FREE way to test your testosterone levels at home, every day
Fun fact, the most accurate way to measure your “Testosterone levels” is actually FREE, and can be done at home, every single day, an unlimited amount of times. So if you are on a budget, or simply can’t afford to pay for testosterone blood tests as often as you’d like, there is good news for you.
First, you must understand the difference between testosterone levels and androgen activity. Those are often used interchangeably by most, but they are completely different. In fact, your total (and even free) testosterone levels are just a fraction of your overall androgen activity.
You see, almost all of the benefits we usually attribute to testosterone such as higher muscle mass, strength, libido, motivation, fat loss etc, are not just done by Testosterone. They are caused by the combination of:
The total amount of ALL of your androgens (including DHEA, testosterone, DHT etc.)
The total amount of ALL of your androgens in their FREE forms (ideally not bound to SHBG)
the total amount of INTRA-cellular (and intra-muscular) androgens (which are VERY different than circulating blood androgen levels)
the total amount of your anti-androgenic hormones and neurotransmitters (cortisol, prolactin, serotonin etc.)
the total amount of androgen (and other) receptors in your body
the sensitivity of your androgen receptors
and much more. In short, it is the balance between all of these factors that decides your net androgen status. This is why some people can have high total testosterone levels yet still have a ton of low testosterone symptoms, and also why some people can have low total testosterone levels yet be androgenic as f**k (as far as symptoms go).
Therefore, the best way to measure your androgen status is not just through testosterone blood tests. Those are obviously important and serve their own purposes, but they just don’t show the full picture. In fact, they don’t even come close, because even if you measure EVERY single hormone and neurotransmitter in your blood (which will cost you thousands of dollars by the way), a blood test still won’t show your actual RECEPTORS for those hormones and neurotransmitters, and we know that hormone receptors matter MUCH more than just hormone levels, especially for testosterone (study, study). The best way to ACTUALLY measure your androgen status is to simply measure the BY-PRODUCTS of high androgen status:
Hand grip strength has entered the chat!!
You see, out of ALL of the objective and non-intrusive measures of testosterone and androgen status that scientists have experimented with over the years, nothing comes close to the predictive power of something as simple as your hand grip strength.
Out of all other non-invasive measures, it has the highest beta coefficients with testosterone ever found (study), and is by far the single most predictive (external) measure of your androgen status, since it factors in ALL of the 6 factors I mentioned above (testosterone levels, DHT, free testosterone, androgen receptor density and sensitivity, cortisol etc.).
It has also been studied extensively and was consistently associated with testosterone levels both through direct and indirect mechanisms (study, study, study, study, study), and even with semen and sperm parameters (study).
In short, when your androgen levels or androgen status is low or instantly drops, your hand grip strength immediately follows.
When your androgen levels or androgen status is high or rises, your handgrip strength immediately rises.
This can happen within seconds to minutes of changes in your androgen status, even if a person never trains his grip strength (but obviously combining high androgen status WITH grip training will yield a higher grip strength, while training grip strength while having a LOW androgen status will yield minimal improvements in grip score).
This makes hand grip strength an extremely reliable gauge of not only testosterone levels and androgen status, but also of day-to-day (or intraday) fluctuations of free testosterone levels and androgen receptor activity.
Another added benefit is that hand grip strength also measures “recovery status” from the gym, so if one day you eat like crap, sleep like crap, or don’t fully recover from training, your hand grip strength will be the canary in the coal mine (it will drop significantly compared to the day before).
It is no surprise that many medical professionals actually use hand grip strength as a quick way to detect the early stages of sarcopenia and hypogonadism in older men. Is is THAT powerful.
Also, it is impossible to “fool” this test by simply training your grip strength, because even if a person does so, androgen status is still the limiting factor that decides how fast their grip strength will increase, or how much muscle they will add to their forearms.
This is why a 10 year old pre-pubertal boy or a woman can train their handgrip strength for months, and still have a lower hand grip strength than an average normal sized high testosterone / high DHT male who never trained his grip.
It is therefore no surprise that as testosterone levels have been declining like mad from generation to generation, so has the average male grip strength (study).
How do you apply all of this? Simply find a free hand grip strength measuring device (also called a dynamometer) in a gym or medical facility near you, and get into the habit of testing your hand grip strength frequently.
