I recently began TRT within the last few months, and I am on what is considered a low dose of 75 mg a week. I’m still going through a transition period, and my dose was recently increased as I was previously on 50 mg. a week until my recent blood work.
On 50 mg I noticed very little overall difference with the exception of a little better recovery after my workouts. On 75 mg a week my cardio has improved a bit, as I can go harder on the stationary bike and my times are better. However, even though I’ve noticed improvement on my cardio, my resting heart rate in the morning is about 3-4 beats per minute faster. In the past, when my cardio improved, my RHR was lower.
Are you fully recovered from your cardio ? Are you just measuring the increase after a couple of sessions ?
More successful cardio sessions (longer/faster) can cause an increase in RHR until you have repeated them enough times to create a benefit and given the body time to adapt with a new lower RHR.
I have no experience of TRT, this is just a generic training response that many people experience.
Thanks for responding DoddFrank. Yes, I’m recovering fairly well from my cardio, although it takes me about 15 minutes to get my RHR to 100 after finishing the exercise bike after 25 minutes, compared to about 10 minutes previously. However, I feel as if it’s easier to go harder, which explains the better time.
Thanks! Yes, i definitely notice improvement and actual testosterone replacement on 75 mg a week compared to 50 mg. I’m not a big guy, and I’m 55, so I just want to replace whatever levels will get me to my optimal levels. I’m not interested in getting much more testosterone than I need and deal with unnecessary side effects.
I’ve always been active, healthy and in overall good shape, but within the last year I’ve been feeling as though my energy levels begin good at the beginning of the day and week, but by Thursday, I’m flat, and my weekends were mostly to recover. I was also noticing difficulty in recovering from my workouts, or from back to back active days. After doing some research, I decided to get my testosterone levels checked, and here I am now.
I’m not sure what my dose will end up at, but I’m guessing it won’t be much higher than what I am now. Let’s see how my journey will go, and how my lab work will be during my next visit.
@observer By recovery i didnt mean how you feel soon after the training session I mean your recovery over the next few days afterwards. For example, I have often found that my RHR is higher the day after a hard session but then returns to normal on say the next day after that. If I train hard for 3 days it is a longer period until my RHR returns to normal.
So your raised RHR may fit into this window of post training increase. These are nomal training impacts.
Finally after multiple sessions of training the RHR may creep downwards from its previous norm as you get fitter.
RHR recovery, after say 15 mins, is usually attributed to decreasing/increasing fitness rather than post session tiredness felt the next day.
As a general rule improved fitness should give you a faster recovery straight after a training session and a lower overall RHR.
As observed by @thomasail there may be an increase due to TRT that is not related to immediate or next day recovery/tiredness but I cant comment on that.
When I was on 80 mg/wk my levels were upper level with side effects. Don’t be so sure you need to go higher and higher. I am on 63 mg/wk and am at 8 weeks in and had a hard time adjusting but many areas are much improved as memory, word search, sleep, fatigue, and my workouts are better with recovery no different. It’s individual so don’t think you need to push up and up. In my opinion you shouldn’t be thinking you need to feel like you did in your 20’s, not saying you are, but I see that a lot. I am about optimal health not thinking I need to have a hard on 24/7. That said since lowering I have nocturnal wood and morning wood especially on my trough day and I inject EOD. I am not sure at this time if I need to lower a tad or go up a little more. On 80 mg/wk I was aggressive and an overall asshole and it snuck up on me. Oh yea, then stopped sleeping.
Check your feeling with your levels. Thinking recovery is better can be many issues, you will get a placebo effect for sure when you raise your dose because more SEEMS better right?
If the endocrine society was on top of the cutting edge we would all be seeing an endorcrinologist but as most here have found they know very little about mens hormones. Test Cyp is indicated for 50 to 200 mg every two weeks per the manufacterer and I believe that is for 18 year old to adults. It’s feeling and blood work and time to adjust. I’ve learned a lot of that from you buddy
@Gibbon Thank you for sharing your experience and thoughts on this topic. I agree about more is not necessarily better. Although I’m active and in overall good health with the exception of recently finding out that my testosterone level were lower than average (close to 300 total t) due to the symptoms I’ve been experiencing over the last year, and actually some symptoms such as difficulty getting consistent good sleep going back quite a few years, I’m not interested in getting levels that I probably had when I was 20, 30 or even 40. I just want sufficient health and energy to sustain an active lifestyle that I can enjoy. I’m going to guess that even at 42 my testosterone levels were quite a bit higher than they were recently based on my overall energy, quality of sleep, consistent night wood during my sleep, exercise routine and the ability to recover well etc.
