Here’s The Answer To Whether Masturbation Is Affecting Your Muscle Gains & Testosterone Levels – MensXP.com

You close your bedroom door. Turning on your computer, you open the browser in incognito mode, as you always do. You type in the words and click on Search, hoping to get some relief. But today, even Google fails you.

You still dont know for sure if masturbation will limit your muscle gains!

This question becomes even more crucial in the present time because of the lockdown. Were all worried that without gym, well end up losing all this hard-earned muscle. But what if our favourite lockdown pastime also ends up harming your gains? The thought is simply unbearable. Do we need to adopt a strict Hands Off Our Junk policy if we dont want to lose our muscle?

via GIPHY

Well, look no further because your search ends here! By the end of this article, youll probably have a definitive answer to one of THE MOST important questions in a guys life.

Lets start at the beginning. The general belief (read: Bro Science) is that fapping causes a reduction in testosterone levels. But why should that be a problem?

Testosterone plays a massively important role in helping to build muscle mass after a stimulating workout. The higher the testosterone levels, the better your potential for gaining muscle. A man with testosterone levels of 1000ng/dl simply needs to look at a bunch of weights and hell put on tonnes of muscle mass in no time. On the other hand, take a man with T-levels around 200ng/dl and hell have to work harder and harder, day in and day out, before he gets to see even the slightest increase in muscle mass.

via GIPHY

Fun Fact: Men have naturally higher T-levels than women which is why they put on muscles more easily as compared to women. Also, women are more reactive to even small increases in testosterone as compared to men.

Coming back to your question:

Does masturbation actually affect muscle gains?

There have been numerous studies conducted in the hope of finding a conclusive answer to just this question.

In one study, the subjects had to abstain from doing the nasty for 7 days straight. Fortunately, this sacrifice was not for nothing as they did in fact see a slight rise in their testosterone levels.

Another study did the same thing but for 3 weeks! Thats right, the men were told not to touch themselves for 3 straight weeks. As hard as it might have been, they did manage to adhere to the instructions given to them. Even here, the subjects saw a slight increase in testosterone levels. At the end of the duration, in both the studies, the men let go and saw their testosterone levels drop to below normal for around 20 mins or so after which it came back to baseline.

via GIPHY

Heres what happened. When you finally do achieve release, your dopamine levels fall, the prolactin levels see a spike, your heart rate rises and the testosterone levels fall briefly.

If that sounded a little too sciencey, let me break it down in laymans terms:

Dopamine is a hormone that is responsible for emotions like pleasure and

pain. Dopamine restricts the production of prolactin. When dopamine levels fall, prolactin levels go up.

Prolactin interferes with the secretion of testosterone. So when prolactin levels rise, the testosterone levels fall.

Workout tip: If you work out immediately after youve been hands-on, your heart rate will rise higher as compared to working out before blowing your load.

via GIPHY

How relevant is this information from a bodybuilding perspective?

Masturbation in itself does not affect performance. The rise or fall of testosterone levels were only found immediately before and after the male subjects finished burping the worm. These changes are so negligible that they will have absolutely no direct impact on your exercise performance. Even these changes were temporary. The total testosterone levels remain the same.

Looking at masturbation as the sole contributor to low T-levels is like missing the wood for the trees. The majority of men who have lower testosterone levels dont need to stop spanking the monkey. They just need to alter other aspects of their lifestyles.

via GIPHY

Lifestyle factors that actually affect testosterone levels:

Activity levels : Any form of exercise (resistance training being the best, including bodyweight training) has shown to increase the testosterone levels compared to a sedentary lifestyle.

Deficiencies: Lack of Zinc, Magnesium, Vitamin-D, Cholesterol, Saturated fats causes a fall in testosterone production.

Excessive Eating: When you eat at a big deficit for an extended length of time, your body will shut down or at least slow down a majority of the non-essential mechanisms of the body, testosterone production being one of them.

Heavy drinking and smoking: As if you needed another reason to quit, alcohol and tobacco have been shown to adversely affect testosterone and your performance in the sack.

Obesity: The wider your waistline, the lower your T-levels are likely to be.

Poor Sleep: When you skip or deprive yourself of sleep, the insulin sensitivity goes down, cortisol levels rise and testosterone levels fall. Overall, the levels of catabolic hormones in the body rise while those of the anabolic hormones fall - not a good sign.

via GIPHY

So go ahead and enjoy your me-time as much as you want. It wont affect your progress in your bodybuilding endeavours. Just make sure that you dont indulge in self- love to such an extent that youre too tired to get out of bed and actually exercise or it leaves you too exhausted to work out to the best of your abilities.

AUTHOR BIO:

Nachiketh Shetty is a Coach with Fittr, India's Largest Online Fitness Platform. A lawyer by training, he hung up the black coat to pursue his passion for fitness. Till date, he has helped almost 800 people go from flab to fab.

Photo: iStock (Main Image)

AD: KETTO

AD: SkyeLitesNews

AD: innerskinresearch.com

AD: gutcleanseprotocol.com

AD: healthbenefits.vip

AD: Power Life By Tony Horton

Read more here:
Here's The Answer To Whether Masturbation Is Affecting Your Muscle Gains & Testosterone Levels - MensXP.com