You can also just buy one on Amazon or elsewhere online for less than $30. Keep in mind that I am not sponsored by any of those companies, nor do I receive any form of compensation.
I just despise the fact that men today don’t have easy, free, or affordable ways to test their testosterone levels frequently, despite it being a paramount hormone at the cornerstone of overall male health. A diabetic can test his blood sugar anytime at relatively low cost, but somehow a man has to pay at least $50-2000+ just to test his androgen status? Give me a break.
How to use it to "estimate" your testosterone levels? Your grip strength reading (Regardless of whether you train forearms or not) changes up or down day to day (and even throughout the day) as your testosterone status/levels fluctuate (among other things ofc). Your hand grip strength "score" will fall in 4 categories:
💀danger: under 100 lbs
👦low: 100 to 131 lbs
🧔good: 131 to 175 lbs
🦍high: over 175 lbs
each corresponding to where you fall on the total testosterone range, so roughly:
💀under 300 ng/dL
👦300-600
🧔600-900
🦍over 900
Again, these are statistical estimates, and keep in mind that this measures not just testosterone levels but overall androgen status, which is FAR more important than just T-levels (you could have low total T but very high free T/DHT/AR etc., so your handgrip score will be high despite the low total T, and vice versa).
Use the device throughout the day (or each morning when you wake up) to see if you're doing the right Testosterone boosting habits (if you are, your handgrip scores should go up slowly each day, EVEN if you don't train your hand grip).
I'll explain in more detail in future videos. Again, I am NOT sponsored by any of those dynamometer companies (I could easily post an amazon affiliate link for the one I use and get "free money", but I won't to remove any doubt of financial interest). This is to help you find cheap/free ways to test your T levels daily, which I believe should be free and EVERY male should have access to. Good luck brothers.
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Mitchell CJ, Churchward-Venne TA, Bellamy L, Parise G, Baker SK, Phillips SM. Muscular and systemic correlates of resistance training-induced muscle hypertrophy. PLoS One. 2013 Oct 9;8(10):e78636. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0078636. PMID: 24130904; PMCID: PMC3793973.
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Page ST, Amory JK, Bowman FD, Anawalt BD, Matsumoto AM, Bremner WJ, Tenover JL. Exogenous testosterone (T) alone or with finasteride increases physical performance, grip strength, and lean body mass in older men with low serum T. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2005 Mar;90(3):1502-10. doi: 10.1210/jc.2004-1933. Epub 2004 Nov 30. PMID: 15572415.
Auyeung TW, Lee JS, Kwok T, Leung J, Ohlsson C, Vandenput L, Leung PC, Woo J. Testosterone but not estradiol level is positively related to muscle strength and physical performance independent of muscle mass: a cross-sectional study in 1489 older men. Eur J Endocrinol. 2011 May;164(5):811-7. doi: 10.1530/EJE-10-0952. Epub 2011 Feb 23. PMID: 21346095.
Schaap LA, Pluijm SM, Smit JH, van Schoor NM, Visser M, Gooren LJ, Lips P. The association of sex hormone levels with poor mobility, low muscle strength and incidence of falls among older men and women. Clin Endocrinol (Oxf). 2005 Aug;63(2):152-60. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2265.2005.02315.x. PMID: 16060908.
Shin MJ, Jeon YK, Kim IJ. Testosterone and Sarcopenia. World J Mens Health. 2018 Sep;36(3):192-198. doi: 10.5534/wjmh.180001. Epub 2018 May 11. PMID: 29756416; PMCID: PMC6119844.
Sun B, Chen HG, Duan P, Tu ZZ, Chen YJ, Meng TQ, Xiong CL, Wang YX, Pan A. Association of handgrip strength with semen characteristics: a study with repeated measurements among healthy Chinese men. Asian J Androl. 2022 Nov-Dec;24(6):594-600. doi: 10.4103/aja20221. PMID: 35381698; PMCID: PMC9809492.
Gürlek Demirci B, Sezer S, Tutal E, Çolak T, Uyanık S, Haberal M. Hand-Grip Strength Is Associated With Serum Testosterone and Albumin Levels in Male Kidney Transplant Recipients. Exp Clin Transplant. 2018 Mar;16 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):75-79. doi: 10.6002/ect.TOND-TDTD2017.O31. PMID: 29527997.