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Today’s Health Upgrade

• What’s really going on with men’s testosterone?

• The green tea and heart health connection

• How long you can stop exercising before your body notices

• Adam’s Corner: Explore your limits

Health
Is Men’s Testosterone Collapsing? The Data Tell A Different Story

The stories keep appearing to suggest men are facing a hormone crisis. The narrative is that testosterone is collapsing, modern life is creating an ecosystem men can’t handle, and TRT is the solution.

So we took a deeper look at the data and found that the “lower testosterone” problem isn’t just misleading; it’s more of a mystery than you’ve been told. 

Over the past decade, the percentage of American men with lower total testosterone decreased.

A recent 2026 analysis looked at federal survey data (NHANES) from more than 10,000 men over a 12-year period. While the healthy range of testosterone can feel comically wide, 300 ng/dL is a commonly used cutoff for low total testosterone. But one low reading is not a diagnosis. That typically requires symptoms and at least two low tests.

The researchers also excluded men whose prescription records showed testosterone use, since TRT raises testosterone and could distort the results.

Even after adjusting for age — so the drop wasn’t simply because the group included younger men — the percentage with testosterone below 300 ng/dL still decreased, from about 29% to 22%.

To be fair, this isn’t perfect data (there’s no such thing as that). It’s a snapshot of different men at different times, not the same guys tracked as they age, so it can't tell you what caused the shift. And it doesn’t erase older research showing that testosterone declined over longer periods. It simply suggests that the decline has not continued in a straight line.

Zoom out, and men’s testosterone used to be higher in the 1980s and '90s. A shift in body composition appears to be a major contributing factor. 

The share of American men with obesity has roughly doubled since the early '90s. 

But that doesn’t explain it completely because the decline shows up even in men at a healthy weight. What makes the recent shift a bit of a mystery for researchers is that obesity rates did not decline in the reviewed data (although this trend is shifting with GLP-1s). 

The researchers believe the decrease could be due to other behaviors that don’t require a prescription, such as lower smoking rates, less sedentary time, and better prevention and management of health conditions like diabetes.

If you carry excess body fat, losing some of it is one of the best ways to improve low testosterone. 

Fat tissue can turn testosterone into estrogen, but that’s not the only issue. Extra body fat can also disrupt insulin sensitivity, increase inflammation, and interfere with the signals between your brain and testes that regulate testosterone.

Poor sleep, being sedentary, and chronic stress can also work against healthy testosterone levels. And, as you might expect, all three are also tied to gaining extra weight.

This isn’t a war on testosterone replacement, which has a medical time and place. 

But it is a reminder that the testosterone crisis isn’t as clear-cut or dramatic as you’re being sold. And if lifestyle or metabolic health is pulling your levels down, you might have more control than you think. 

Before looking for a prescription, first analyze your behaviors and be honest about your health. 

If you carry excess weight, getting leaner, lifting weights, protecting your sleep, and managing your stress may help increase your testosterone. But those changes can’t correct every cause of low testosterone.

And if you’re concerned, make sure you work with a physician to determine what your body needs.

Together With Pique 
Why 55 Studies Suggest Green Tea Supports A Healthier Heart

In yesterday’s email, we answered a reader's questions about statins and tea. Many of you wrote in to ask why someone would even think tea could be a substitute. 

While tea is not an alternative to statins, the research is more compelling than you might think. Scientists have found that drinking green tea might be the easiest (and most enjoyable) way to support better cardiovascular health. 

Researchers analyzed 55 randomized controlled trials and found that consistently drinking green tea can support improvements in your total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, fasting blood sugar, HbA1c, and blood pressure. 

While it’s easy to compare one behavior to another, the researchers focus on whether small, simple, and repeatable habits make a real difference for your heart. So, rather than comparing this to a physician's prescriptions, view it as daily maintenance that supports other heart-healthy behaviors. 

The scientists believe green tea may reduce cholesterol absorption in the gut, improve how the liver processes fats, help muscle and liver cells respond more effectively to insulin, and reduce low-grade metabolic stress that accumulates over time.

Think of it less like flipping a switch and more like reducing friction. When systems move more easily, numbers tend to drift in healthier directions.

If you want a daily ritual that helps offset life's inevitable stress, tea is one of the easiest wins we’ve found.

