Charles Poliquin, who is in his 50s, shares some of his most effective tips:

Read more: The He Hormone/TRT for Life.

I was lying face down on my stomach while my girl dug the point of her elbow into my shoulder blade. I had tried returning to the gym, only to be crippled by a high school football injury. “It’s just a pinched nerve,” some moronic coach told me when my entire right arm went numb during practice

The “pinched nerve” would resurface whenever I’d begin strength training. I was out of the gym for a year or two until learning something doctors didn’t – that there was a solution to a debilitating problem.

What doctors and other quacks call “pinched nerves,” “tendonitis,” and other nonsensical terms are more often compacted muscle tissue that can be unknotted. You just need a workbook, a tennis ball (you later graduate to a lacrosse ball), and a willingness to undergo extreme short-term pain in order to relieve chronic nagging pain.

When there’s trauma to the body, muscles stop firing. When muscles stop firing, painful knots begin the form. What’s worse is that these knots start pulling the rest of the body out of alignment.

The body is a unit. Everything is connected. A tight subscapularis leads to tennis elbow, which leads to carpal tunnel syndrome.

A piano maker turned physical therapist, Clair Davies wrote The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook: Your Self-Treatment Guide for Pain Relief (Second Edition) after observing and experiencing chronic pain. He learned that pain is caused by “trigger points” within muscles.

The workbook explains the cause of numerous ailments. Headaches are often caused by trigger points, although most of my injuries are from the gym and using a laptop.

Trigger point therapy – also called “self-myofascial release” – has changed my life. I recently had a shoulder impingement that kept me from doing overhead presses. After some painful sessions with a lacrosse ball, it was better.

There are specific tools the trigger point therapists recommend:

• Trigger Point Performance Self Myofascial Release Starter Set (here)
• Theracane (here)
• Triggerwheel (here)
• Trigger Point Performance The Grid Revolutionary Foam Roller (here)

I have all of those toys but actually prefer this lacrosse ball and good old fashioned foam rolling.

On my off day I’ll often go into the gym just to foam roll and do self-myofascial release. When I feel an injury come on, then I do short bouts of trigger point therapy several times a day. (Each “session” only takes 15-30 seconds.)

If your body is screwed up, look into trigger point therapy. You won’t regret it.

Want bigger arms: Get Fat Gripz.

“Old has always seemed to me,” a mentor told me, “whatever 10 years older than my current age was.” Thirty seems well beyond a man’s past-due date to a college student, and the Big 4-0 is one of man’s worst fears.

Yet advances in nutrition and medicine seem to suggest that men who live a certain way may live for a very long time.

Have enough money that you don’t need to stress about paying your bills. Remain engaged with the world on an intellecutal level. Charlie Munger said he must “look like a book with legs” to his children. Remain engaged with the broader world. All of these men were social animals, regularly sharing with wisdom and insights through speaking and book writing.

Famous American Men Over 80/American Octogenarians

Warren Buffett is 82 years old.

Is this man too old to enjoy life and run a multi-billion dollar company?

See, “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.”

His lesser known partner, Charlie Munger, is 89.

Munger looks meaner than a rattlesnack. Would you like to have a battle of wits with this son of a bitch?

Munger’s secret to a long life? “The best armour of 0ld age is a well-spent life preceding it.” Also, “Don’t do cocaine. Don’t race trains. And avoid AIDS situations.”

Freemon Dyson is an 89 year old scientist.

Even in old age he’s seen as a rebel, as this book title about Dyson is entitled: “Scientist as Rebel.”

America’s greatest trial lawyer, Gerry Spence, is 84.

Can you give a better speech?

How to Argue & Win Every Time: At Home, At Work, In Court, Everywhere, Everyday is a must-read.

Hugh Hefner is 86.

What’s your notch count?

Larry King will celebrate his 80th birthday later this year.

Threesome action?

See, “How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere: The Secrets of Good Communication.”

Bonus

Helio Gracie lived to be 94 (RIP).

Don’t miss: Mastery.

In the late 1990s, accomplished writer Andrew Sullivan saw his career take a nose dive. Sullivan, a gay man who contracted HIV, had low testosterone levels. Hormonally speaking, he was no longer a man.

He then began what we now call TRT – testosterone replacement therapy. Anyhow who follows politics knows that, when it comes to Sullivan and testosterone, “The rest his history.”

I read Sullivan’s insightful article on testosterone when it first came out – back when people used to read these things called “magazines.” Although the article is from 2000, it is even more relevant today, as testosterone levels are at record lows.

Sullivan describes a feeling I know well:

Because the testosterone is injected every two weeks, and it quickly leaves the bloodstream, I can actually feel its power on almost a daily basis. Within hours, and at most a day, I feel a deep surge of energy. It is less edgy than a double espresso, but just as powerful. My attention span shortens. In the two or three days after my shot, I find it harder to concentrate on writing and feel the need to exercise more. My wit is quicker, my mind faster, but my judgment is more impulsive. It is not unlike the kind of rush I get before talking in front of a large audience, or going on a first date, or getting on an airplane, but it suffuses me in a less abrupt and more consistent way. In a word, I feel braced. For what? It scarcely seems to matter.

