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Sport and Testosterone
The supply of testosterone has a real beneficial effect in athletes as it is a mental stimulant increasing the motivational potential of the athlete. Testosterone especially causes increase in the muscle mass, strength and endurance.
That means that the addition of testosterone enables to increase training intensity. It is important for athletes who look for a way to maximize their training to boost their endurance and push up your limits.
Starting the well known cycle of performance:
In principle, testosterone in men is produced in the testicles and more precisely in the Leydig cells. It is subsequently transported by blood which washes the muscle mass.
Testosterone is a steroidal type hormone of the group of androgenic hormones or testoids. It is this hormone which is responsible for the correct muscle mass in men i.e. for their stamina..
It can be quite easily produced synthetically at low cost as it is a derivative of cholesterol. Therefore it quite promptly started to be produced to enhance the training of athletes.
This synthetic testosterone was termed as “exogenous” as opposed to the “endogenous” testosterone naturally produced in the organism.
An injection of testosterone considerably boosts the performance of athletes!
But in 1984 testosterone was designated as an illegal doping agent and was subsequently banned from sports. Even a simple test was developed for fast detection of the presence of exogenous testosterone in the athlete’s body.
In fact, the human body generates naturally different molecules simultaneously with the endogenous testosterone. This different molecule is called “epitestosterone”. Normally, the ratio of epitestosterone to testosterone is about 1.
But if we consider especially athletes to be the models of masculinity and strength who represent about a 10% minority having a high level of testosterone which was legal according to the International sports authorities up to 2004, we might assume that the testosterone to epitestosterone ratio might be about 6.
Nevertheless, in 2004 this ratio was reduced to 4. In cases of a positive test results it is completed by the analysis of the normal ratio of the endogenous testosterone in the athlete in question.
