What You Need To Know:

• What is Testosterone? Testosterone is the male hormone that makes you a man top to bottom and inside, out.
• Testosterone is created through a long process that requires you to lay the ground work for optimal growth.
• Grab your free copy of my book, The Man Diet, for a practical guide to optimize your testosterone levels on a daily basis.

 When most guys talk about boosting testosterone levels, they only have a slight grasp on the concept.

They know that in order for the male body to function properly – build muscle, boost sex drive, and, well, does anything else really matter? (I kid, of course) – healthy testosterone levels are absolutely essential. But that’s where the research tends to stop. However, there’s so much more to testosterone than muscles, sex and morning wood, even though, those are some excellent perks.

Testosterone is essentially the lifeblood of a man. Anatomy and physiology aside, men are men because of this male hormone. So in order to get down to the depth of who you are and who you can become, you need to know why your wiring works the way it does and make sure that nothing you’re doing is secretly short circuiting your system.

So let’s take a deeper look at the lifeblood of a man…

What is testosterone and how does it work in the body?

What Is Testosterone?

At its most basic levels, testosterone is the hormone that makes men, men. In the womb, baby boys are pumped with loads of testosterone which stimulates the growth of our male organs. When we reach puberty, we get another biologically timed burst of testosterone that’s crucial for sperm production, stronger vocal cords, muscle and bone growth, and facial hair. Physically speaking, testosterone makes us into men from the top, down.

However, testosterone doesn’t only make us into men from the top, down, but from the inside, out as well. Our testosterone levels are tightly tied with our sense of self (hence, why men with lower testosterone in their middle years go through a mid-life crisis), our confidence levels, our intimate desire for our partners, sense of risk, adventure, and much more. Like I’ve said several times already – it’s your lifeblood.

How Testosterone Works In The Body

Most of your testosterone is produced in the most prized part of the male body, your balls.

More specifically, 95% of your testosterone is produced in your testicular Leydig cells. The other 5% is formed from DHEA, a precursor androgen found in the adrenal glands. But of course, your male hormone doesn’t just magically form in your balls, otherwise we’d all have the same testosterone levels and we wouldn’t need to have the “how to boost your testosterone” conversation that’s absolutely crucial to our existence as men these days.

Just like every other function in your body, testosterone production begins in the brain, and requires that you create the most optimal environment for your body to produce plenty of it.

1. It all starts from the hypothalamus, an almond sized brain substrate that links your nervous system to the endocrine (hormone) system. The first step of the process is simply when the hypothalamus releases a hormone called gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH).
2. GnRH then stimulates the pituitary gland, which is a small pea sized endocrine gland that extends from the bottom of the hypothalamus. When the gland is stimulated by GnRH, it releases two hormones: luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH). These are the gonadotropins, and this is exactly why the first hormone is called gonadotropin releasing hormone.
3. After the pituitary gland has released LH and FSH into the bloodstream, both of these hormones make their way from the brain, down to the ball sack. When they reach their destination they enter the testicular leydig cells.
4. Inside the leydig cells, the following takes place: FSH starts the process of spermatogenesis, whereas LH – through an extremely complex process – converts cholesterol into testosterone.

That’s the physiological process that makes men, men.

But that’s not where testosterone begins and ends. Testosterone travels throughout your bloodstream, and essentially prowls around, looking for androgen receptors to bind to in order to put itself to good use: build muscle, boost libido, cultivate confidence, make you an alpha male, and so on and so forth.

Here’s what the journey looks like:

1. As your newly made testosterone enters the bloodstream, it’s called free testosterone because it’s literally free to do what you’d expect testosterone to do for you. It isn’t bound to anything yet. But then, your liver also releases sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), a glycoprotein that takes it upon itself to lasso-up your free testosterone and make it useless to you.
2. About 98% of the fresh “free testosterone” is bound to either SHBG or albumin (another carrier protein). When testosterone is bound to either one of these proteins, it cannot effectively enter cells anymore, and it has a hard time getting to androgen receptor binding sites.
3. The remaining testosterone that isn’t bound to carrier proteins (free testosterone), freely circulates around your body looking to bind itself to androgen receptors. As you participate in activities life lifting weights, your androgen receptors inside your muscle tissue activate and free testosterone molecules bind to the receptors. This is when the effects start to take place.
4. Once the free testosterone molecule is bound to the androgen receptor, the receptor goes through a structural change, making it able to enter your DNA. Once it enters your DNA, the effects of testosterone finally take place. When this happens in your muscle tissue, you’ll get more muscle growth as a result. If it takes place in your face, your beard growth might increase, or facial bone structure might become more chiseled, and so on. The place of binding causes testosterone effective results at those sites.

Next Step

To sum up:

What is testosterone? Testosterone is the male hormone that makes you a man in every way – biologically, physiologically, emotionally, and practically.

How does testosterone work? It works through a long process that you need to create the most optimal environment for your testosterone levels to thrive…

What’s the best way to get the job done?

Well, I recommend that you grab a free copy of my book, The Man Diet.

In it, I’ve given you everything that you need to boost your testosterone levels on a daily basis. It’s science-backed, experience influenced, and best of all, I made it extremely practical for you.

Grab your copy of The Man Diet here.

Be Legendary.