I am not able to suffer fools because my testosterone levels have traditionally been high. I unilaterally delete moronic comments because stupidity infuriates me. This is only natural:

That was an extreme example, but other, milder ones come to mind: losing my temper in a petty argument; innumerable traffic confrontations; even the occasional slightly too prickly column or e-mail flame-out. No doubt my previous awareness of the mythology of testosterone had subtly primed me for these feelings of irritation and impatience. But when I place them in the larger context of my new testosterone-associated energy, and of what we know about what testosterone tends to do to people, then it seems plausible enough to ascribe some of this increased edginess and self-confidence to that biweekly encounter with a syringe full of manhood.

Long before anyone had thought to start a game blog, Sullivan had this to say about testosterone and mating:

But the picture, as most good evolutionary psychologists point out, is more complex than this. Men who are excessively testosteroned are not that attractive to most women. Although they have the genes that turn women on — strong jaws and pronounced cheekbones, for example, are correlated with high testosterone — they can also be precisely the unstable, highly sexed creatures that childbearing, stability-seeking women want to avoid. There are two ways, evolutionary psychologists hazard, that women have successfully squared this particular circle. One is to marry the sweet class nerd and have an affair with the college quarterback: that way you get the good genes, the good sex and the stable home. The other is to find a man with variable T levels, who can be both stable and nurturing when you want him to be and yet become a muscle-bound, bristly gladiator when the need arises. The latter strategy, as Emma Bovary realized, is sadly more easily said than done.

If you’ve wondered why game blogs and forums have gotten more catty and negative, it’s because men have the lowest testosterone in centuries. Today’s male has about half of the testosterone his grandfather had. Men with high testosterone don’t hate on everything and cry about life. Men with high testosterone feel like conquerers:

The behavioral traits associated with testosterone are largely the cliche-ridden ones you might expect. The Big T correlates with energy, self-confidence, competitiveness, tenacity, strength and sexual drive. When you talk to men in testosterone therapy, several themes recur. ”People talk about extremes,” one man in his late 30′s told me. ”But that’s not what testosterone does for me. It makes me think more clearly. It makes me think more positively. It’s my Saint Johnswort.” A man in his 20′s said: ”Usually, I cycle up the hill to my apartment in 12th gear. In the days after my shot, I ride it easily in 16th.” A 40-year-old executive who took testosterone for bodybuilding purposes told me: ”I walk into a business meeting now and I just exude self-confidence. I know there are lots of other reasons for this, but my company has just exploded since my treatment. I’m on a roll. I feel capable of almost anything.”

When you hear comments like these, it’s no big surprise that strutting peacocks with their extravagant tails and bright colors are supercharged with testosterone and that mousy little male sparrows aren’t. ”It turned my life around,” another man said. ”I felt stronger — and not just in a physical sense. It was a deep sense of being strong, almost spiritually strong.”

A large part of the decline is attributable to obesity:

Obese teenage boys are at risk for more than diabetes and heart disease, a new study has found. They also have alarmingly low levels of testosterone – between 40 to 50% less than males of the same age with a normal body mass index.

Fat is estrogenic. If you are fat, your testosterone level is lower than it should be.

Although there are dozens of testosterone boosters and other expensive products, the truth is that once you’re past 35, you can’t really raise your testosterone much taking an injection. Yes, Vitamin D and squats help. Avoiding plastics helps. Not wearing a burlap sack of fat around your torso helps.

Yet as Sullivan learned, boosting your testosterone to he-man levels requires “assistance.” According to official Nevada State Athletic Commission records, 42-year old Dan Henderson is on TRT:

If “lifestyle changes” were all we needed in order to boost testosterone, athletes would simply pop Vitamin D and not be fat.

An appropriate TRT protocol is something to discuss with one’s physician.

Don’t miss: Plastic Bottles Lower Testosterone; and Steroids Kill You.

For over a decade we have known not to heat or microwave plastic, as heating plastic causes the release of xenoestrogens.

What are xenoestrogens?

Xenoestrogens are a type of xenohormone that imitates estrogen. They can be either synthetic or natural chemical compounds. Synthetic xenoestrogens are widely used industrial compounds, such as PCBs, BPA and phthalates, which have estrogenic effects on a living organism even though they differ chemically from the estrogenic substances produced internally by the endocrine system of any organism.

Xenoestrogens are clinically significant because they can mimic the effects of endogenous estrogen and thus have been implicated in precocious puberty and other disorders of the reproductive system.

As we live in a polluted world, xenoestrogens are everywhere. They are unavoidable. Because you can’t avoid xenoestrogens (they are in all plastics like televisions, computers, and phones), it doesn’t make a lot of sense to worry about them.

But.

There’s no need to increase your body’s toxic load.

