Is it normal for a 17 year old who goes to the gym regularly(to train not to use phone)has his diet on point to have 470 Ng/DL total test and 12.50 free test? Is it optimal for making gains?
We need more than Total T and Free T, SHBG is another big factor. I can tell you when my Free T was 15.1 pg/mL I didn’t feel well at all and your lower. Your SHBG is expected to be higher than midrange, SHBG affects your Free T, higher the SHBG, the lower your Free T and it’s the stuff that makes the magic happen.
No way in hell is any doctor going to shut down a guy under 20 presenting with your numbers, not unless you’re primary hypo. The fact is your peers are much higher in the ranges than you, typically scoring 800-1000+ ng/dL.
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My test levels aren’t optimal for making muscle gains right ? Is there anything I can possibly do to make it right? I’m burning my ass in the gym day in and out and barely seeing any gains.
You need to detail your diet, if you are on the wrong diet for you, you will find building muscle difficult. Building muscles has to do with genes as well, detscribe you height, weight and build.
Overtraining can hurt your gains in the gym, overtraining and eating the wrong diet can cause low testosterone.
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Boy you better eat right, get some proper sleep, and not even consider TRT at your age.
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Diet is pretty much eggs, oats, chicken and rice ,some milk some pasta and cereal ,nuts and that’s pretty much it.
I was skinny fat
My height is 6ft and weight is 174 lbs around 15-17 percent body fat.
Workout is pretty basic push pull rest push pull legs rest and repeat
Used to do legs twice just changed it this week. Pretty much satisfied with legs.
Have been doing all that. Not looking for trt but just need to know if I am doing something wrong. Don’t want to hinder my progress.
I Am knew to T Nation and didn’t know which category to put it in didn’t think it would suit bodybuilding so put it in trt
Thank you so much tho 
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Keep it up then! You wont find any reputable doctor who would put you on TRT, so might as well do you thing with the resources you have.
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If you had low testosterone I would expect lower energy and strength, lower libido and trouble with erections. If you don’t have any of those problems, then it’s just down to training and diet. It’s not as simple as going to gym and lifting weights and packing muscle, everyone responds differently to certain types of workouts.
Thyroid hormones also play a huge part, Free T3 speeds up every cell in your body.
The majority of weight lifters who have never had a personal trainer are doing everything wrong.
Do you have a personal trainer?
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I live in India and the trainers in the gym are purely stupid. They are putting skinny young People on roids so I would rather stay away from them. I can look for an online trainer tho. Is there any which you recommend?
I do have low energy need caffeine everyday to get me going, strength is okayish libido and erections are average.
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If you feel there is something wrong investigate a bit. Have Dr run some labs. Takes labs within an hour after getting up from a good night sleep.
Check this too Forget T Replacement Therapy?
Total t
Free t
LH
FSH
Estradiol sensitive
Shbg
Prolactin
Am cortisol
TSH
Free t3
Free t4
Lipid panel
CBC
Metabolic panel
Dhea-s
Acth
Igf-1
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Will do 
Thank you
Arent there some people on this forum who do online coaching?
I recall when I first started posting again there was a desi kid (not sure if he was Indian) who posted his calves and was on all sorts of gear but looked like a chubby girl. It’s sad that there was such easy access for roids for him and not proper training knowledge.
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No, personal trainers in gyms in India aren’t stupid, personal trainers are stupid everywhere! Find a coach, or hire one of the couple that frequent this site - and yes, I think there is a distinction between coaches and personal trainers, because I’m a NASM certified personal trainer and I did it for a couple years before realizing half of what I was taught was bullshit and half of what I was saying was an attempt to get people to keep coming and dropping their money. A coach can design a workout and diet plan and check in with you, and do it for a finite period of time.
@SOUL_FIGHTER is correct - evaluate your lifestyle first. Then, if all else fails, see a doctor and AVOID TRT, find the root cause of your low T and fix THAT. It is exceedingly rare for a teenager to really have to be on TRT.
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RANT:
I wasted time with two certs - NESTA and NASM. As a trainer I was barely hitting 275 squat/deadlift and 205 bench. Getting certified as a trainer was the worst fitness investment I made, in terms of time and money.
I think the certification made me feel like I already knew what needed to be known, when in reality I only met the Bare-Ass Minimum to get hired by a gym and pick up a client. All the periodization systems, that I even followed for myself, were stupid money grab schemes to collect sessions from clients. I learned some anatomy, but I coulda done that off Google. I also learned mobility and flexibility, but again, stuff that I would have picked up from working with a trainer.
If I could do it again, I would have trained at Colliseum (lived nearby in NYC at the time - apparently Kevin Oak and Kai Greene trained there at the time) or a Crossfit box, and invested in personal training with somebody legit. But I worked at a commercial gym and that was the extent of my fitness knowledge, experience, and exposure.
I’m not bashing trainers who work out of commercial gyms, but the standard for training general population vs training strength athletes is night and day, and unfortunately I remained general population because I trained myself like it.
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I wouldn’t even consider it just looking at your picture and not judging your age. You look more physically mature than I do for a 33 year old. I’m barely starting to get hair on my chest now that I’m on TRT.
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Probably the wrong place to say this, but I don’t think low T is as big of a deal as people make it out to be
I’m not sure what my current reading would be, but I’ve made huge strength gains (about to put almost 100lbs on my squat and deadlift, closing in on 3 plates from barely getting more than 2 plates) since I first found out I had “Low T” (a reading of low 200s). Getting more sleep and drinking less coffee helped
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You can’t compare your experience to everyone else, I had severe anemia in the 200 ranges. I struggled to climb a flight of stairs, simple everyday things were like attempting to climb Mount Everest.
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That’s true, but somebody who’s 17 has no need for TRT at a 400s rating.
I was in my late 20s with a 200s rating, and although I was always tired, my primary physician and endo narrowed it down to sleep, diet, and lifestyle. Eating pizza everyday, drinking often, staying up late often, etc is what messed me up. My T level was low enough to get prescribed b0ner pills a year later, and it’s been a year since that. And I feel better than ever.
We live in a society where sedentary people have back pain for not moving all day, and get on pain killers instead of getting up and moving. Instead of going for holistic approaches, people turn to pharmaceutical solutions and try to justify it.
Also to add, I don’t think my experience is unique and it was hardly naive to have consulted with multiple doctors who were ethically inclined to not push prescriptions and offered me more sustainable and holistic options.
I’ll explore TRT when I need to, but I see tons of Masters athletes crushing it drug free without TRT, so I most likely won’t. You can’t expect me to believe that every single Masters athlete is a genetic outlier or fake natty.
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