Jul 3, 2025
Low Testosterone and Overtraining: When Too Much Exercise Backfires
How pushing too hard in the gym can lower testosterone, hurt your recovery, and stall your performance gains.
Fitness and Muscle
Written by
Mito Team
Training hard is key for peak performance, but going too hard can backfire. Overtraining doesn’t just slow progress—it can drain your energy, wreck your recovery, and drop your testosterone levels.
What Is Overtraining Syndrome?
Overtraining Syndrome (OTS) happens when your body can’t keep up with the stress of repeated intense workouts. It’s more than just soreness or tiredness after a tough gym session. OTS is a full-body breakdown that affects your nervous system, hormones, immune health, and mood.
It usually builds up over time, especially when you’re not getting enough rest, food, or sleep. At first, you might just feel a little off. But if you keep pushing through, it can lead to ongoing fatigue, irritability, frequent colds, and low testosterone.
How Exercise Affects Testosterone
Does working out increase testosterone? Yes, when done right.
Short, intense workouts like lifting weights or sprinting can give your testosterone a quick boost. Going to the gym helps support testosterone, especially if you include strength training and recovery.
But can working out lower testosterone levels? Definitely.
When workouts pile up without enough recovery, cortisol (your stress hormone) stays high. That blocks the signals your brain sends to your testes to make testosterone. Over time, this leads to chronically low levels.
If you're hitting the gym hard every day—especially with heavy lifting or long cardio sessions, and skipping rest days, your testosterone can take a hit. The key is finding the right balance between training and recovery so your body can keep up.
When Training Tanks Your Testosterone
Testosterone naturally goes up and down throughout the day, and it gradually drops with age. But it can also dip when your body is under stress. Overtraining is a major trigger.
Here’s what can bring your testosterone down:
Constant high cortisol from intense or long training
Poor sleep or not enough of it
Not eating enough to fuel your workouts
Skipping rest days or training even when you're exhausted
This throws off your hormone balance. Your HPA axis (which controls stress hormones) gets overactive, and your HPG axis (which controls testosterone) slows down. That means your body makes less luteinizing hormone (LH), which means less testosterone production.
If you're wondering how much is overtraining, it varies, but look out for these signs:
Workouts feel harder than usual
You’re getting weaker instead of stronger
You’re always tired, even after rest
You get sick more often
You’ve lost motivation to train
Your sex drive is lower
You’re not sleeping well
You feel anxious or foggy
These are signs your body is running on empty. If they stick around, it means you’re in a breakdown state where muscle, energy, and performance all start to suffer.
This is why exercise and testosterone are closely linked. The right training boosts your hormones, but too much without recovery breaks them down.
Ideal Testosterone Levels for Performance
For adult men, testosterone levels usually range from 270 to 1,070 ng/dL. But for top performance, many do best on the higher end—around 600 to 900 ng/dL. Just because your numbers are “normal” doesn’t mean they’re optimal for your goals.
Women have much lower levels, usually between 1.12 and 1.79 nmol/L. Still, testosterone is important for energy, muscle tone, and mood.
When testosterone drops, especially with high cortisol, it can lead to:
More belly fat
Less strength and stamina
Lower drive and motivation
Higher risk of injury
Does Running Lower Testosterone?
It can, especially if you overdo it. Long runs without enough rest, food, or strength training can push your body into overtraining and lower your testosterone.
Does Lifting Weights Boost Testosterone?
Yes. Strength training is one of the best ways to support testosterone, especially when you focus on short, intense sessions with compound lifts. Just don’t go overboard, or it can have the opposite effect.
How to Keep Testosterone High and Training on Track
You don’t need to train less—you just need to train smarter. It’s all about balancing hard work with good recovery so your testosterone stays in a healthy range.
Here’s how to do it:
Take rest days seriously: Aim for at least 1 to 2 full days off each week.
Use periodization: Use training cycles to avoid burnout
Prioritize sleep: Get 7 to 9 hours of quality sleep to support hormone production.
Eat enough: Fuel your workouts with enough calories, especially from carbs and healthy fats.
Pay attention to fatigue: Persistent tiredness, mood shifts, or plateaued gains are warning signs.
Track your health, not just your reps: Get bloodwork to track testosterone, cortisol, and nutrients
At Mito Health, we make that last step easy. Our advanced lab tests check over 100 biomarkers—including testosterone, cortisol, B12, and magnesium—and come with clinician-reviewed results and a 1:1 consult to help you make a plan.
If you're pushing yourself in the gym, make sure your hormones can keep up.
Training Smarter, Not Harder
Working out supports testosterone when you’re getting enough rest, food, and sleep. But when recovery falls behind, testosterone can crash, and progress slows with it.
Overtraining is real. The signs start out small, but ignoring them can cost you months of results.
So next time you feel tempted to push through exhaustion or skip a rest day, remember: recovery is part of the plan. Your hormones—and your performance—depend on it.