From praising the sun to pinemaxxing.

Testosterone is a man's life elixir. A sacred hormone all men must nourish. A chemical with the power to transform your life, so long as it’s rushing through your bloodstream in optimal quantities. We live in a dystopian society where the triumvirate of the Porn Mafia, the Soy Empire and the Scrolling Necromancer Lords reigns with an iron fist. This dark alliance has been dominating culture for decades now, and men’s testosterone levels have suffered for it. Manhood is wounded. You are not the same man your grandfather was. I’m not scolding you brother, this is not your fault. 

The big business tycoons of the porn, food and social media industries have carefully executed every step of the way to biochemically engineer modern men into homunculi. They’ve demolished testosterone levels and got us where we currently are. Sluggish. Addicted. Degenerate. Xenoestrogenic. Weak. Alas, all is not lost. There’s a glimmer of hope on the horizon as more men open their eyes, searching to reclaim their vigor. 

With each passing day, a greater number of us reject the unhealthy path the masters of “the current thing” forced upon us. Those awoken from their slumber reject “simp, sloth, and swine,” and embrace “sun, steel, and sweat”.  Your quest towards high testosterone and masculine vitality has taken you to this very article. My brother, you won’t leave disappointed. I know you seek to maximize your testosterone in every way possible (without using a needle). You may be seeking to build muscle, lose fat, increase performance, attain aesthetics, or have a raging boner again. Do not worry, as you’ll find answers to all your questions. Brace yourself as I guide you down the testosteronic rabbit hole. 

Major T-Boosters

Praising the Sun

Sunlight is a blessing for your male health. It directly up-regulates testosterone production by stimulating your pituitary gland. It also stimulates vitamin D synthesis which is crucial for testosterone production. Getting some glory rays on your skin, especially when shirtless, will absolutely do wonders for your man juice and your mood. Take pride in spending as much time in the great outdoors as you possibly can. You’ll feel the benefits right away. Praise the sun, gentlemen. 

Pumping Iron

Lifting weights is the most common testosterone optimization, just after sunbathing. Lifting to raise testosterone has been promoted for decades in the men’s health and fitness community. When you hoist hefty loads, little tears occur in your muscle fibers. Testosterone, acting as an anabolic, is secreted when you sleep to help heal those microscopic muscle tears. The more you train your muscles in a sesh, the more testosterone will be released at night to heal them. This is the reason people who lift have higher T than DYELs. 

Good Sleep

Sleep and lifting go hand in hand. If your slumber is consistently messed up, your testosterone levels will go down under. Period. Aim for eight hours of solid sleep, minimum. Testosterone is released during the REM (rapid eye movement) sleep phase. You can go through 4 REM phases per night if you sleep 8 hours. That’s plenty of T-boosting slumber. To further regulate your circadian rhythm, you must build a solid sleep schedule. This means having the same wake and bedtime every day. Try to go to bed early: PM hours of sleep are as refreshing as two AM hours.

High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

This is the main, scientifically proven testosterone-boosting cardio workout. In case you don’t know, HIIT is a type of training in which high-intensity intervals are followed by rest, then repeated. For example, doing 90 seconds of sprints followed by 90 seconds of rest, repeated for 15 or 20 minutes. The best part? If you don’t like sprinting, you can substitute it for bag work, rowing, jumping, or another intense activity. It’s a one-size-fits-all training method.

Eat Your Saturated Fats

The saturated fats you devour are used by your body as raw material to produce high-density lipoprotein cholesterol—the kind of cholesterol your testes need to make testosterone. Without saturated fats, your private T factory (the Leydig cells in your testes) will shut down. Having at least 10% of your calories come from saturated fats is a good rule of thumb. Butter, bacon, cheese, milk, and steak, preferably from organic, pasture-raised animals; all of these are delicious saturated fat sources that’ll grease your testosteronic grooves. 

Cortisol Control

Picture testosterone and cortisol as two similar products sharing the same production line. If one of these products gets built more, there’s inevitably not going to be as much raw material to make the other. Stress triggers the release of cortisol; this is where meditation, cold showers, or a wholesome stroll in the forest come in handy. All are elite cortisol-management chill pills. Less cortisol, more testosterone.

Get Lean Brah

Inside your body, there’s regular interplay between testosterone and estrogen levels. Even for the toughest men, having zero estrogen would unleash a ton of health issues. Your body is smart and it automatically prevents this. An enzyme called aromatase (remember this sucker for later) has the job to turn some of your testosterone into estrogen, maintaining the balance in your system. That’s where your love handles come into play; fat deposits contain extra aromatase. If you have a high body-fat percentage, more T than usual will be turned into estrogen. No bueno. Zero excuses to not get lean brah. 

