I had an awesome conversation with my latest podcast guest, Jonny Collins, about how so many men are not living optimally. Are you ‘dangerous’ was the underlying theme to our conversation and what that means to the modern, western man. Being dangerous isn’t about kicking the shit out of the first, random dude you see that looks at you crooked, it’s about knowing how powerful you are but more importantly, you need to develop that power and capacity for controlled violence and aggression first. To do this, you need to start sorting out your hormones, which means addressing your testosterone levels first and foremost.
Here is a quote from Canadian psychologist, Jordan Peterson that sums up what it is to be a dangerous man;
A harmless man is not a good man. A good man is a very dangerous man who has that under voluntary control
So, how do you start living dangerously? It begins under the sheets…
Most men would agree that they could always have more sex, train more and shed at least ten pounds of fat that’s been holding on since the early 2000’s. With Jonny’s insight, we uncovered some deep rooted insecurities and physiological issues that are at the heart of these problems. Namely, feelings of inadequacy and a lack of control in our lives that is compounded by low testosterone levels.
Now for the sciency bit that I like to nerd out on from time to time on what testosterone is, how it affects men and what can you go do, right now, to fix it. Sit tight kids, here is a revisit of your middle school science lesson you were probably not paying attention to since you were staring at your girlfriend’s rack due to massive amounts of testosterone coursing through your veins.
Science Stuff
Testosterone is a cholesterol based, anabolic, steroid hormone that is the primary sex hormone for males. It’s responsible for our sex drive, increasing our muscle and bone density, decision making, competitiveness, and overall vigor. It is secreted in the testicles but receives the production signal from the brain’s hypothalamus/pituitary gland axis, which first produces gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) and then luteinizing hormone (LH).
Follow?
Since testosterone is a cholesterol based hormone, you require fat in your diet to make it, eggs are a great source of it and also contain a ton of protein and B vitamins that make them the perfect testosterone boosting food.
Imagine your testosterone levels are starting to sag, your hypothalamus in your brain senses this and starts producing more GnRH to produce more LH in the pituitary which then sends the signal to the testes to start pumping out testosterone. This is what we call a negative feedback loop and any interruptions in the signals will result in lower testosterone levels.
What interferes with the brain activity that sends the signal to produce testosterone???
Glad you asked.
How To Improve T Levels
I was once a high school science teacher, at an all boys high school and I would inevitably get the same questions about how to get “huge”, “cut”, “ripped”.
My simple answer was, “Go to sleep, dude”
This isn’t an oversimplification either, the average Canadian isn’t getting enough sleep according to a 2017 Stats Can study. It states that 43 percent of men and 55 percent of women in the 18 to 64 age group reported trouble going to sleep or staying asleep ” sometimes/most of the time/all of the time.”
Sleep factors into your testosterone equation because of the hypothalamus’ and pituitary’s sensitivity to lack of sleep. In an awesome, 2019 study in the in the Journal of Sex Medicine, researchers found that mild sleep deprivation in rats had the effect of reducing LH levels and a corresponding decrease in testosterone levels, an increase in hypogonadism (smaller balls) and increased erectile dysfunction. Ouch, all this from staying up for one extra episode of, The Office, reruns.
There are plenty of other strategies available on becoming dangerous but I’ll let you discover the rest by downloading Episode 10 of the HRD2KILL Podcast, it’s a doozy and definitely NSFW.
Download Episode 10. Click the pic.
Train Hard, Fight Easy
Dave is a retired infantry officer and Afghanistan war veteran. He’s the creator of the HRD2KILL training program that was built on the principles that got him from not being able to get out of bed to competing in the Crossfit Open, Spartan Races and the Montreal Gaelic Athletics Association. You can find more mobility based exercises in his new book, “The Nimble Warrior”, now available on Apple Books and Amazon or tune into his new HRD2KILL Podcast
