Welcome to the Get Fit Guys, quick and dirty tips to slim down and shape up.

My name is Ben Greenfield, and I'm the Get Fit Guy.

Recently, it was announced that Australian researchers started the world's first study

that aims to help men lose weight and prevent diabetes by giving them testosterone.

That's right, testosterone is not just something that professional football players,

bodybuilders, baseball players, weightlifters, and guys like Lance Armstrong can take to maximize

sports performance. For both men and women, low testosterone, in addition to being something that

can cause you to gain weight, lose motivation, and have lower sexual function, is also closely

associated with chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes and poor blood sugar control. So here's the

question. Should you take testosterone to get fit or to stay healthy? Well, you're going to

find out in this episode and learn whether or not you can lose fat, gain muscle, or increase

performance quickly without taking testosterone. So why do guys like Lance Armstrong take testosterone?

You've no doubt heard about the Lance Armstrong doping fiasco in which Lance

admitted to taking a variety of illegal performance enhancing substances, including testosterone.

In a recent newsletter over at getfit guy.quickanddirtytips.com, where I put out a free

newsletter every week, I acknowledge the fact that even without the use of drugs, Armstrong

had some great genetic advantages. These included higher than normal V-O-2 max, extremely efficient

slow-twitch muscle fibers, a very high ability to buffer lactic acid, and high neuromuscular

recruitment of his leg muscles.

So why would Lance Armstrong or any number of other athletes take testosterone?

Or for that matter, why would these Australian researchers look at how testosterone can help people get more healthy?

Well, one reason is that testosterone increases the size of individual muscle cells. A bigger muscle cell pulls harder, so you can gain strength that way.

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