Before you start drinking, do a quality check, as —  just like supplements — many teas have quality and heavy metal issues, meaning you don’t get as much of the good stuff, and you get more of the bad. 

Pique uses cold-brew crystallization, a patented process that preserves up to 12x as many catechins and antioxidants as standard tea bags. That means you get clinically backed levels of the compounds that drive the health benefits, and no dangerous amounts of heavy metals. 

Every batch is also triple-toxin-screened — tested for pesticides, heavy metals, and toxic mold — and sourced from certified organic family farms.

As an APC reader, you get 20% off for life and a free starter kit (when you spend more than $100). No codes. No hoops. Your lifetime discount is automatically applied at checkout. 

If you want to be healthier, focus on small habits, done consistently. 

Fitness
Take The Vacation: Why Short Breaks Won’t Undo Your Progress 

You skipped the gym during your vacation or because of an injury. Now you’re back, feeling like you’ve lost so much. 

But don’t worry, no matter how challenging that first day back feels, depending on the length of your break, you haven’t undone your progress, and you’ll get it back a lot faster than it seems.

Two weeks away from training might make you feel rusty, but it’s usually not long enough to cause a meaningful loss of strength or power.

A meta-analysis of 103 studies found that significant declines in muscular performance generally don’t appear until you hit the third and fourth week without training.

That doesn’t mean you won’t feel different if you take a break, but it does mean that your body is just readjusting to the effort of the workout; you haven’t actually lost your progress.

Cardio fitness is similar and can withstand breaks, but it appears to fade a little faster, with changes occurring in as little as two weeks. A review of 21 studies in athletes found that VO₂ max (your body’s ability to use oxygen during exercise) can drop by about 4 percent. 

That number doesn’t seem like a lot, and it’s not a reset, but it does mean your workouts will feel noticeably more difficult. 

When you stop working out, your body isn’t punishing you for taking a break. It’s adapting to what you ask of it. When the demand disappears, some adaptations gradually fade, but that process unfolds over weeks and months, not a few missed workouts.

The key to bouncing back quickly is patience. Your strength and endurance will come back quickly as long as you don’t do far more than you can handle, which can slow recovery and disrupt consistency. 

Push hard, but don’t do extra sets, longer runs, or try to hit PRs after a break. Doing one fewer set per exercise or running at a slower pace could be helpful, as it provides a transition back to your normal routine. 

Adam’s Corner 
Do You Go Easy On The Hard?

There's a moment in one of Ketchell's sets where he finishes, lowers the weight, and just breathes. He’s not done, and that’s the point. 

His head is down, hands still on the bar, and there are a few seconds of nothing while his lungs catch up to the rest of him. You can feel the exhaustion. But then he keeps going.

I know this look and the feeling. I've used these moments as teaching lessons. And the opportunity presented itself again.

Someone watching Ketchell's workout on the app had a question. (You can watch the exact moment here).

If you have to stop and gulp for air like that, doesn't it mean the set is over, and you hit failure? Didn't Ketch hit a wall he couldn't get over, and that was a sign to stop?

The short answer is no.

The longer answer is that I've watched people misunderstand this moment for more than 20 years. And while it applies to the gym, this is a situation that is best applied to life.

When Was The Last Time You Chased Hard?

The gym tests you in a controlled environment. It’s a place where, if you look close enough, effort can't hide. 

And I’m not talking about going after a 1-rep max.

A barbell doesn't care what you intended. You either gave your all on a set to the point that you could only do 1 or 2 more reps if threatened, or you didn’t. 

Sometimes — like Ketch — you need a breath to dig deep and push through for more reps (without risking injury), knowing you truly gave your all. 

That kind of honesty is rare, which is why what happens on the gym floor shows up in the other rooms of your life.

It’s why the gym is not only about PRs, looking better, or vanity. It’s about the big hurdles that stand in your way and building a mindset that helps you push through, even when you’re tired and fighting fatigue. 

It’s easy to spot these things in the gym, and it’s why the next comment stuck with me.

Someone mentioned they understood Ketch’s fatigue because they rest and shake out their arms between sets of curls. But on squats and deadlifts, they push straight through and get it over with.

That's backward, and most people never catch themselves doing it.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with shaking out your arms when you have a great pump. But curls, relatively speaking, are not the same challenge as squats and deadlifts. 

And that’s an analogy for life: We take our time and go max effort on the easy work, and rush through or shut down prematurely on the hard(er) work. 

