SHBG is the protein your liver produces that binds testosterone and renders it biologically unavailable. It is the single most important variable on a male hormone panel after total and free T, and it is the one most often missing from a GP’s workup. A total testosterone of 700 with SHBG at 70 nmol/L describes […]
Author Archives: Ron Males
I am not anti-TRT. There is a real and meaningful population of men for whom TRT is the right call after a complete natural protocol attempt. The problem is that the conversation usually happens too early, in the wrong order, and with the wrong workup. Roughly half the men I have worked with who walked […]
The standard “low T” workup most GPs run is total testosterone, sometimes free T, occasionally TSH, and a basic metabolic panel. That panel is sufficient to miss approximately 70% of what actually causes men to feel hormonally off. I have built what I call the hormone panel decoder around this gap – the specific set […]
Enclomiphene is the drug that most men sitting in TRT clinic waiting rooms have never heard of and probably should have. It’s not a testosterone. It doesn’t shut down your natural production. It doesn’t crash your sperm count. It doesn’t commit you to a lifetime of weekly injections. What it does is poke the brain […]
Eighteen months is long enough to do something genuine with male hormone optimization. It is also long enough to do it wrong in a way that compounds into a real problem. The men in this article did it right, but not because the path was straight. The biggest difference between an 18-month arc and a […]
Quick Review: Creatine Monohydrate and DHT Creatine monohydrate is the most well-studied supplement in sports science and one of the few in my protocol I’d call universally worth it. The DHT effect — which came from one widely-cited study and has been mostly misunderstood ever since — is real but modest, and the framing around […]
Boron’s primary mechanism is SHBG reduction and estradiol modulation – it frees up bound testosterone rather than raising total production. This distinction matters for who it works best for. My client Aaron had total T at 720 and felt terrible. Free T was 8.4 pg/mL. SHBG was 78. Boron plus magnesium glycinate dropped his SHBG […]
Vitamin D3 is a steroid hormone precursor, not a vitamin. It acts on receptors in your Leydig cells, pituitary gland, and hypothalamus – every level of the testosterone production system has vitamin D receptor presence. Deficiency suppresses the whole axis. The optimal level is 50+ ng/mL on the 25-OH vitamin D test. Most reference ranges […]
Quick Verdict: Magnesium Form Comparison Magnesium oxide is the most common form in grocery store supplements and has roughly 4% bioavailability. Most of it goes through you without being absorbed. Magnesium glycinate absorbs well, doesn’t cause GI distress at therapeutic doses, and is the form I use with almost every client. Buy glycinate. Stop buying […]
Zinc raises testosterone when you’re deficient. When you’re not deficient, supplementing does nothing meaningful to your bloodwork and may suppress copper long-term if you run it at high doses continuously. The deficiency is more common than most men expect – nicotine products, high-phytate vegetarian diets, intense sweat output, and seed oil-heavy processed food diets all […]
After 40, baseline GH production has declined by 15–20% from its peak. That doesn’t mean GH optimization is off the table — it means the training stimulus for it needs to be more precise, not more aggressive. Eccentric training and extended time under tension drive training-induced GH more reliably in men over 40 than maximal […]
I’m going to tell you something that took me an embarrassingly long time to actually believe, not just say. I used to program clients the way I thought serious trainers were supposed to program clients. Chest day, back day, arms day. Supersets. Drop sets. Isolation work that looked impressive written on a whiteboard. A guy […]
The 6-12-25 Method is a tri-set protocol I have built around the principle that strength, hypertrophy, and metabolic stress each trigger different hormonal responses – and combining all three within a single working set produces a hormonal stimulus that pure strength work, pure hypertrophy work, or pure conditioning cannot match. Six reps of a heavy […]