Reviewed by MD. Catarina Costa, Internal Medicine · Medical Advisor at Octo HealthWe have spent thousands of hours across men's health research, hormonal biology, and clinical literature, so you do not have to start from scratch. This is the distilled version: the markers that actually matter, the context standard care never provides, and the evidence-backed changes that move the needle.
Start here: three free things you can do today
- Do two compound strength sessions a week. Squat, deadlift, and press patterns are the movements most associated with higher testosterone and LH pulsatility.
- Protect 7 to 9 hours of sleep. LH pulses peak at night, and one week of 5-hour nights reduced testosterone by 10 to 15% in healthy young men.
- Get morning sunlight within 30 minutes of waking. It normalizes the cortisol rhythm that sits upstream of your LH signal.
A few minutes a day plus two short workouts a week, at no cost. The full 90-day plan below turns these into a routine you can keep.
Source: CDC and Cleveland Clinic
Why this matters
Men's hormonal health declines gradually, starting in the 30s and accelerating through the 40s and 50s. Unlike menopause, there is no clear threshold. Most men notice the effects, fatigue, cognitive slowness, reduced motivation, lower libido, long before any marker leaves the standard normal range.
The problem with standard clinical ranges is that they are built on population averages, not on what research associates with good function. The standard range for total testosterone, 264 to 916 ng/dL, is wide enough to include a 25-year-old at his physiological peak and a 70-year-old with clinically significant hypogonadism. The range alone tells you very little.
The markers that matter
Total testosteroneOptimal 600 to 900 ng/dL (≈20.8 to 31.2 nmol/L) · Standard 264 to 916 ng/dL
In plain English. The sum of all circulating testosterone, both bound and unbound.
The sum of all circulating testosterone, both bound and unbound. Research consistently associates higher total testosterone within the upper-normal range with greater lean muscle mass, cognitive sharpness, motivation, and libido in middle-aged men. The standard range is wide enough to include a 25-year-old at his peak and a 70-year-old with significant hypogonadism, so the range alone tells you very little. A total testosterone of 310 ng/dL is normal by most lab standards, and also the level typically associated with the symptoms that bring men to this protocol.
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