Boxers are often associated with aggression and healthy testosterone levels. So does boxing increase testosterone?
Keep reading to learn about the effects of boxing on testosterone levels and ways you can increase your testosterone!
Does Boxing Increase Testosterone?
Yes, boxing increases testosterone levels, but only after doing it consistently for a long period of time.
Physical activity in general, not just boxing, will stimulate testosterone production in your body.
Doing only one hour-long session of intense exercise won’t elevate your baseline levels.
Keep in mind that there are various factors apart from physical exercise that influence testosterone levels.
Some factors are out of your control, like age, genetics, and environment, while others are within your control.
Below we’ll focus on the things you can control to increase your testosterone.
Ways Boxers Can Increase Testosterone
Boxers can increase their testosterone with:
- Physical Exercise
- Consistent, Quality Sleep
- Healthy Diet
- Daily Sunlight/Vitamin D
- Low Stress
All of these factors affect your overall health and have very little to do with boxing itself.
In all the examples listed, consistency is what causes significant increases in testosterone.
Eating one healthy meal or having one good night’s sleep won’t increase your testosterone levels significantly.
It’s also important to note that maximizing one of these factors won’t compensate for the others. All of them are connected and affect your body in a complex feedback loop.
For example, if you exercise every day but don’t get any sleep or eat any healthy food, you’ll still have low testosterone levels.
So if you want to maximize your testosterone levels, make sure to follow all of the points listed below.
Physical Exercise
First, as stated before, boxers can increase their baseline testosterone levels with consistent physical exercise.
This doesn’t necessarily have to be boxing. You can combine boxing training with resistance training or weightlifting, like the bench press, dead lift, or squat.
The key is to incorporate regular exercise and intense physical activity into your daily routine.
As you get older, your muscle mass and bone density decrease along with your testosterone production.
Exercising regularly will help you to delay this process.
(Since your body gets more fragile as you get older, we recommend doing activities with less impact than boxing. For example, replacing roadwork with swimming.)
Consistent, Quality Sleep
Next, boxers can increase their testosterone levels with consistent, quality sleep.
You might think that giving up sleep to train will cause you to improve faster.
Instead, the opposite is true. Giving up sleep will cause you to become worse at boxing.
According to research, your body’s hormonal response is to cut back on testosterone production when you’re sleep-deprived.
This leads to reduced muscle mass, bone-density, and energy levels.
Though it seems like you’re doing nothing, sleeping is one of the best things you can do to keep your boxing sharp.
During sleep, your brain solidifies the knowledge and lessons that you’ve gained during training and turns them into instinct and reflex.
Healthy Diet
Next, boxers can increase their testosterone levels with a consistent, healthy diet.
Since boxing is one of the most caloric-intensive activities you can do, you need to replenish those calories after each training session.
If your body doesn’t get the fuel it needs for energy metabolism, you’ll end up losing weight since your body’s metabolic response is to burn its fat deposits.
Do this for too long and your body begins to produce cortisol instead of testosterone.
A well-rounded diet with protein, complex carbohydrates, and fat is best for healthy testosterone production.
Daily Sunlight/Vitamin D
Next, boxers can increase their testosterone levels by getting daily sunlight or Vitamin D.
Research shows that Vitamin D increases free testosterone levels in the body and is conducive to general well-being.
Instead of training inside the boxing gym all day, step outside and go do some roadwork to get some sunlight.
If you live in a place with little sunlight or if you’re stuck in the middle of winter, you can take Vitamin D supplements to maintain healthy levels.
Low Stress Levels
Lastly, boxers can increase their testosterone levels by having low stress levels.
When you’re stressed, either because of lack of food or being in a dangerous situation, your body’s hormonal response is to produce cortisol.
According to research, your blood cortisol level is inversely proportional to your testosterone levels.
In other words, the more stressed you are, the more cortisol is produced instead of testosterone.
(Low stress levels also helps you to look and feel younger as well.)
Conclusion
While boxing can have a positive impact of your levels of testosterone, increasing testosterone is more about following a balanced lifestyle.
Professional boxers and fighters in other combat sports combine rigorous training with good sleep and nourishment; they don’t train all day long without sleeping or eating.
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