Military Performance Is More Than a Testosterone Test

Training • Published October 28, 2026 • By PJ Newton

If you’ve been feeling run down, recovering poorly, and wondering whether testosterone is part of the problem, it’s reasonable to ask.

Testosterone replacement therapy, or TRT, can make a meaningful difference for men with a confirmed testosterone deficiency. Getting help for a medical problem is part of taking care of yourself.

You shouldn’t have to feel guilty about it.

But TRT is still a tool.

It doesn’t write your training program, improve your diet, or give you back the sleep you missed last night.

Those things still need attention, whether you use TRT or never need it.

And those things should be the first things you turn to before you go for any medical treatment…

My starting point as a coach is the same either way: build a foundation that supports the work you’re asking your body to do. Eat enough to train. Follow a program that fits your goals. Give yourself a chance to recover.

Brilliance in the basics

And if you have a health concern, get it checked while you work on those things.

You don’t have to earn a medical appointment by getting your lifestyle perfect first.

But you can’t ignore your lifestyle and think a needle is going to ffix all your problems.

Where TRT fits

There are men who need medical treatment for low testosterone. Telling them to sleep more and work harder misses the problem just as badly as telling every tired athlete that they need a prescription.

The Endocrine Society’s patient guidance explains that treatment for confirmed deficiency can improve sexual symptoms, muscle health, bone health, and anemia. Those are worthwhile benefits. How much an individual benefits depends on their condition and response to treatment; it isn’t a promise of faster runs or a bigger squat.

The question is whether TRT is the right tool for your situation. The Endocrine Society’s clinical guideline calls for symptoms consistent with deficiency and consistently low testosterone, confirmed with repeat morning testing. A clinician also needs to look at why it’s low. One result or a rough month of training doesn’t answer all of that.

This conversation is becoming more relevant in the military. Defense Health Agency guidance now calls for testosterone-deficiency screening for male service members aged 30 and older during their periodic health assessment. Screening starts with symptoms and risk factors, rather than an automatic blood test for everyone. Use that opportunity to discuss concerns you have.

From a coaching standpoint, the useful question is what your week looks like around that appointment.

Start with the week you’re actually living

Look back at the last couple of weeks.

How much did you sleep?

What did you eat?

How much lifting, running, rucking, and work did you try to fit in?

A program can look reasonable on paper and be a terrible fit for a week of overnight duty, missed meals, and extra physical work.

That doesn’t mean you’ve failed at recovery.

It means the plan needs to account for your life.

Be specific about what’s changed, too. Has your strength dropped, or has progress slowed?

Is your usual running pace taking more effort?

Are you tired during training, throughout the day, or both? When did it start?

A few notes about those changes give you something useful to work with. They also help you explain the problem at a medical appointment.

It’s probably more helpful if you’re tracking your actual symptoms and not just making things up based on what you think will get you a RX…

Give sleep a place in the plan

Military schedules don’t always leave much room for sleep. Advice that ignores that isn’t much help.

Start with the opportunities you do have. Look at whether late caffeine, an inconsistent bedtime on days you control, or extra training is cutting into them. Pick something you can change this week.

When duty has already taken a large bite out of your recovery, adjust the training. Shorten the accessory work. Drop the extra finisher. Make an easy conditioning session easy instead of turning it into another test.

The goal is to get useful training done at a dose you can recover from. Some weeks that dose will be lower than others. Adjusting it is part of training well.

For more on how sleep fits into performance, read The Importance of Sleep.

Eat for the work you’re doing

If you’ve added running or rucking but your food intake hasn’t changed, start by looking there. The same goes for skipping meals because the workday got away from you.

Make the correction small enough to repeat. Pack lunch the night before. Keep food available for a long shift. Include protein in your regular meals and enough carbohydrate to support demanding training. If you’re losing weight without meaning to, review whether you’re eating enough overall.

You don’t need to turn every meal into a math problem to fix a missed lunch. Get regular meals in place, focus on protein, then pay attention to your body weight, hunger, and how sessions feel.

