Doctor Reveals How Getting off Testosterone Will Hurt Fighters on It

Stop me if you've heard this one before: Fighters who are affected by last week's Nevada Athletic Commission to ban the usage of testosterone replacement therapy are in trouble.

Where they were once handed a golden ticket that allowed what amounted to legalized cheating, fighters who have relied on TRT will now have to compete without it. Legally, anyway; the likelihood of every single figher with aTRT exemptionsimply opting to fight clean, without any drugs in their system, is slim to none. They'll just figure better ways around it, at least until Nevada and other states start conducting truly random drug tests for every single competitor they license.

But it's going to be a little harder now, anyway, and that's the major point Nevada made last week. And for the fighters who have actively taken testosterone for the last few years, well, it's going to be even more difficult.

Dr. Neil Goodman is a practicing endocrinologist. He's the chairman of the Reproductive Endocrinology Scientific Committee for the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. In short, he is a man that knows what he's talking about when it comes to testosterone.

Fightland caught up with Dr. Goodman on Monday to discuss what life is about to be life for fighters who are no longer eligible for testosterone:

Every single guy whose exemption is getting taken away is going to come up with very low testosterone, and he wont be able to compete, at least on the level that he might have been competing at. Every guy that goes to the commission and stops getting these exemptions, theyre going to have to get some testosterone to just keep them normal. They wont be able to compete because their testosterone will just plummet.

Their muscle strength will decline. Theyll put on some fat weight. Their moods will become depressive. Theyll have fatigue. Itll be horribleI feel bad for them. Its going to be misery Im not saying all guys are going to have serious problems. It depends on what theyve been on, how much theyve been taking, what other drugs theyve been on. Its a mixed bag.

It's going to be mighty interesting to see how these TRT-enabled fighters look when they return to the cage. Take Vitor Belfort, for example, because he is the poster child for TRT. In the photo I've included above, you can see Belfort before TRT and after. It's a stark difference.

And perhaps not all of those gains are due to Belfort's testosterone usage. But the visual changes are stunning, quite frankly, and I'll wager Belfort can't keep up this appearanceor the performances since going on TRTwhenever he fights again.

Original post:
Doctor Reveals How Getting off Testosterone Will Hurt Fighters on It

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