Uncommon T-Boosters

Zinc

Apart from helping your body complete a plethora of important biochemical reactions, a daily dose of zinc will testosteronically enhance you. It does so by promoting the release of luteinizing hormone in the pituitary gland. Luteinizing hormone travels through your blood to your testicles and signals Leydig cells it’s T-making time. Nuts, red meat, and oysters are the holy trinity of zinc foods.  

Power Poses

Author Tony Robbins made this one go semi-mainstream a few years ago. Standing in a power pose (picture the “Superman stance,” standing tall with your chest out and arms akimbo) for just two minutes a day increases testosterone 20% while reducing cortisol 18%. A quick, easy and not-so-normie hack to know.

Get the W

Dominant male animals have higher testosterone than their underlings. The top lion leads the pack because he’s won against his peers. Humans no longer scale the hierarchy via brute force, but we still experience a significant testosterone boost after we win. At anything—even small wins count to unleash this winner’s effect. So you better make a to-do list and check it off. Let small wins give you momentum towards big ones. Your testosterone will follow.  

Eat Your Carbs

In today’s society of fit-tarded charlatans promoting their “5 Easy Secrets to Get Ripped Fast” so they can get sponsored by a scammy supplement company, carbs have been demonized.  The truth is that glucose is your body’s main source of energy. And glucose comes from carbohydrates. Your body enters literal panic mode when you don’t feed it carbs for a long time and will start churning out cortisol. Remember, cortisol is a testosterone killer. When you give your body some glucose, there’s an automatic decrease in cortisol levels. Eat your ribeyes gents, but don’t ditch the taters.

Asian Ginseng

Asian ginseng will overhaul your whole hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis (aka your testosterone-producing system). This herbal supplement will definitely stimulate your luteinizing hormone and testosterone levels. It makes for a great testosteronic tea.

Creatine Intake

Surprise, surprise: testosterone is not the only androgen in your body. In fact, even more powerful androgen variants exist. Enter dihydrotestosterone (DHT). You will want to increase DHT as it's even more potent than regular T. Creatine is your wingman for this mission. Getting just 5 grams of creatine every day via meat or supplements is proven to increase the amount of precious DHT in your body.

Xenoestrogen Detox

Xenoestrogens are compounds that mimic the chemical structure of estrogen. As a result, they can trigger your body’s estrogenic response. Xenoestrogens are widespread today because microplastic particles release them, and microplastics are ubiquitous in food, water, air, and containers. Microplastic particles can also create oxidative stress in your testis. Remember Leydig cells, your testes’ testosterone factories? They can die due to high oxidative stress. Not fun. To detox from xenoestrogens, it’s crucial to sweat (sauna or training) and to consume tons of antioxidants. Fiber will also absorb xenoestrogens in your body for you to later poop out. You can reduce exposure to xenoestrogens by limiting your use of plastic containers, cans, or coffee cups.   

Don’t Get Degen Drunk

Alcohol messes with your brain. And the mastermind behind your testosteronic wellbeing resides in your brain. This masterminds’ name is the hypothalamus, and its job is to control the release of all different kinds of hormones.  Now, a glass of wine never hurts, but getting drunk with the boys every single day will bite you in the ass. Alcoholism makes your hypothalamus underperform: luteinizing hormone won’t get released and the whole testosterone production line will get screwed up. The same happens if you smoke weed, by the way. Tell that to your friends next time they wanna go degen mode. 

Rare T-Boosters

Playboymaxxing

Being a playboy is a sign of high sexual value in our society. Slightly degen, but it is what it is. Alpha male animals have access to more mating options than betas, so there’s a clear parallel here. Men with higher body counts often have higher testosterone. It’s unclear if playboymaxxing is a cause or an effect of high testosterone, though it’s pretty safe to assume that bedding attractive women ups your T levels because of the winner’s effect. This is by no means a call to pursue a hedonistic lifestyle, so proceed with caution. 

Dopamine Detox

We live in a pleasure-seeking society. Everybody is addicted to something: porn, video games, TV shows, scrolling. After you indulge in your preferred poison, your dopamine levels drop below baseline; this is what makes you feel zombie-like after a 2 hour scrollfest. What few people know is that dopamine and testosterone are tightly connected. The link between the two is the hormone prolactin—a potent testosterone killer. When your dopamine levels are low, your pituitary gland starts releasing prolactin. And prolactin interferes with testosterone production.  Beware of those shiny notifications.

