Sunday, January 4, 2009

Ten Easy Ways To Increase Your Testosterone Naturally

By Ricardo d Argence

Testosterone can be deemed as the "holy grail" of growing muscle, if there was one substance. The most important hormone for building muscle is testosterone; it determines how much muscle a person can build. These are only a tiny handful of the abounding spectacular benefits that come with increased testosterone levels: Increased muscle size and strength, decreased levels of "bad" cholesterol, increased sex drive and sexual endurance, improved mood and decreased body fat levels.

It sounds pretty good because it is great, and in this article I'm going to outline 10 simple steps to naturally increase your testosterone levels and achieve all of these incredible benefits. While these steps will not result in "steroid-like" muscle gains, they will definitely contribute to your overall bottomline results.

1) Your workout exercises should have compound exercises as a foundation. I'm talking about the basic, bread-and-butter lifts such as squats, deadlifts, bench presses, rows, chin-ups, dips, lunges and military presses. At the gym, you can maximize your workout with these exercises because they provide the greatest muscle resistance and make your body produce more testosterone.

2) Your intensity and effort should always be at 100% when you are training. If you want to see real muscle mass increases, you have to push yourself to your limit when you work out at the gym. Increasing muscular stress by working out will produce more testosterone.

3) It is necessary to train your legs with the same intensity with which you train your upper body. As you might already know, you can stimulate the growth in the back of your chest as well as arms, by doing some intense leg training. This is partly because your testosterone increases from your leg training.

4) Increase your EFA consumption. Essential Fatty Acids from sources such as peanuts, avocadoes, fish and healthy oils like flax seed, olive and canola are a great way to naturally boost testosterone levels.

5) Minimize your consumption of soy. There is a direct negative effect on testosterone levels when the estrogen levels in the body increase, which can be caused by soy protein.

6) Do not drink so much alcohol. It has been revealed that alcohol has a remarkable affect on testosterone production, therefore try to limit the nights you might "binge drink" and consume alcohol in moderation.

7) Up your dietary consumption of cruciferous vegetables. Broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, turnips, cabbage and brussel sprouts have all been shown to dramatically reduce estrogen levels, thereby raising testosterone.

8) Lower your daily stress levels. Being overly stressed stimulates the release of "cortisol", a highly catabolic hormone that will cause your testosterone levels to plummet.

9) You should try to increase your amount of sexual activity. An increase in the production of oxytocin is brought about by sexual activity as well as causing more endorphins, which also increases testosterone levels.

10) Be sure that you are getting a decent amount of sleep each evening. Your level of testosterone will decrease when cortisol production increases, which can happen when you don't get enough sleep.

Begin implementing these procedures on a regular basis and you will probably experience a substantial growth in your muscle size and strength gains. - 15485

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