One of the biggest mistakes that a lot of newcomers to bodybuilding and weight training make is to overtrain. It is easy to understand how this happens too – in their eagerness to get into the best shape of their lives and try out that new gym membership, they hit the weights hard and fast and five days a week.
Unfortunately though, this often comes as such a massive shock to the system that they then end up burning out early and being completely unable to train any more. This can then lead to a number of other unwanted side effects which include cold sweats, chills, muscle aches and flu symptoms. All of this combined can then ultimately prevent you from going to the gym at all and completely halt your progress.
Even if this never happens, training before you’re fully recovered is still always a mistake. When you do this you actually end up breaking down your muscle tissue further before it has had a chance to recover which means it won’t grow to the full extent. You can even end up damaging your central nervous system!
Luckily, there’s a way you can avoid this by knowing precisely whether you’re fully recovered or not…
The Cortisol/Testosterone Ratio
As it just so happens, there is a sign in the body that can tell us whether we’re fully recovered or not after a training session. This sign is the ratio of testosterone to cortisol and essentially the higher your cortisol in relation to your testosterone, the longer you need to wait to recover.
This has to do with the fight or flight response and the hormones triggered by the sympathetic nervous system during training. Training is a form of stress just like psychological stress and that’s why it’s so important to let your body recover and your nervous system fully restore itself.
The bad news? As yet, there is no convenient way to measure testosterone or cortisol at home. Your doctor probably won’t want to test you every time you need to workout either…
How to Measure Recovery At Home
Fortunately though, there are some measures you can use yourself that serve as indicators of this ratio.
One such measure is what is known as ‘heartrate variability’. This shows how much the time between heartbeats varies which in turn shows that your parasympathetic nervous system is in good working order (because breathing should help you to control your heartrate). Unfortunately, most health trackers aren’t yet able to measure HRV but you can buy small devices relatively cheaply that will. Take a reading first thing in the morning and use this as an indicator.
Better yet though is to use a grip trainer. Studies show that grip strength – when measured first thing in the morning – correlates with this ratio and with recovery. You can measure your grip strength with a device for $30 called a ‘dynamometer’ and once you’ve got a baseline, this can let you know if you’re at the top of your game or not each morning and whether or not you should train.
Even if your grip strength isn’t reflecting your testosterone/cortisol ratio, it is at the very least a useful indicator of strength which is something else you need lots of during your workouts!
Worried About Your Testosterone Levels – How to Increase Testosterone Naturally?
One of the best ways to boost your testosterone levels is with the help of a powerful and all natural testosterone booster. One such testosterone booster is Testogen that is formulated with some of the most powerful and 100% natural ingredients that include tribulus terrestris, fenugreek, ginseng, d-acpartic acid, zinc gluconate, selenium etc.
This pill can help you get better results from your workouts by boosting natural testosterone production in your body. The beauty of this supplement lies in the fact that it has no adverse side effects.
Whether you want to bulk up with high quality of muscle or lose excess fat, Testogen can help you get excellent results.