Boron Intake

Boron is another mineral that will support testosteronic action. Let me give you some context on this one: your bloodstream is a water-based delivery system, but testosterone is not water-soluble. Biology solves this problem by attaching your testosterone to proteins called sex hormone-binding globulins (SHBG). Those SHBGs are water soluble. They carry testosterone throughout the blood and release it where it’s needed. In the simplest terms, boron helps SHBGs to release a little more testosterone than normally. Make sure all your mineral supplements are chelated so they can be properly absorbed by your gut. 

Warrior LARPing

Males have testosterone for two main reasons: to fight and to mate. Joining a martial arts gym and fighting in a competitive manner is a bulletproof way to up your T. The trick is that you have to actually win your fights (or do well in your sparring sessions). Your testosterone levels surge drastically after a win but will tank if you lose. Careful with hits on the head as even mild brain injuries can cause low testosterone.

Semen Retention

A few studies have proved men who retain their semen for a few weeks have significantly higher testosterone than daily masturbators. This is because daily coomers suffer from low basal dopamine and high prolactin. However, when you don’t orgasm for a week, your body produces a massive surge in testosterone, with the intention of helping you find a mate and reproduce. If you ejaculate every day, you are telling your body you don’t need high testosterone. The good news is that if you ejaculate once after retaining for one to three weeks, the testosterone drop is not significant—it only starts dropping when you orgasm every single day for an extended time period. Optimize accordingly, gents.   

Coffeemaxxing

Remember aromatase? The enzyme that turns testosterone into estrogen? Caffeine inhibits it. Drinking coffee every day helps preserve your man juice. (As a side note, caffeine is thermogenic. This means it makes your metabolism run faster, burning more fat, theoretically increasing testosterone even more).

Ashwagandha

Enter our first esoteric herb, hailing from a secret magical forest of awesomeness. Ashwagandha is a nightshade variant that supports testosterone in a wide variety of ways. It increases luteinizing hormone, lowers cortisol, and acts as an antioxidant. However, some report feeling unwell after an extended period of taking it. Careful where you source it from…

Fadogia Agrestis

Fadogia directly stimulates your testes as it mimics luteinizing hormone. This will trick your Leydig cells into producing more testosterone than usual. It can make your testes grow, although there’s very little data on the matter and high doses can apparently cause kidney damage. Tread with caution.

Tongkat Ali

Also known as Eurycoma longifolia. This herb boosts testosterone through augmenting the testosterone release rate of SHBG. Again, be careful where you get it from as there’s a lot of shady versions of this one online. 

Legendary T-Boosters

Horny Goat Weed

This is arguably the oldest herb used to treat sexual issues. Horny goat weed has been utilized for thousands of years by Chinese emperors with hundreds of concubines. There’s little human data on its testosteronic qualities, but any supplement that gets you horny normally does so via promoting a T-spike. (The same thing happens to adolescent boys— they’re horny all the time because they have a tsunami of testosterone rushing through their veins.) With esoteric stuff like this, it’s always better to try out and see if it works for you. As with the other herbs, research thoroughly to find the most reputable dealer and be mindful of side effects.

Raw Egg Slonking

Raw Egg Nationalism time, gents. The precious yolk of the egg is packed with cholesterol. When you ingest raw eggs, you are literally feeding the biochemical reaction in charge of producing testosterone. But why do they need to be raw? Firstly, because cholesterol gets denatured when heated. Secondly, drinking raw eggs is much more time-effective than eating them cooked. The trick to safe slonking is to source your eggs from local farms. Ensure the chickens are clean and in good spirits. Please don’t slonk eggs from chicken concentration camps; make friends with a farmer or old lady who treats chickens how they deserve. Even better, build a chicken coop and raise your own small flock.

Raw Garlic Devouring

Ancient Greek warriors ate raw garlic before war. Back then, it was used as a primitive performance enhancer. Even by Olympic athletes. Diallyl sulfide, the stinky but fun chemical found in garlic, increases testosterone via upregulating luteinizing hormone. Garlic is the gift that keeps on giving as it’s full of antioxidants and magnesium; both of these support high T levels. For maximum testosterone optimization, garlic should be eaten raw, as its powerful sulfurous compounds rapidly degrade when exposed to heat. Cut up a clove and swallow its bits like a pill. If you want to take things to the next level, combine raw garlic and raw egg together with olive oil to form aioli. Aioli is a beautiful feat of Mediterranean cuisine and possibly the most based sauce on the planet, particularly if you want to give the middle finger to the health establishment.

