I have always lifted weights and been physically active, but I have just recently been doing intense strength training for about 6 months. This type of training involves 1-5 reps of around 5 sets of compound exercises. Compound exercises are exercises that involve the motion of two joints. So, a bicep would not be a compound exercise since it only involves the moving of the elbows. A pull-up, on the other hand, is a compound exercise since it involves the moving of both the shoulders and the elbows.
Following this routine, I have gained significant muscle mass and strength, increased libido and morning/night time erections, as well as a feeling of mental well-being. Some days I feel like I have so much testosterone in my veins that I feel like I just have to punch something really hard for no reason. However, these days are kind of rare. Furthermore, since strength training I have noticed an increase in facial hair, body hair, and my face not longer looks so puffy, but is beginning to look toned and muscular. I highly recommend starting a strength training program if you have not done so already.
Some of the perks of strength training over “bulk-training” is that strength training increases dense muscle mass instead of making your muscles look big and bloated. Strength training really make you look hard and masculine rather than big and bulky.
Here are some exercises I recommend doing… all with 5 reps of 5 sets. If you can do 6 reps, your weight is too light. If you can do 4 reps, its too heavy.
Squats
Front Squats
Deadlifts
Bench Press (Dumb bell and Barbell)
Pull-ups
Pull-downs
Rows (bent-over rows, t-bar rows)
With all these squats make sure you use good form. The last thing you want to do is hurt yourself. When squatting, make sure your weight is on your heels, not on your toes. When beginning these exercises, its best to start light to get the form down and then move up in weight once you feel comfortable. I recommend searching the internet if your not familiar with proper technique to learn before you do. Good luck<---------------- tHe DuCk <(" )
Over the past 3 months, I’ve been going to the gym a lot, and I started a specific routine just last week. I’ve gained muscle mass, and many people have noticed and commented. Of most importance, I’ve felt more masculine, perhaps an increase in testosterone… I feel more aggressive, and certainly stronger.
Strength training is an interesting idea, I’ll have to look into incorporating that in my routine, which as of now is just targeting specific muscle groups per day. I give myself the weekend to relax, and get some cardio in on Sundays.
Doing this hasn’t really helped me with sexual performance (yet?), but my appetite is resurfacing. It’s becoming extremely difficult for me to tolerate feeling sexual desire, and being mostly unable to perform. Kinda like being hungry but you can’t eat, in a way. If it’s doing anything, it’s really making me realize I need to fix this problem.
Weightlifting is definitely helpful though guys, and it’s many times over more useful than sitting on your hands and crying about the unfair situation you’re in. Get on a schedule, you won’t regret it.
Definately I think this has huge upside. I used to love the gym and have weight trained my whole life. Catch 22 situation for me. Since Fin crash I’ve always felt too sick, fatigued and weak to get to the gym. Its a physical struggle to get to work and back most days.
I second boston332 in his thoughts here. I did crew and a number of other competitive sports while in college and throughout my earlier years. I was almost a “gym nut” in some respects because of the fanatical attention I paid towards caring for my body and everything else. When I started losing my hair I wanted to stop it, so I asked doctors for their opinions (yes, I sought multiple opinions and they were all “go” for me to take it); in fact, given the literature and everything else put out by the manufacturer about this drug, at the time I was actually of the opinion that you would be crazy not to take this drug. Now I know better.
I gave up going to the gym completely a few months ago because it wasn’t doing me any good. I didn’t get any stronger, didn’t lose any body fat, and then my joints and muscles would ache for a week after even moderate levels of gym activity; I basically felt that all I was really doing was injuring myself. I didn’t see the point anymore, so I stopped totally. Since then I started getting treated for the hormone problems with Clomid, Cabergoline, and Arimidex, and they seem to be starting to help me a little; my plan is to wait until I “hormonally” feel right to return to the gym before I do so, otherwise it would just be a waste of my time. Presuming I do make an acceptable recovery with the drug program, then I’ll start trying at the gym again.
The irony about this situation is that I never regrew any hair while on Propecia and in fact I probably have less hair now than I ever did; and, I also now have what seems like at least a hundred different real medical problems too, and that I have every expectation that I will be screwed as a result of this experience for the rest of my life. Despite having lived like this for almost a year now, I still can’t believe this is happening and that it happened to me; I have a real appreciation now for what good health is really worth and I want to live and enjoy life now more than I ever have before, and I don’t understand why I have to be trapped in this dysfunctional body. Now I feel like I truly understand how someone who becomes diagnosed with something like cancer feels.
After five whole years of dealing with this myself, I still struggle with that realization every day. When I think about how it has completely shifted the equation of how I interact with people socially (mainly girls), it’s pretty scary how it can impede your personal goals.
