I love my job. Not to rub it in or anything, but on a daily basis I show up to work around 10 AM in shorts and sandals, get my lift on with the rest of the CP staff, and when our doors finally open for business around noon, I spend the rest of my day basically “hanging out” and coaching athletes while listening to Tiesto or Rage Against the Machine blare through the radio.
I mean, if you don’t think that’s awesome, than you need to take some awesome lessons.
However, all kidding aside, one of the best (and most rewarding) aspects of my job is the fact that, even though we as coaches oftentimes don’t realize it, we serve as pretty significant role models for our younger kids and athletes.
Case in point: take yesterday where I had a conversation with one of our athletes – a Division I catcher, who’s coming off a pretty significant shoulder injury (dislocation while sliding back into first base).
Future Mike Piazza: So uh, Tony – what do you think about this supplement called Cellucor P6 Extreme?
Me: Based off the name alone, I think it’s dumb.
Future Mike Piazza: But, the guy at GNC told me that it’s supposed to increase testosterone levels!11!1!11!!!!!
Me (giving the look of death): You know what increases testosterone levels? Squats and eggs!
Almost on cue, he looked at me with a quizzical look – sorta like what CP mascot – Tank – does every time you ask him if he wants a treat.
Anyways, even though I was being facetious with my squats and eggs comment, in reality, I kinda wasn’t.
While it can be debated until the cows comes home as to whether or not there’s any significant increase in t-levels during training, there’s no debating the fact that there IS a hormonal effect that stems from slapping some appreciable weight on a barbell, placing it on your back, and dominating it.
Moreover, while I know there are some that are going to shit a ketone when I say this, it’s well established in the research that diets high(er) in saturated fat (and thus cholesterol – GASP!!!!) have increased levels of testosterone as well.
In fact, in THIS study (yes, it’s an abstract. And yes, you’re going to have to deal with it), it was shown that there was a direct relationship between dietary saturated fat intake and t-levels (as it relates to cholesterol. Testosterone is made from cholesterol. Ergo, eat your freakin eggs!).
And, taking it even a step further, we can look at something that CP intern – Tyler Simmons – and I were discussing yesterday: Cortisol levels
Admittedly, what follows is a GROSS over-simplification of the process, as there are other intermediates that come into play; but simply put: cholesterol is essentially the “mother ship” when it comes to the body’s ability to make hormones. Hormones make stuff happen. Again, like I said, an over simplification.
Cholesterol is converted to Pregnenolone, which in turn can be directed to two distinct pathways to produce either cortisol or testosterone.
Unfortunately, there’s only a finite amount of Pregnenolone that the body can make everyday – due in part to how much cholesterol is available. Now, this is important because, in a state or condition of chronic stress – you know, like when a athlete is coming off a significant injury, or doesn’t get enough sleep because he’s up late playing video games, etc – Pregnenolone will “prefer” to enter the cortisol pathway, and since there’s only a finite amount of P to go around, testosterone gets the middle finger.
Watch THIS short video for a more thorough explanation.
So, in short, reducing cortisol levels, while often an afterthought, is reeeeeeally important in the grand scheme of things. Going back to the athlete above, who knows what could happen. Maybe if he started eating right (he is, now), put more weight on the bar (he’s injured, but we’re doing what we can), and stopped watching internet porn till two in the morning and actually got some sleep for once (maybe when pigs fly?), he’d realize that he could forego the lame supplement geared towards teenages that don’t know any better, save himself $79, and increase his T-levels for free – or, at least for a heckuva lot cheaper.
