Human Growth Hormone: Is it the 'Fountain-of-Youth' hormone some anti-aging 'experts' are touting? Should you consider hGH replacement therapy?

     Natural human Growth Hormone, abbreviated as hGH and medically known as Somatotropin, is a truly amazing and essential hormone, but sadly it is not a fountain-of-youth hormone.  In this article I’m only going to discuss hGH’s role in fully mature adults.  hGH is also produced synthetically, since 1985, and is available only by (very expensive) prescription via low-dose injections.  The synthetic form of hGH is known generically as Somatropin but is sold through prescription under many different brand names, usually ending in ‘-trope’ or ‘-tropin’.  There is absolutely no oral tablet or capsule form of hGH that is legitimate because it is destroyed in the stomach during digestion.  There is absolutely no supplement that will boost your own hGH production.  Those are all false claims and marketing ploys, unregulated by the FDA.  The only synthetic form of hGH that is real, is available by prescription injection only.  You are an idiot if you were to ever try to buy black market hGH and administer it to yourself and that is as far as I am going to discuss black market hGH because I refuse to waste your time.

In adults, hGH is secreted by the pituitary gland in sporadic short bursts throughout the day, peaking at night about an hour after we first fall asleep and enter our first deep-sleep phase - which is why if you take nothing else away from reading this article, simply by ensuring you go to be at the same time each night and don’t miss that critical first cycle of sleep, you will be accomplishing one of the best things you can do to maximize your natural hGH production.  Other natural occurring times when hGH is secreted is in direct response to intense exercise, physical trauma, and during periods of fasting/hunger.  More on this later, as we can deduce simple strategies to maximize our hGH based on this information.

Longevity & Athletic Performance: Is Intermittent-Fasting the Key Strategy to Achieve Both?

Background: My Training Progression & Evolution: Athlete ~ Model ~ Holistic Health

            As I age into my 40s I’ve witnessed my training & nutrition goals become more ‘holistic’ in nature and evolve through various phases, sometimes back & forth, from basically bodybuilding, to body-sculpting as a professional fitness-model, to training for athletic performance, to now training for holistic health and ‘longevity’.  I’d like to say that I’m getting wiser as I get older, but also I’m trying to stick around a long time too, being the father & coach of two daughters.  Ideally speaking, a truly complete training & nutrition plan should simultaneously and equally improve athletic performance, sculpt an aesthetically appealing physique, and, combat aging and age-related diseases.  If nothing else, to be sure, some kind of exercise every day, ideally outdoors, will go a long way towards accomplishing all of the above.  But if you’re a fitness aficionado there’s way more to this story, depending on what your primary fitness goals are.

For me personally, athletic performance and optimal function used to always trump all else fitness.  However, to be completely candid, there was a period during the peak of my fitness-modeling career when I was booking jobs weekly to include magazine cover-tries, that aesthetics actually trumped all my other training goals.  This amounted to me basically always striving to improve lean-body mass & body composition.  Being that I am a professional model and not a professional athlete, I have no regrets about focusing on aesthetics so much.  Now I’ve become more focused on total holistic-health, maintaining range of motion, and exploring longevity, AKA, anti-aging techniques.  I feel like this is a natural progression and evolution that most athletes will arrive at as they age and begin families.

Longevity & The Athlete's Dietary Conundrum...

Heavy Bag Workout with Max Wettstein - NEW Video!

     I had taken some time off from producing my own fitness videos although I did co-produce my new 'Athletic ABS!' series with Gregory Mantell, which is still being released one chapter at a time, FREE via his YouTube channel.  But my own YouTube channel subscribers have been screaming for more fitness videos from me and some have about given up on me!  I've been busy being a family man, coaching my daughter and producing her sk8 & surf media, plus I needed a 'creativity break', and with already over 130 videos completely produced & edited by me, I had already covered just about every type of workout there was! ...Well not really, since there are INFINITE ways to workout, but you get the point!  Well anyway I'm BACK, this time with my 'Heavy Bag Workout' !  It's a good one, full of my best energy and highest motivational level!  I have been training on this heavy bag since December, but wanted to do it right so I waited a while to make a video.

Treating Andropause NATURALLY: Male-'Menopause', or Age-related Decrease in Testosterone

No doubt by now you’ve already heard me speak of what I call the ‘fountain-of-youth’ hormone, Growth hormone, simply known as GH or hGH.  This hormone is primarily secreted during our deepest phase of sleep and is responsible for things like tissue repair and growth, and promotes lean body mass.  It literally heals your body, and combats aging.  There is also another hormone that promotes muscle repair and growth, lean body mass, enhances physical performance, and increases libido.  If you haven’t guessed already, I’m talking about testosterone.  Primarily produced in the testes, of course we men have significantly higher levels than women, but, women also make testosterone by way of their adrenal glands, (Just like men also produce estrogen).  And, testosterone is in fact, what causes increased sexual desire in both men and women, so both can benefit from testosterone production.  But testosterone is very much a part of why we are so different from women, physically and psychologically.  Not only do men produce much higher levels of testosterone, but we have many more T-receptor sites in our bodies as well, whereas women have many more estrogen receptor sites.