Monday, January 5, 2009

Ten Easy Ways To Increase Your Testosterone Naturally

By Ricardo d Argence

The amount of muscle you can achieve is regulated by testosterone, also known as the Holy Grail of muscle growth. Quite simply, testosterone is the most important muscle-building hormone in your body and is one of the limiting factors that determines how much muscle you can ultimately build. Here is just a small handful of the many amazing benefits that increased testosterone levels will provide you with: Increased muscle size and strength, decreased body fat levels, increased sex drive and sexual endurance, improved mood and decreased levels of "bad" cholesterol.

Sounds great, doesn't it? Well it is, and in this article I'm going to outline 10 simple steps to naturally elevate 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) Use compound exercises as the cornerstone of your workouts. I'm talking about the basic, bread-and-butter lifts such as squats, deadlifts, bench presses, rows, chin-ups, dips, lunges and military presses. These exercises will place your muscles under the greatest amount of stress in the gym and will force your body to increase testosterone production.

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) Train your legs equally as hard as your upper body. As you may already be aware, intense leg training can actually stimulate growth in your chest, back and arms. This is due in part to the increase in testosterone that leg training induces.

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) Reduce your intake of soy. Soy protein raises the body's levels of estrogen, the main female hormone, and this has a direct negative effect on testosterone levels.

6) Limit the amount of alcohol you consume. Testosterone levels are significantly effected by the intake of alcohol. It is important to monitor how much alcohol you drink and avoid drinking binges.

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) Have more sex. Becoming sexually aroused increases oxytocin in the sytem which increases the production of endorphins and raises levels of testosterone.

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.

To boost your muscle size and gain strength, implement these techniques regularly for a noticeable difference. - 16752

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