Plastic Water Bottles are Estrogenic

People have long suspected that plastic water bottles were estrogenic, that is, they increased estrogen and lowered levels. The problem is much worse than most expected.

Using an optimized sample preparation strategy, we furthermore present data on the estrogenic activity of bottled water from France, Germany, and Italy: eleven of the 18 analyzed water samples (61.1%) induced a significant estrogenic response

See, “Endocrine disruptors in bottled mineral water: estrogenic activity in the E-Screen.”

In other words, it wasn’t any one brand of bottled water that was estrogenic. Nearly every bottled water screwed up your male endocrine system.

That makes sense when you consider how water reaches your store shelves. The water starts out at a bottling plant. It’s loaded into shipping containers that often reach temperatures above 140 degrees. The water is then drive cross-country through hot states like Arizona.

From bottler to shelf, estrogens are released.

Since a lot of tap water is disgusting, what’s the solution?

Are Brita Water Filters BPA Free or Estrogenic?

Fortunately many companies recognize the menace of xenoestrogens – or at least they recognize the market demand for estrogen-free products:

• Mavea Elemaris XL Water Filtration Pitcher (here) is BPA-free.
• Brita Grand 80-Ounce Water Filtration Pitcher (here) is also BPA-free.

I am also going to install a water filter on my sink. I am currently researching the best ones and will report back with my results.

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Follow me on Twitter for fun and excitement – @playdangerously.

[UPDATE: Check out Juicing for Men for juicing recipes and to learn what is the best juicer to buy.]

When most people hear men use the word juicing, they assume we’re talking about steroids.

Although I had seen the Jack Lalane and Juiceman infomercials, I knew waaaaay too much to ever juice. I was too informed. I knew that sugar was sugar. I knew that separating the juice from the vegetable/fruit’s fiber content would spike my insulin level like a can of Coke. I knew that juice had fructose, and fructose is pure evil.

When I designed an Intermittent Fasting system over 3 years ago, I had to reject what I had known – which often means what others had told me. Intermittent Fasting had been life changing and so I began investigating juicing.

Maybe I was wrong, and maybe the people who hate on juicing are ignorant.

I watched Fat, Sick, and Nearly dead (free if you have Amazon Prime.)

In Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, an obese Australian man with chronic idiopathic urticaria goes on a nationwide tour to discuss his juice fast.

If, “Sugar is sugar,” and “Fructose is pure evil,” then why did this obese man lose over 80 pounds fat? If a can of sugar spikes your insulin, why did his blood glucose levels decrease? Why do people get off their diabetes medication and insulin after they begin juicing?

Like the narrator in Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, I have a severe and rare chronic skin condition. (Chronic means it’s genetic; it’s part of my DNA; thus there is no cure, only treatment.)

I started thinking, “Maybe I should try juicing,” but again was held back by dogma and orthodoxy. Besides, I lift weights and train hard. Joe Cross takes relaxing walks. His approach could not work for me.

Instead of juicing, I started adding these greens powders into my protein shakes. That seemed like a fair compromise. When I ran out of the stuff from online, I went to Whole Foods to look at some greens powders.

“That stuff is the fountain of youth,” a man said as he approached me.

“Huh?” I looked over and saw a guy with a head of thick grey hair and glowing skin.

“Those greens. That stuff is the fountain of youth.”

The guy had enough grey hair that he had to be old, but he looked awesome. His skin was vital and he moved like a teenager. “Son of a bitch,” I thought, “I bet this guy juices.”

“Do you juice,” I asked. “Oh, yes. Every meal except dinner is juice.”

The man was 54 years old. If he had colored his hair, you’d have guessed him to be 38. He hadn’t always looked so young.

He was growing old and feeling sick. His hair had been falling out, he had no energy, and his libido was low.

He spent two years juicing before his body became young again. Like many people who begin juicing, he explained, his body went through a healing crisis.

A healing crisis occurs because all of the toxins you eat, drink, and breath are stored in your body. The body stores the toxins in your fat, and only releases it when there are enough detoxifying agents circulating in your blood.

When you juice, your body knows that it’s safe to release the toxins. You’ll still feel a bit off for a while, but chronic problems like achy joints and bad skin goes away.

(If all of that stuff sounds a bit hokey to you, read this book. It explains Phase 1 and Phase 2 detox pathways. You can also go on Medline, type in “[veggie or fruit name] juice” and read to your heart’s content. Cabbage juice, for example, heals ulcers. Beet juice heals the liver. Do your research.)

Like most people, I fall into bad thought patterns. I believe that I live The Truth. This leads to a closed mind and dogmatic thinking.

Here before me is a man who looked amazing, and who is giving a testimonial about juicers. He doesn’t sell juicers. He shared his story out of the goodness of his heart.

I was convinced that it was time to start juicing.

I did my research, found out that this juicer was rated a best buy by Consumer Reports and began juicing.

I’m now a juice fanatic.

Be sure to check out: Juicing for Men.