What do you feel those factors were Cashout?
Overtraining, excessive cortisol, lack of sleep, low fat diet? I feel those factors contributed to my decline in testosterone 3 years ago.
Marc
With the advantage of hindsight, I think there was a combination of factors that contributed to my decline in T. The factors began aligning in Fall of 2006.
In the Fall of 2006, I was pushing myself to my absolute limit in the gym on a daily basis. My nutrition, as it has always been, was spot on. However, there were a couple of new variables that were introduced around that time. I see now that these may have been the precursors to what I have come to call the “perfect storm” of overtraining.
In the Fall of 2006, my son started school. Generally, he is a healthy child but when he started school in 2006, he did seem to pick up every little cough, cold, and bug that ran through his class. Of course he would bring all of those illnesses home to share with me. Typically, I never get sick. From the time I was 15 years old, I can say I’d only been sick twice. So, 21 years, two instances of illness – not too bad.
So, my point in stating this is that in 2006, I was being exposed to various illnesses with a much high and more direct frequency.
Couple that with the next fact – my training was, as it always has been, an effort to push myself to my absolute limit during every workout. That alone, will weakness one’s immune system. When presented with all of the little bugs and colds my son was bring home, in November 2006, I got terrible sick with something called Rotavirus. In the course of 5 days I lost 12 pounds.
After a week off, without ever breaking my diet, I was back in the gym and training to make up for the lost pounds. I felt flat and weak so I resolved to train harder and rebuild. For about 5 months I did and I then I was again hit with an illness. I was in bed for a week again with fever and chills, the whole 9 yards.
After a week off, I was able to recover and decided to push on. Throughout that summer I trained and dieted with the goal of rebuilding yet again. Everything was moving forward on a nice pace until October. At that point, my wife starting working full time again and that shifted a considerable burden to me to manage the home front duties. My mindset was “I got this. No big Deal. I’ve run a 300 million dollar company, I can handle this.” The fact of the matter was that I could but over the next 5 months it wore me down to the point of overtraining and illness once again. So there I was sick again and out of the gym.
At several points during that period, I had my blood tested and check my hormone levels. I did notice a consistent decline in my T from 900+ to 700 to final 579. At that point, I said to myself – “hey, you’re just getting old. It’s time to look at Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) as a way to keep this thing going at the level you have come to expect.” Of course, this was not something that I was opposed to given my previous history in competitive bodybuilding and AAS. So, I talked to my local urologist and off I went on the Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) path.
Flash forward to today. What I see clearly now is a cycle of overtraining, exposure to illnesses, and tremendous daily stress to which I was not accustom. The harder I worked the worse it got. The worse it got, the harder I worked.
Where I am now, is very stress free, my wife isn’t working any more, very healthy, no one has been sick in our household in over a year – including me and I am going on 2.5 years without an illness, and finally, I am not overtraining but working with my body and listening to its needs.
So summary, overtraining, exposure to illness, stress, and a commitment to work through it contributed to what I see as a downward spiral.
Now, I know how to avoid those conditions and more importantly how to recognize them and act accordingly to stave off any negative impacts.