I’m going to guess that my optimal dose may be somewhere between 70-80 mg a week, and probably no higher than 90 mg based on the improvements that I have felt recently. There are some things that could use some improvement such as sleep. For example, I take sleep aid 3-4 days a week, and recently I’ve been sleeping quite well. So I may consider cutting back on my sleep aid a bit if I continue sleeping well enough consistently.
Overall though I’m pleased with my results on trt, and I’m looking forward to getting dialed in on my optimal dosage. I’m going to guess that my optimal dose won’t be much higher or lower than 75 mg. Either way, I rather increase my dosage gradually if in fact I’m going to need a higher dosage, than raising it quite a bit and risk unnecessary side effects.
Exogynous Testosterone stimulates the sympathetic nervous system so you will absolutely have a higher HR doing everything, including resting and sleeping. I’ve had a lot of trouble dialing in the correct dose because the increased HR factor lead to anxiety and insomnia for me, and I also had trouble getting used to that androgenic feeling at 4am which you might have. I work rotating shifts, so sleep hygiene is a constant struggle without TRT, but add-in the higher HR around the clock and it really beat me up. I’m probably also just a little more sensitive to test than most. I’ve ended up stopping several times because of the sleep and anxiety factor, but the knowledgeable guys on here told me about DHEA and Pregnenolone which worked for me. I’m currently at 85mg/week (microdosing 12mg every morning at 8am) to reduce the peaks and troughs and have minimal bad side effects. Even at that “low” of a dose, my resting HR is up from 52 to 60. Sprinting I used to hit 125 and now it’s 145, reaching zone 2 within 25 seconds. If you bump up your dose again and feel great but your HR is too high to sleep, try Pregnenolone in the am, DHEA in the pm, add Magnesium & Zinc at bedtime and CBD definitely can’t hurt (I get gummies with CBD/Melatonin/5-HTP from Redeem Therapeutics). If it doesnt subside, drop the dose. Your body will have transitional periods when you up the dosage and it needs time to compensate and level things out, which until this recent cycle of TRT, I never gave it a chance to.
@crb83 Thank you for sharing your experience with TRT. Apparently a higher resting heart rate with trt is common. It’s interesting that you and I have what is considered low dosage and have noticed an increase in rhr. Although my increase in rhr is minimal, it’s noticeable. Obviously different people respond differently to trt, but I can’t imagine people taking 150 mg a week or more not having a noticeable increase in their RHR. I will have follow up blood work later next month.
I’m guessing that my dosage after my follow up appointment won’t change much. I am sleeping a little better, so an increase difficulty in sleeping is definitely not an issue for me. I honestly haven’t experienced any negative effects from my current dose other than a slight increase in my resting heart rate. Again, I believe that my ideal dose may be where I am now at 75 mg a week, or maybe a bit lower like 70, but no higher than 90 mg a week. Without knowing what my bloodwork will look like, I’m going to guess that between 70-80 mg a week may be my ideal dosage.
You can take DHEA in the morning, I just felt a little out of whack and changed it to PM. Probably because DHEA lowers your cortisol and since I take ashwagandha at night, I was likely constantly buffering my cortisol around the clock. Overall high cortisol is no good but to constantly screw with things that are tied into your circadian rhythm is no good either, but its just personal preference.
I only get a slight increase in RHR when I’m really blasting the test. By that I mean 1,000 mg/wk for performance enhancement. I know it’s not even close to TRT, it’s using test for gym performance and muscle mass. But, I’ll see my RHR go up about 5 BPM from my cruise dose of 175 mg/wk.
I walk on a treadmill for cardio. At 3 mph, and 8 incline (treadmill good to 15, which is pretty steep), my heart rate will eventually get to 115ish. Only up to 110 on cruise. That takes about 15 minutes to get there, and it usually stays there until 30 minutes.
@Dgordleis
I just recently got back my bloodwork from being on 75 mg a week and it came back with a total testosterone level of 975, and free T at 25. I think I’m good with 75 mg a week, and no need to go higher. My RHR is normal as usual. In fact a bit lower now since I’ve been doing hard cardio intervals.