Anyway, I just came here to say I totally empathize with your comments about fatigue, and working out feeling counter-productive. I was in those shoes myself; I’d avoid any serious exercise because my muscles felt weak and atrophied, and I was convinced I’d only hinder my health.
If I could relive that time, I’d get started with a workout routine anyway. My symptoms just distracted me, and I rarely had enough time in a day to do anything but stay online and research, which was all I was intent on doing. Let alone the little food I was eating, because I was responding to my slower metabolism.
Even if you’re in that period still where your mind is foggy and dull, establish a light exercise routine, and don’t neglect weights, which are usually an easier stress on your adrenals compared to cardio. The best approach is hit chest, back, arms, shoulders, legs and abs with multiple sets (on different days). And you must control what you eat… as repairing your body with nutrients and supplements is the second half of the process. If you work out, and don’t eat well, you’re going to see next to no improvement. And one last idea, take up stretching and yoga to wind down, as it really does relax you.
And if you can’t bring yourself to get into a gym just yet, just buy dumbbells and look up how to work out those muscle groups that way (a good website is exrx.com). Make slow progress. Take a walk every day. Go farther the following week. Life is too short to not take control, guys.
Agreed! Weight training was a huge part of my life before the poison and is still a big part of my life after.
I have never stopped through this whole nightmare. I found I had split things up to accomplish what I used to. I used to be able to hit the gym and do two body parts. Then I found I needed focus on one per workout, because it too much for me. Now I’m back to being able to do two body parts in the same workout.
I do agree that every guy here should be weight training with resistance type movements. I have a whole bunch of equipment at my home and a gym membership. I think it’s a good idea to get some weights for home too. I still find my motivation is harder than what it used to be, which I think is attributable to the lower T.
This way if you have weights at home, if your motivated to workout you can do it when ever you want.
Is anyone else experiencing diminishing returns working out? I seem to be getting tighter muscles in my shoulders. I think it might be because I ran out of protein/amino acid supplement or because I cannot seem to get into an exercise that allows the full body movement I need. And it seems like the more exercise I do the better I feel until I plateau, then it’s impossible to get any sort of endorphin feeling.
I appreciate the comments, support, and advice everyone has made following my post! Responding to 3pm in particular because he hit a number of key points, first, I totally agree with your statement in regards to social interactions; my personality has been changed so completely by this drug that I often wonder if I am really even the same human being that I was before Propecia. I have totally isolated myself socially, and I do not think and feel the same way that I used to think and feel; I have become extremely cynical about everything you can imagine, have lost the aggressiveness, persistence, and innovativeness that originally led me into a professional career, and have become somewhat combative and confrontational in the few social interactions that I cannot avoid (i.e. having to go to work).
The extent of my social isolation is especially evident in regards to my encounters with women; if I can, I’ll actually hide from any halfway attractive woman between the ages of 20 and 35, so that I can avoid having to deal with the expectation that I should approach her (I am single and am/was heterosexual). If I do interact with her and am disinterested or avoid further contact, it may be perceived that I am gay, or that I am snubbing her or some other bad thing; and if I do act interested, then I have to deal with the fear that she’ll be receptive to engaging in a relationship with me…and what the heck am I going to do if she wants to have sex with me? I’m not sure which of these scenarios would be harder for me to handle.
About the workout suggestions and coping with the fatigue and everything else you guys have mentioned, I appreciate those as well, but I also feel a need to reiterate what I’ve already said and include some additional information to make my position clearer; I don’t think I ever voiced my intention to totally give up on exercise. I did start working out at the gym aggressively immediately after quitting Propecia (the next day in fact), and a few decade-old injuries showed their head for the first time in several years and this has hindered my ability to stick to any sort of a workout “recovery plan”; I had damaged a disk in my lower back at age 15 in a fall, and also had an impact-related knee injury occur the following year (both of these luckily were minor enough that I didn’t require surgery and a just a few months of being sidelined were enough for sufficient healing). I had persistent pain from the lumbar back injury, which I learned to manage by keeping up my abdominal strength; a solid sit-up/abdominal workout routine 2-3 times a week was enough to keep me totally pain free, and I had no restrictions on my range of movement or performance abilities in athletics or sports. By the time I got to college, I had learned that I no longer needed to do sit-ups aggressively in order to keep the pain from appearing again; on a few occasions, I had gone for months without doing any stomach exercises, and I didn’t experience any relapse of pain. Likewise, with the knee injury, after about a year or so it stopped becoming an issue, as pain from running and other high-impact exercises subsided with time (but it would still act up a bit even years later, if I did something exceptionally abusive like trying to run a marathon).
