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HEALTH

The Truth: Does Masturbation Affect Muscle Growth and Testosterone Levels?

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If you’ve spent some time browsing any popular bodybuilding form you might have notice that many people ask if masturbation affects the muscle growth as a result of lowering the testosterone levels.


However strange this might seem, it’s not hard to understand why some people would think that your testosterone levels can drop with excessive ejaculation. if you know that feeling you get after sex – the only motivation you get is to lounge around, eat junk food and watch TV.

So, what might be the reason for worrying that masturbation can have negative impact on muscle growth?
The Truth: Does Masturbation Affect Muscle Growth and Testosterone Levels?
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In fact, there are two reasons for this. The first one is based on the fact that ejaculation contains zinc, and that when you overdo it, it may result in zinc deficiency. Zinc, as studies have shown, is responsible for maintaining the testosterone levels. The second, and more widely spread idea, is that ejaculation decreases the testosterone levels. In other words, that regular masturbation inhibits testosterone production.
So, let’s take it from the top. It is true that many nutrients are lost with ejaculation, but this amount is so small that it hardly makes any difference. However, it is also true that lot of zinc is lost with ejaculation, and assuming you have normally low baseline zinc levels and you are really overdoing it, there is a distinct possibility to trigger a zinc deficiency.
Things get even more interesting if we know that in addition to regulating the testosterone levels zinc is very important for muscle growth and preserving the muscle tissue. Consequently, if you do ejaculate more frequently – disregarding whether from sex or masturbation – you should probably increase the amount of zinc you consume.
The second issue is the testosterone level, and it is probably the most discussed one among the broscientists around the world. There is a good reason for this, because testosterone dictates how much muscle you can build, how much fat you’ll store, etc. It’s only natural that people who are committed to bodybuilding would worry if one of their favorite activities can have devastating effects on their work.
We have good news for you – there a number of studies that confirm that ejaculation has no effect on the testosterone levels. OK, there might be some minor positive or negative effects, but they are not sufficient to make any impact on your overall progress.
One of the studies has been focused on measuring the testosterone levels of men abstaining from ejaculation. It appears that although testosterone levels experienced a sudden rise on the 7th day, they were once again back to normal the next day. In other words, if you want to be sure that your testosterone levels are in a peak, stop masturbating or having sex 7 days in advance.
We should also take into consideration some other studies focusing on testosterone levels and muscle growth and which show that only a significant rise in testosterone levels can have material impact on muscle growth. One of them, conducted at the Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science, have measured that in order to see any consistent and noticeable change of the muscle mass, the testosterone levels need to increase by at least 30%. Minor increase of the testosterone levels that doesn’t take it outside its normal range will have no effect on your muscle growth.
So, what can we deduce from all these studies? Does masturbation really affects muscle building? No, not really.
As minor, short-term changes in testosterone levels don’t have any effect in your muscle growth, if you want to see some results, you should increase them significantly and try to maintain them high. However, this might be dangerous because it can be accomplished only by taking steroids or by high testosterone booster. If you are still determined to try them out, make sure that they really work.
On the other hand, you should probably have to be more careful when it comes to maintaining the zinc levels. Zinc is crucial in regulating the testosterone levels, and we have already mentioned that frequent ejaculation can lead to zinc deficiency. However, before having any impact on your actual muscle growth the zinc levels should really plummet. Still, if you are ejaculating more frequently you might consider taking a zinc supplement or consuming foods that have high concentration of zinc.
So all things considered, masturbating cannot and will not have any negative impact on your testosterone levels. However, there is something else out there that is much more dangerous for your testosterone. That is stress and worrying.
If you are still unconvinced that stress can really hurt your testosterone levels, just take a look around you and you’ll see that many individuals that are constantly exposed to stress exhibit characteristics of people with low testosterone levels. They are overweight, have problems sleeping, etc. This is also confirmed by many studies which show that high stress doesn’t only lowers your testosterone levels, but also exposes you to many other diseases and symptoms they can bring on.
So try to relax, and stop worrying about such trivialities as whether masturbation is bad for you. It definitely isn’t.

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3 Comments

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