If fat loss is the goal, give it a sensible place in the plan. An aggressive cut while trying to improve strength, running, and rucking asks a lot of the same recovery resources. Decide which goal takes priority and let the others progress at a pace you can sustain.

TRT doesn’t remove the need to fuel your training. Good nutrition remains useful with or without it.

Train toward something you can define

Pick the performance you want to improve. A faster fitness-test run, a stronger squat, and better tolerance for loaded movement each need a plan that reflects that goal.

That’s the point of training specificity. Work hard at the things that move you toward the goal, and leave enough room to recover from them.

Look at how many hard sessions you’ve stacked together. Lifting, intervals, rucking, and physical work all count. If every run is a time trial and every lifting day ends in a maximal attempt, give yourself some sessions where you practice and build rather than test.

If your current plan is manageable but progress has stalled, check that it has a way to progress. That might mean a little more weight, another repetition, or a modest increase in distance. Change one variable at a time when practical and watch how you respond.

If performance has been sliding across several sessions and fatigue is building, a lighter week may be more useful than adding work. Reduce volume, set aside maximal efforts, and keep the movement manageable. Follow any medical guidance or restrictions you’ve been given.

Getting stronger over time takes enough work to create an adaptation and enough recovery to benefit from it. Both belong in the program.

If you’ve been training for a while and you just don’t feel like your training program is getting you the results you want, you might want to reach out and get some coaching help

Count the stress outside the gym

Your training log might show an ordinary week while the rest of your life says otherwise.

Shift changes, travel, family demands, and long workdays affect how much room you have for training and recovery. Put them on the calendar alongside the workouts. If you can see a demanding week coming, plan a shorter session or a lower-load day before you’re exhausted.

You can still be consistent when the plan changes. Consistency is doing useful work repeatedly, including during the weeks when useful work looks a little different.

A simple plan for the next two weeks

Choose the clearest gap between what your body is being asked to do and what you’re giving it to work with.

If you’re missing meals, start by getting lunch packed.

If every session is hard, take the extra intensity out of the easy days.

If you’re adding late-night training at the expense of sleep, shorten the session and protect that time.

Then keep a brief record of sleep, meals missed, training performed, and how the work feels. Use a few performance measures you already track, such as working weights or running pace. You don’t need a second job collecting data.

After two weeks, review what’s changing.

Is the same work taking less effort? Are you completing sessions more consistently? Is your energy improving?

Use that information to refine the plan.

Improvement tells you the adjustment helped; it doesn’t rule out a medical issue. A lack of improvement doesn’t diagnose low testosterone either. This is a coaching check-in, not a test you have to pass before getting care. Persistent or concerning symptoms deserve an appointment, even while you’re making these changes.

Make the medical conversation useful

Bring your concerns, a rough timeline of the changes, and a picture of your normal workload. Include medications and supplements you’re taking, along with any previous test results.

You can ask straightforward questions:

Do my symptoms and test results support a diagnosis of testosterone deficiency?
What might be causing it, and are there reversible causes we should address?
What benefits could I reasonably expect from treatment?
What are the risks for me, and how would we monitor whether treatment is helping?
How would treatment affect fertility or plans to have children?

That last question matters: testosterone treatment can reduce sperm production. Treatment also needs follow-up to assess symptoms, response, and side effects. The Endocrine Society’s guidance covers these considerations. Work through them with your clinician so you understand the decision you’re making.

My job as a coach is to help you organize the training, nutrition, and recovery around that care. Diagnosis and prescribing belong with your doctor. You should be able to get help with both parts without being pushed toward a predetermined answer.

If you’re already using TRT

Keep building the same foundation. Follow your prescribed plan, eat to support your goals, and progress your training based on what you can consistently handle.

If you’re feeling better, that’s great. Give yourself time to see how that translates into training instead of increasing everything at once. Keep tracking the things you care about: session quality, strength, pace, and how you feel through the rest of the day.

Keep doing the work that supports the result you want.

Keep Learning

Pick one thing you can improve this week and make it repeatable. Pack the meal. Adjust the session. Make the appointment if something isn’t right. Then keep building from there.

1% Better Every Day.