I experienced a lumbar back injury (muscle spasm, and associated herniated disk) in the gym the first day I started to get back into a free weight routine (late February 2010); and, I wasn’t able to feel confident about my ability to re-attempt a free weight routine again until mid-summer, after my spine had a few months to heal and I built myself up a little with abdominal exercises. I know for sure that my severely weakened condition from being on that drug made me vulnerable to experiencing that back injury, as there was relatively little muscle left around my core to protect my back. My emotional state at the gym during that first day returning to the gym didn’t help things either, since I was basically in a fit of rage at the time I got hurt; I was totally blown away by my inability to perform, and was progressively rotating around to other exercises (doing just one set of each) to assess the extent of my weakness…then I suddenly experienced a muscle spasm in my back and a disk injury that left me unable to walk out of the gym and get home without assistance. What shocked (and angered me) was my sudden realization at the gym that not only had my muscle mass been reduced (I already knew this from simply looking at myself in the mirror beforehand), but also that the remaining muscle mass on my body was not performing as well as I had anticipated that it would perform; muscles of that size were performing like muscles of that size for a girl, not like muscles of that size for a man…they just weren’t working efficiently at all.
Once I returned to the gym again in the summer, I was much more careful about what I did so that I wouldn’t repeat the injury, but I did not modify my exercise routine at all (I still did squats and other exercises that put a load on the back). I got a good free weight routine together and visited the gym to do that up to 4-5 days a week (similar to the schedule I had executed while I was an athlete in college; it was the most aggressive routine that I could put together safely). In addition, I would do whatever cardiovascular exercises that I felt I could handle; I would run or bike approximately three times a week. After going through this for three more months and seeing little improvement relative to the improvement I know I would have experienced with a pre-Propecia hormone system, I decided that the burden on my schedule was simply not worth the reward, not to mention the persistent joint and muscle pain and the fact that my body never really seemed to recover from my last gym visit (the aftermath of every gym visit was basically the same as you would expect after your first day back at the gym after a long break; I never really got “broken in” with time, and I was always sore all over).
In addition, the old injury to my left knee flared up again, and it got so bad I was severely limited in what I could do for a cardio workout; I could not manage much more than a two mile jog down the street once a week before the pain got to be unacceptably great. In fact, even with just this low workload I think I may have pushed myself too far, as I had persistent pain and popping/clicking in my left knee; my knee never fully recovered from the last jog before I made the next Sunday run. Now I have a real fear that running while weakened from Propecia I may have done real damage to this knee, not just short term discomfort; the next doctor appointment that I make will be to see an orthopedist to appraise the situation with my knee.
I essentially made a time management decision, and decided that I was better off spending those hours researching endocrinology and Propecia and Propecia side effects (I found this website and others), and I started looking around for qualified doctors to help me out. Up to that point, I had been following my general practitioners advice to just wait it out until I made a recovery (come back in five weeks to see me to follow up, come back in five more weeks to follow up, come back yet again in five more weeks to follow up…advice which I now heavily regret accepting). He finally did do a blood test on me during my third visit (mid July) after I became vocal in demanding it, and although there were obvious anomalies discovered as a result, he still recommended no action. Meanwhile the wastage of my body continued despite my gym visits, and I was progressively led into a yet deeper hole day after day.
I honestly don’t know why I wasted so much time listening to the same doctor who had been the one to prescribe me Propecia to begin with, who didn’t even warn me of the possibility for side effects (he didn’t even mention the side effects that Merck admits). Initially, I sought out local doctors for the sake of convenience, scheduling appointments with multiple endocrinologists (it took me over a month to get into the office for the first available appointment, and over two months by the time of the last). Each of these doctors insisted on drawing blood from me in their own office, and running their own blood tests independently from each other; I don’t know if they did this because they didn’t trust the competency of the staff or the lab performing the other tests, or if they just wanted to hit my insurance, or what else. Regardless, in the end, none of these endocrinologists really seemed to be proactive about treating the hormonal anomalies; I got the impression that there was some element of fear or hesitation on their part to treat me, since I apparently was a “hot potato” in that I had a rare reaction to this drug (some of these doctors didn’t even believe that this reaction was real; “I must have been like this before Propecia”, they said). One doctor offered to treat me with 0.5 mg Cabergoline once a week, but that was it; and, I just knew from my gut given how bad my situation was that a low once a week dosage of Cabergoline wasn’t going to do the job, so I finally decided to bite the bullet and invest the time and money to see one of the doctors listed on this website, and the closest to my location was Dr. Irwin Goldstein in San Diego so I chose him (I assumed at the time that the doctors listed on this site must be in collaboration with each other, so the treatment from any of them would be the same).
