Help Regarding Blood Work!

Hi guys,

Have never posted on here before but always refer to the forums for advice. I am 32 year old male standing at 188cm and weighing around 170lbs. I have an extremely lean physique with 4 years prior experience in training. I have just come back from a 2 year break and currently in my 3rd month back in the gym, only this time round things are a little different.

Before my 2 year break I was able to build to 180lbs with power stats including the following:
Bench - 130kg
Deadlift - 180kg (stopped after injury)
Squat - 100kg
Seated shoulder barbell press - 80kg
Barbell curl - 60kg

Current stats @ 3 months
Bench - 100kg
Squat - 80kg
Seated shoulder barbell press - 60kg
Barbell curl - 45kg

Now this time round although power progression and physique are coming steady I am assuming this due to memory muscle as to achieve my previous stats took 4 years of consistency and now in 3 month I’ve gained from a 50% power loss and added around 7lbs of mass from a decent diet and training schedule. However I feel stamina/muscle recovery is not increasing and I feel a lot more pain in my joints and bones making each session an unpleasant challenge whereas before they were a breeze. I have since gone to the docs and got some blood work done which display the following:


Now understandably the results show a clear deficiency in some vitamins and an increase in cholesterol, but I am a bit concerned with my SHBG levels being at the higher end of the spectrum and wondering if this might be the contributing factor of why I find it hard to gain from the gym. I know at 188cm being 170lbs is quite underweight but I’ve always thought I was one of those guys that will never gain fat and only grow to an inferior genetic potential.

Any help would be much appreciated!

)

That’s how it starts, when we’re young we think we’re invincible. You’re only human.

Your Total T at 545 ng/dL and SHBG at 71 doesn’t bode well for your Free T! This is common in bodybuilders, cutting, starvation diets drive the SHBG up and the Free T down.

If your pituitary gland was robust, your Total T and LH would be sky high.

You need to put back on some weight, eat normally and maybe you come out of this whole again.

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Thanks for you reply!

In regards to my diet, my diet has never been around cutting or in a deficit. In fact I’ve always tried to eat a surpluss of food and never really focussed on clean foods either. My diet consist of eating anything and everything as long as the carbs and calorie content is high. I include a lot of chicken curries! If SHBG is high leaving little free testosterone to be used in other areas of the body, will this not be detrimental to muscle and strength gain? How can SHBG be brought down, I’ve heard of supplementing with things like boron and zinc but this seems to be subjective?

Highly unlikely, I have never heard anyone cure high SHBG with boron. I only see those that’s try it and fail.

You may be suffering from overtraining which dropped your testosterone. Pushing things too hard can lead to insulin sensitivity changes, driving SHBG up and then you drive your T down.

This isn’t always the case, decreasing SHBG alone doesn’t increase T production within the testicles. The signaling hormone, LH secreted by the pituitary gland is what increases testosterone.

The only way this could be true is if you had very high LH levels, very high Total T levels and high SHBG. This scenario would indicate an robust pituitary gland.

I would have thought 553ng/dl of total test fell in the ‘normal range’ for men so didn’t think my test was low as such, more so the SHBG being on the higher end of the spectrum like you mentioned results in low free test which is my concern. I’m trying to figure out why my SHBG level is so high when all else is in the normal range

Take boron to lower SHBG