It reads like a fortune cookie, but the truth is undeniable: If you want to know what lives within you, then you can’t only go hard on the easy. 

Most people pace a workout without ever deciding to do so. First set, you keep a few too many reps in reserve so you'll have something left. Sure, the goal was 10 reps, and you did them, but you could have done 15. Second set, same move. You ration yourself across the whole session like you're scared of running out.

But the first set is when you're freshest. It's the best swing you'll get all day at a genuinely hard effort. Hold back to protect the later sets, and you've spent your cleanest shot guarding your weakest ones.

And when you do push those early sets, the ones that follow get harder on their own, because you carried real intensity into them. That added difficulty isn't the price of the workout. It is the workout.

The person pacing himself to look strong on the last set never finds out what the first one had in it. 

That’s what we call in the Pump Club app, “first set mindset.” It has become a mantra for all community members because it shows you that you possess far more strength and grit than you realize. 

It's Not About Suffering

Before anyone thinks this is an anthem for hustle culture, that's not it.

I don't believe in wrecking yourself every session and calling the exhaustion a badge. 

There’s no need to bury yourself daily and treat fatigue like the goal, all the while going nowhere because you don’t recover enough to be intense when it counts. Recovery isn't the opposite of intensity. It's what pays for it.

Ketchell's breath is the proof. He set the weight down, filled his lungs, and then kept on going. It allowed him to refocus and helped him find his wall. He paused so he could go hard on the hard thing. 

Rest that sends you back into the difficult work is strength.

There's another version that looks identical from the outside and does the opposite.

We all have curls, and we all have squats.

The curls are the work that's fun, flattering, or easy to see being done. 

The squats are the conversation you keep rescheduling. The project that scares you a little. The thing about your health you already know and keep not touching.

And most of us pour our best into the curls.

We clear the easy emails and call the morning productive. We train what already looks good in the mirror and find a reason to skip what doesn't. We put off the hard talk until the timing improves, which usually means never. Then we call it all strategy. Pacing. Protecting our energy.

Most of us have no idea where our limit is, because we've never been there. We hit the edge of our comfort and mistake it for the edge of our ability. 

Those are different places, and there's usually a lot of room between them. The only way to find out how much is to spend real effort on the thing you'd rather coast through. To take on the challenge you might not win.

Which brings the whole thing back to the question that started it. Is the breath failure?

No. But even if it were, failure isn't the enemy people think it is. 

Failure is the bar telling you exactly where your edge sits today. It's information you can't get any other way.

The rep you couldn't finish teaches you more than the ten you cruised through. Because you don't discover your ceiling by staying comfortably beneath it.

So this week, go find a squat. In the gym, put everything into the first hard set while you're fresh, before the voice in your head starts rationing you out, and see what's actually there. Outside the gym, pick the one hard thing you’ve been avoiding or quitting prematurely.

You're allowed the breath. You're just not allowed to quit the moment your breathing changes.

Because the easy stuff can still feel like effort (because it is). But it won't ask you to become more than you already are. -AB

-Adam Bornstein is the co-founder and co-editor-in-chief of Arnold’s Pump Club

The Positive Corner of The Internet
About Arnold’s Pump Club Editorial Standards

We do things a bit differently here, starting with transparency.

1. The Content: All APC emails are researched, written, and fact-checked by the APC editors (see bottom of the email), with written contributions from Arnold (noted with “Arnold’s Corner”). Links take you to original studies (not second-hand sources).

2. Does AI play a role? Not for the primary content, but it is used in two ways. The main items are original content written by the APC team. The summaries at the end are AI-generated based on the human-written content above. We also use an AI tool to edit and review our interpretations of the research, ensuring scientific accuracy. We don’t assume AI is right, but we use technology to hold ourselves accountable.

3. Yes, we have partners (all clearly noted by “Together With”). Why? Because it allows us to keep the APC emails free. We first test products, and then reach out to potential partners who offer ways to help you improve every day. The bar is set high, and to date, we have turned down millions in ad deals. (Example: we will not partner with any non-certified supplements or those without evidence in human trials). If we won’t buy the product, we won’t recommend it to you. And if there’s no evidence it works, then there’s no place for it here.

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Publisher: Arnold Schwarzenegger​

Editors-in-chief: Adam Bornstein and Daniel Ketchell