Anyways, to make a long story short (I talk about my experience with Dr. Goldstein in additional detail elsewhere on this site), he prescribed me 0.5 mg Cabergoline twice a week, 50 mg Clomid twice a week, and 1 mg Arimidex twice a week. He was much more aggressive in his plan for treating me for this, and was by far much more receptive to hearing my story and totally understood why I was so freaked out and traumatized and why I felt such great urgency to make an immediate recovery. Dr. Goldstein had apparently seen several guys like me before, and the confidence that he exhibited in examining me and pursuing an aggressive treatment plan in turn gave me confidence that this was someone who was looking out for me and that he was someone that I could trust. (Trust is something that a doctor must now earn; he must sell me on his treatment plan. After what happened to me with Propecia, trust will never be something that I give to any doctor offhand again.)
I started the Clomid six weeks ago, the Cabergoline five weeks ago, and the Arimidex four weeks ago. Dr. Goldstein said it was OK to start them all at the same time, but I felt a personal need to space them out in case I had another crazy adverse reaction like I did with Propecia…then I would have some idea of which drug did it to me. To date, I have experienced no adverse effects whatsoever, and I know for sure that I’m beginning to make some sort of a recovery (my muscles feel a little bit more “pumped up”). I don’t know how long it will take to experience the full effects of this recovery, or even if I will make a full recovery before the effects of the drugs finally plateau, but I am hopeful now that this situation can at least be mitigated sufficiently so that I can soon go back to living my life again.
I feel well enough now that I think I could begin to experience a benefit from attending the gym and getting into the use of free weights again, and so I will be returning to the gym soon. I think now at least my body could develop some additional muscle mass with respect to my former post-Propecia condition, but I am presently somewhat skeptical that I will achieve anything near my former performance pre-Propecia. As I recall, Dr. Goldstein mentioned that I should expect the sexual dysfunction issues to be the last things that recover, so hopefully with time I will see some improvement there too.
I apologize to everyone for getting side tracked into telling the whole long story with the experiences I’ve had going through doctors and how my time and money got wasted and everything; I just felt a need to say something about it somewhere on this site in order to encourage you guys to be more aggressive in seeking help, and with everything else I wrote, here seemed like a good place to do that. In my opinion, “wait and see” is not good advice to follow with respect to dealing with your situation, and if any doctor recommends “wait and see” you should find a new doctor and continue to seek out new doctors if necessary until you find one who is 100% on your side and believes your story (few doctors will) and is willing to be aggressive in treating you for it. You owe it to yourselves to get your lives back on track ASAP if there is any chance that you can do so.
God, since weaning off this stupid drug I’ve seen NO improvements from going to the gym. I went on an exercise program outline by the “Body Sculpting Bible for Men”. Over the course of 8 months, I measured myself to see what I gained. I took protein supplements just to be sure, even though my diet is pretty healthy. And what do I have to show for??? NOTHING! NOTHING! It’s frustrating, really frustrating. I’ve basically given up.
Why do I not get stronger or gain muscle? Is it diet? No, I plan what I eat, all vegetables, fruits, natural unprocessed foods, fish, nuts, eggs, etc. Workout routine? I worked out 4-6 days a week, did cardio every other day, completely changed the routine every 2 weeks to prevent plateau. I took measurements of my entire body since I began the program. I measured my torso, thighs, calves, forearms, arms, and chest to see if I could get Greek proportions. I was hoping “Ok, maybe I’ll gain an inch in arms this year”. Nope. Not even half a centimeter. Pathetic.
Hmm, then what could it be? Any medications? Actually, yes, I was on Propecia and weaning off it at the same time. Bingo!
At the same as I was coming off the drug I was starting to seriously burn through what little hormones I had left. I know this because I couldn’t get good pumps, I would lose energy in the gym so quickly, what labido existed before my workout would die after my workout, and I’d feel burned out.
I can no longer workout like I used to a couple years before. It sucks, my body is wasting away, it’s a lose-lose situation. All I can really hope for is simple push-ups, sit-ups, and cardio. Squats are so hard to do now, it sucks all my muscle energy to do a set.
.
Buddy, I think your right about the personality change. The rare days when I have labido are when I feel my best, and I’m more extroverted. Otherwise I’m ruined.
i agree i work out all the time and do creatine and i can only lose muscle. from going every other day i can maintain what im at. im gonna go on primordial performance supplements in a few months to see if that can help. i hate feeling this way.