Nicotinemaxxing

Nicotine is an infamous substance. When inside your body, nicotine is converted into cotinine. Cotinine is the real rockstar, as it inhibits one of the enzymes responsible for testosterone inactivation. I’m not advocating becoming a nicotine addict, but if you want to try it out, go for the gums.  

Ball Tanning

Before you run out and do a naked manspread in your backyard, wait a minute. Getting some glory rays on the twins feels great, I know from first- hand experience. Although there’s no recent human data on ball sunning (except great anecdotal evidence from respected Twitter anons like Benjamin Braddock) it’s impossible not to feel invigorated afterwards. The problem is testicle skin is delicate and more prone to sunburn than the rest of the body. You also don’t want your testicular temperature to go sky-high as that’s detrimental for T production. While sunning your balls for five minutes is fantastic, there’s safer ways to ball-tan for longer periods of time. You can up your game by procuring a no-heat red light lamp. This will give you all the benefits of sunning your balls without any self-castration disadvantages.

Citrusmaxxing

Citrus fruits are packed full of vitamin C, which is a potent antioxidant that will help prevent testicular oxidative stress. Vitamin C further supports testosterone by reducing cortisol levels. Don’t sleep on the lemon juice.

Berrymaxxing

Eat berries. Especially blueberries, cranberries and dark grapes. These berries are crammed with quercetin polyphenols. These compounds help reduce testosterone elimination through urine (among other juicy benefits). Berrymaxxing will also get you eating a ton of antioxidants in the form of several types of polyphenols, which will also boost your T.

DO NOT RESEARCH

Nutsack Cold Exposure

Did you know old-school boxers washed their balls with cold water before stepping in the ring? They did so to gain vigor and strength. Your testes are riddled with blood vessels.  When cold water hits them all these vessels contract, limiting the amount of nutrients entering your balls. That’s what you want. When their temperature goes back to normal the vessels will dilate, enabling a potent rush of nutrient-dense blood to enter. This is the mechanism likely causing T production. Source, you say? My anon friend on Twitter said so.

Huntmaxxing

Handling weapons increases testosterone. Point blank period. Tracking down prey and killing it with your own hands is one vital reason why God gave you testosterone. Hunting elicits the same winner’s response I explained earlier. Apex predators are just high T bro.

Caterpillar Mushroom

The caterpillar mushroom (Cordyceps sinensis) is like that rare magical shroom the protagonist from a fantasy book finds to cure the princess. This fantastic fungi is found high in the mountains of Nepal, and it’s barely been tested. Nepalese have been using it as an aphrodisiac for centuries, though. Alas, it’s getting rarer and rarer, so its price is getting sky-high. It likely ups your T via boosting luteinizing hormone. Your sperm quality and motility could get a healthy bump too, should you find yourself in possession of this rare shroom.

Catmaxxing

Chads who’ve been infected by the Toxoplasma gondii protozoa have higher testosterone levels then non-infected dudes. Enter your cat. Kitties can get the parasite themselves via dealing with infected rats. They later come home to rub your face down and infect you with this T-boosting bug. High-testosterone men are more aggressive and social, so this parasite ups your T to have more chances to spread into other people. Nature has a sense of humor.

Reading Warhammer 40K

Let’s get real here, consuming Warhammer 40K literature makes you feel like a beast. Reading about roided-up space supersoldiers who wield chainsaw-swords and machine guns firing explosive rounds to kill demons and aliens that threaten humanity’s holy galactic empire is awe inspiring. The epic tone in these books can trigger our internal warrior spirit. I don’t know if it’s the “For The Emperor!” battle cries or the planetary-scale wars, but the power this material has been infused with is contagious. Many people from the depths of online culture have found in 40K the motivation needed to hit the gym or to take on a challenging endeavor. 

Turkesterone

Don’t worry—this is still a needle-free post. Turkesterone is a plant ecdysteroid coming from Ajuga turkestanica. We’re balls-deep into the esoteric here, so don’t expect conclusive scientific evidence about its benefits. In a few cases though, turkesterone has shown significant improvements in performance and recovery without any T-production shutdown. Improvements as significant as low doses of dianabol. It technically doesn’t increase testosterone but it can give you all of the benefits high testosterone gives you anyway.

Pinemaxxing

Pine bark extract is as good for testosterone as it is for circulation. Some people call it “the Cuban viagra.” Not only will it improve circulation to your boomstick, but it may get you as horny as a bull in heat too. If you live in a Mediterranean area and have Pinus pinaster around, you can even make it at home: gather the pine bark and smash it into a fine powder, give it a quick wash, put it in hot water for a few minutes, and filter to remove the solids and collect the extract.

For even more esoteric ways to boost your testosterone, follow Vigorous Man on Twitter.

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