THINKING ABOUT TRT?

Not a yes, not a no. Here's what I tell men who ask me about it — and what I want to see first.

I get asked about TRT most weeks. Usually by a bloke in his late forties who's read a thread, watched a podcast and decided his testosterone is the reason everything feels harder.

Sometimes it is. Often it isn't — or it's a symptom rather than the cause. Chronic poor sleep, carrying a lot of extra weight, drinking most nights and training badly will all drag your numbers down. Fix those and the numbers move on their own.

So the order matters. Get tested properly, twice, in the morning, before you change anything. Then give the basics an honest eight to twelve weeks: sleep, food, lifting, alcohol. Retest. If you're still symptomatic and the numbers are still low, now you've got a real conversation to have with a clinician — not a guess.

If you do go on it, treat it as a long-term medical commitment rather than a cycle. It needs monitoring: haematocrit, oestradiol, PSA, lipids. And it doesn't replace training. Men who expect TRT to do the work are the ones most disappointed by it.

I'm a coach, not a doctor, and none of this is medical advice. What I can do is help you get the right bloods, read them with you, and make sure the training and food side is actually sorted before you medicalise it.

Stuart is a coach, not a doctor. Nothing here is medical advice — talk to a clinician before changing anything medical.