Taking Pre Workout with a Testosterone Booster: Is It Safe?

Whether you’re looking for strength, power, speed, muscle growth, or whatever fitness goal you have, chances are that you will come across testosterone somewhere along the route to your final destination. It’s the ultimate male hormone that plays a critical role in muscle growth, sex drive, bone density, and more.

The hard reality is that unless you’re doing everything proper diet and lifestyle-wise to support testosterone, your levels may not be as high as you think. When you’re trying to maximize your performance in the gym, you need it.

To level up your workout, you knock back a pre-workout and chase it back with a testosterone booster—the perfect combination to get you amped up to train and boost the hormone needed for muscle growth.

But is taking a testosterone booster with a pre-workout safe? We’re giving you the scoop on what you need to know about combining these two supplements.

What Is A Testosterone Booster And Why Take One?

Testosterone is a big thing for men. While most men know the hormone for its role in sex drive and muscle growth, testosterone is more.

It’s the primary male sex hormone that gives men their masculine qualities—facial hair, muscle mass, libido, sperm production, etc. Because testosterone is a steroid hormone, it also plays other critical physiological and psychological roles.

But the thing with testosterone is that after the age of 30, testosterone production gradually declines, which means blood concentrations start to fall. Because of this, men begin to experience symptoms like low libido, erectile dysfunction, mood changes, fatigue, low energy, insomnia, and poor muscle growth ¹.

What Causes Low Testosterone?

Age is the primary cause of low testosterone due to decreasing testicular production combined with reduced hypothalamic secretion of gonadotropin-releasing hormone. Low GnRH results in insufficient secretion of luteinizing hormone by the pituitary ².

Research suggests that total testosterone levels decrease by 1.6% per year, on average, while free and bioavailable levels fall by up to 2%–3% per year ³; the latter exhibits a more significant drop because of increases in sex-hormone-binding globulin that occur with aging. While testosterone and free testosterone are available to tissues, testosterone tightly binds to SHBG and is biologically inactive.

But low testosterone can also be caused by poor nutrition (lack of precursor nutrients), illness, medications, lack of physical activity, and excessive alcohol consumption.

When left unchecked, low testosterone can do some damage to your body. Because of its role in bone health, low levels can weaken your bones and increase the risk of osteoporosis, but a study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism also showed that low testosterone could increase the risk of death ⁴.

If you’re experiencing symptoms of low testosterone, don’t suffer in silence—get your levels checked out.

The Link Between Exercise And Testosterone

Apart from wanting to increase testosterone due to decreasing levels linked to aging, increasing testosterone can also help to maximize your gains in the gym.

Most people are familiar with the role of testosterone in muscle growth. It’s the primary anabolic hormone required to develop and repair muscle tissue, and high levels post-workout play an essential role in stimulating muscle protein synthesis.

If you’re looking for a boost in testosterone to trigger muscle growth, resistance training is one of the best ways to do that. There’s ample evidence that heavy resistance training leads to an acute increase in testosterone levels post-workout. But the effects are much more profound in young men than older men, which may give rise to the need for a testosterone booster.

An older study found that testosterone levels increase in response to resistance training in both young and older men (23 years vs. 63 years), but growth hormone (GH) concentrations increase substantially more in response to exercise in younger men ⁵.

But what’s testosterone have to do with muscle growth?

As the primary anabolic hormone in the human body, testosterone’s main function post-workout is to stimulate protein synthesis that supports muscle growth and repair.

Both circulating total and free testosterone increase immediately following heavy resistance training and remain elevated for about 30 minutes ⁶. But this increase highly depends on training program variables like intensity, number of sets, exercise selection, rest periods, etc.

While the mechanism behind how testosterone boosts muscle growth is more complex than we’re going to get into, several studies show that testosterone increases muscle protein synthesis and muscle mass by increasing neurotransmitter levels that encourage tissue growth, as well as interacting with nuclear receptors in DNA that trigger protein synthesis ⁷.

So, logically, taking a testosterone booster to increase levels while pumping yourself up with a pre-workout should work to maximize your workout and subsequent muscle growth and recovery.

Final Thoughts

If you were ever hesitant to stack your pre-workout with a testosterone booster, you’re likely in the clear, assuming you’re taking clean supplements like Pre Lab Pro and Testo Lab Pro. And if you want to maximize gains in and out of the gym, combining them is a great way to do so.