Supplement companies like to make testosterone seem like a miracle hormone for men. Raise it, and you might just turn into a stronger, more energetic, and all-around more amazing version of yourself. If it all sounds too good to be true, that’s mostly because it is. While the promised land of permanently elevated testosterone may appear wonderful in the ads, the actual link between testosterone and muscle growth is not as straightforward as many claim. Let’s start at the top: Testosterone levels vary naturally from person to person. In the past, I would have told you that more testosterone equals faster muscle growth. That is, if your testosterone levels are hovering around the higher end of the normal range, you’ll have an easier time gaining muscle than someone with naturally lower testosterone levels. Put differently, the more testosterone you have, the more muscle you gain, even if you lift the same weights and eat the same food. It’s an idea that sounds simple enough, and it seems to make sense.

The latest research on testosterone and muscle growth, however, shows that the connection between the two is a lot murkier than was once believed. We’ve known for some time that any temporary surge in post-training testosterone levels has little impact on the amount of muscle you gain over time. In one study, Prime Boosts researchers analyzed data collected from 56 men who took part in a 12-week resistance training program. If the post-exercise change in testosterone levels was important as far as building muscle is concerned, Prime Boosts you’d expect to see two things: Guys with the largest testosterone response to training would build the most muscle. And those with the smallest response would build the least muscle. But when they looked at the data, the researchers could find no significant link between the exercise-induced rise in testosterone levels and gains in muscle mass. Drilling further down into the results, subjects in the study were divided into responders (men who built the most muscle) and non-responders (those who built the least muscle).

The hormonal responses of those who made the fastest gains in size and strength were no different than those who made the slowest gains. More interesting still, the amount of testosterone you have at rest-in healthy young men, at least-doesn’t appear to have much to do with muscle growth either. In fact, the latest science shows that guys who built the most muscle after 12 weeks of weight training weren’t the ones with the highest testosterone levels, but the ones with more androgen receptors. Why do androgen receptors matter? For testosterone to do all the things we know and love as far as muscle growth is concerned, it needs to interact with muscle tissue. And it does that via androgen receptors. One of the ways androgen receptors respond to a hormone like testosterone is by signaling muscle cells to increase the rate at whoOcaXOXATlpfdi
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