Strong Men Strong Mornings is a morning protein shake for active men over 40 designed to help increase your free testosterone and total testosterone naturally.
To do this, we need to understand how your body makes testosterone.
This figure shows the main steps:
Notice that there are many “plusses” and “minuses” in this figure. Our goal is to support this system as much as possible to increase our free and total testosterone.
You also need to understand that giving yourself testosterone through testosterone replacement therapy will shut down your body’s natural production of testosterone. When you give outside (exogenous) testosterone, it’s a big “minus” to your body that tells it to shut down the entire system of production.
This is why you want to do everything you can naturally to increase testosterone before turning to testosterone replacement therapy. The goal of Strong Men Strong Mornings is to give your body all of the best, scientifically backed supplements to support your natural testosterone production in one tasty breakfast shake.
Starting with this figure, we did further research to determine which of these supplements had strong scientific evidence of producing our desired result, which is an increase in free and total testosterone, along with support for building and maintaining muscle and joint health.
Dosing is also based on the upper recommended limit from the Harvard Nutrition Source.
Cholesterol – Included As Part Of Whey Protein
Cholesterol is the initial building block for testosterone. It’s also what your body uses to build the outside of every cell in your body.
Because of this, Strong Men Strong Mornings includes cholesterol.
Whey Protein – 50g
Protein is necessary for active men to build muscle. We want to target about 1 gram per pound of ideal body weight. So, if you want to weigh 180 lbs, you will want to consume about 180 grams of protein per day. This amount of protein has been shown to increase explosive muscular power, muscle strength and blood testosterone when compared to placebo however, cortisol concentrations were significantly more reduced in WP group when compared to the PL group. See the study here.
Whey protein also has scientific evidence for increasing total and free testosterone, versus soy protein or placebo. See the study here.
Vitamin D3 – 4,000IU
Vitamin D3 has many health benefits, as well as benefits for mood. You can see a summary in this Harvard article here.
For the purposes of increasing free and total testosterone, studies have shown that vitamin D deficiency can lead to decreased free and total testosterone. Bringing Vitamin D levels back to a healthy range can increase total testosterone up to 25% and free testosterone by up to 20%. See the study here.
Zinc – 30mg
Zinc is an important part of testosterone production in the testes, and also has benefits for immunity and wound healing according to this Harvard review.
For our purposes, this study shows that taking 30mg of zinc daily helped increase free testosterone in participants.
Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) 600mg and Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum) 600mg
While there are many different plants that are marketed to increase testosterone, in our review of the scientific research, there are only two that have strong enough scientific evidence of increasing free and total testosterone. You can read the review article here and here.
Our criteria for including plant based supplements was that there had to be more than one randomized controlled trial showing a positive effect on free and total testosterone.
Ashwagandha showed up to a 10-16% increase in total testosterone in studies, with 3 of 4 randomized controlled trials showing a positive effect.
Fenugreek showed up to a 28% increase in total testosterone and up to a 98.7% increase in free testosterone, with 4 out of 6 randomized controlled trials showing a positive effect.
We excluded the following plant extracts due to randomized controlled trials showing no difference in testosterone between the plant and the placebo:
- Asian ginseng. 1 study positive effects, 6 studies no effect
- Tribulus – 4 studies, no difference
- Maca – 3 studies, no difference
- Rhodiola – No difference
- Musali – No difference
- Garcinia – No difference
- Forskohlii – No difference
- Reishi – No difference
- Stinging Nettle – No difference
- Longjack – No difference
- Cordyceps – No difference
Psyllium Fiber – 10g
Protein can be constipating. We add fiber to help aid your digestion. You can see more of fiber’s positive health effects here.
Magnesium – 350mg
Magnesium has been shown to increase total and free testosterone in healthy men in this study. Magnesium appears to compete for testosterone’s binding to SHBG. This means less testosterone is bound to SHBG, and an increase int total testosterone. You can see more details about testosterone and magnesium in this article.
Collagen – 10g
As an active man, your joint health is very important. Our joints, skin, hair, nails, muscles and tendons are all made of collagen. Our collagen production decreases by about 2% every year as we age, so supplementation can help our bodies maintain and heal our muscles and joints from our exercise.
Hyaluronic Acid – 250mg
Hyaluronic acid is important for maintaining moisture in skin and joints. We lose 50% of the hyaluronic acid in our body by age 50. Replacing it helps us to have healthy skin and joints for our activities.
Chocolate And Cane Sugar
We don’t want to drink a shake that tastes bad. Chocolate and cane sugar help give Strong Men Strong Mornings the great taste that will have you looking forward to breakfast.
With these ingredients, you have the most scientifically-backed morning shake to help you as an active man build muscle, have healthy joints, and boost your free and total testosterone naturally.
We hope you enjoy it!
Dr. Mike Frazier and Fox