your set at the point where you cannot perform another repetition with absolutely perfect form. If your form breaks down on a rep, you have gone too far. To most people, when lifting in the 3-5 rep range (heavy), this is simply translated to something like, stop with 2 reps left in the tank.

To simplify this, I’ll give you this (very elementary) chart.

To explain briefly, if you are training heavy, you should always stop with a couple of reps left in the tank. If you are training with a moderate weight, training a little closer to failure is totally fine…as long as you are not training to a point where form breaks down.

Week 6 – My Jacked Journey

Finally
As you may have noticed, from reading the last few weeks of My Jacked Journey, I have had to play with my caloric intake a little bit as I was gaining weight too quickly after a certain point in my reverse diet. I also mentioned in past updates that I would probably not increase my fat intake throughout the rest of my bulk, however, I did. In the chart below you will notice that I have increased my fat intake by 10 grams and that my carbohydrate intake is no longer fluctuating.

Why more fats?
The reason for me to increase my fat intake was simple. For one, I was finding it extremely difficult to hit the higher number of carbs without going slightly over my fat requirements. And for two, although 10 grams may not seem like a huge different, at 50 grams of fat per day I still felt as if I was on a calorie restricted diet. However, at 60 grams per day, I feel I have more than enough wiggle room to enjoy my meals without having to restrict my fat intake. I am finding it a little easier to fit peanut butter into my diet these days, which I am certainly happy about.

Weight Gain Update
My average weigh in this week is 0.3 lbs higher than last weeks. Now, although that is slightly lower than my goal, I would much rather be slightly under than be dramatically over. For me, this was certainly a successful week in terms of weight gain.

Why and How to Deload?
Last week, for me, was a deload cycle where I performed an active recovery by decreasing my volume and intensity. I received enough questions about deloading that I figure I would write an entire article on the topic for anyone who asked.

How to Deload for Optimal Recovery and Strength Gains <== Click here

My Mudda Funkin’ Training Routine

As you can see in the chart above, this week’s heavy workout happened to be a push workout. And to be quite honest, I let me ego get the best of me. If you looks at My Jacked Journey Week 3, you will notice that my bench press was at 235 and I fell a little shy of hitting my numbers all the way through. With that said, it would have only made sense for me to slap on 235 and try again…and I did.

De-load: A planned reduction in volume and/or intensity, usually for one cycle (or microcycle) of your training split, whose purpose is to allow the body to dissipate accumulated fatigue, allow a full recovery, and prepare you for progress.

The benefits of de-loading
• The repairing of ligaments, tendons, and joints.
• Recovery of the CNS (Central Nervous System) to recover.
• Reduces the risk of overtraining.
• Mental Break
• To prepare for greater progress.

Failing to de-load
If you are anything like me, you absolutely love pushing your body in the gym, all the time. Unfortunately, there will come a time where progress will either come to a complete stop and we can no longer add weight to the bar for progressive overload or our performance regresses. These are both good signs that we are overreaching and/or close to overtraining. If we push our body to the point where it is over-trained, the de-load/recovery phase could take much longer.

Other Signs of Under-Recovery (Needing to de-load)
• Lifts are not increasing (and potentially decreasing)
• Feeling tired and unmotivated to train
• Achy joints and tendons
• High frequency training for a long period of time without a de-load