I think you guys should see an endocrinologist to get your testosterone and other hormones checked, if you haven’t already. My testosterone dropped really low because of Propecia and didn’t recover on its own; I needed to be put on Clomid and Arimidex in order to correct that stuff, and once I did accomplish that, then it was relatively easy to repair the body wastage issues.
My experience has been that the sexual dysfunction issues are the only really hard things to treat with respect to post-Propecia side effects; these problems are way more complicated and there is no “off the shelf” treatment plan for these sorts of issues, and this is why they have been the most difficult for me to overcome.
Yes, I will report that I am 99% recovered from the body wastage issues and other physical side effects. However, I have not yet discontinued the Clomid, Arimidex, or Cabergoline; only after I do will I know if this recovery is really a lasting “cure.”
The cognitive issues and the sexual dysfunction issues are ongoing; but, these have begun to improve as well since I started the usage of some additional medications (bupropion and naltrexone). I am still working to figure out the appropriate dosages of these drugs for me, so I haven’t yet reported my use of them in my personal story thread.
That is great news, well, as long as things stick once you are off the drugs. I really do hope they do. It is interesting that Goldstein said that sexual function is likely the last thing to return. It sort of gives be hope because in many ways I am back to my old self despite having some anxiety and depression.
AeroEngr - It is encouraging to hear your progress. I also hope that it continues. I am also experiencing muscle wastage and am fearfull of how far it will go. In your discussions with your doctor, is there an expectation that the benefits of arimidex and clomid will continue after stopping using them? If not, is taking them indefinitely an option?
In other words, if muscle wastage is a side effect of very low T levels, how can you fix that without permanently raising your T levels which, unfortunately, has been difficult for most to do successfully? Apologies for being critical, but I am simply trying to understand the logic of your expectations. Thanks.
I have no idea what will happen to me after I discontinue the Clomid and Arimidex, and the doctor hasn’t offered me any guarantees either way; the only way to find out for sure is to stop taking them, and then to take a blood test a month later to see where I stand. My impression is that these drugs are essentially supposed to restart my system; the Clomid and Arimidex treatment is also used to treat former steroidd abusers and get their natural systems back up and running again (presumably its effective in helping them, otherwise doctors wouldn’t be doing this to try to treat them). Obviously, my hope is that my system has been restarted and that I won’t have to take these drugs indefinitely, though if necessary I am prepared to take them for the rest of my life if that’s what I have to do to keep my endocrinology within normal parameters; I’ve already made peace with the potential for that situation to arise and I have prepared myself to deal with it emotionally if the time comes. Going back to a hypogonadal situation is totally out of the question for me; I will do anything to avoid it, regardless of what it may cost me or how it might inconvenience me to have to continue to consume these drugs indefinitely.
My body wastage continued to progress for months, right up until the time that I got on the Clomid and other hormonal drugs. The rate of decline did decrease as time passed, but it was always a downward trend and thus this is why I hit my relative “bottom” in November of 2010 (when I started the Clomid and Arimidex). If I were you, I would see someone to see if you can get on some meds to arrest the decline. Personally, I’m not optimistic for your situation unless you get help; I feel this way because my situation only got worse with time, and in addition, I became increasingly frustrated and emotional as this problem dragged on endlessly.
I’m not sure that I understand your comment regarding your apologies for being critical of my expectations; I have no expectations for my future, and can only wait to see what hand I get dealt later on and to just take this thing one day at a time. I just don’t know what the future holds for me, and to be honest, I just can’t stand to worry about it anymore; the anxiety level for me is already way over the top and I don’t need to do anything to make it worse.
My point is that I already know that I can be treated for the hypogonadism and the body wastage; whether or not I have to do it forever is not an immediate concern of mine. My immediate concerns have to do with the ongoing sexual dysfunction issues that Dr. Goldstein has thus far been unable to correct; I worry about whether or not something can be done to fix those problems, and at the moment I just don’t care what it will cost me to fix the problem, or what prescription drugs I must take to make it happen or whether or not I will have to consume them for the rest of my life. All things taken into account, I would consider it a privilege to consume these drugs for the rest of my life if they were effective in treating me for these problems.
Before Finateride I used to lift weights 3 times a week on a mass gaining routine.
Since Finateride, Whenever I do weight lifting, my prolactine shoots up to twice the normal range even for a woman. Then I grow breasts instead of pec’s. I used to work out lots before Finasteride. Now I stopped because it seems to make my prolactine shoot up. Then my chest gets very sensitive. This is mostly only when I do heavy weight training.
I have not worked out in a while though. It’s maybe been a year or more. I should try again to see if it would still do this or if I would feal better.
Just thought I’d share my weight lifting / Finateride experience.
