Chop your way to higher T: How this power move fires up your hormones

Chopping wood isn’t a walk in the park, and lumberjacks bulk up those muscles by felling trees, cutting logs, and transporting heavy lumber. Historically, lumberjacks used axes and hand saws, and many modern-day loggers have moved on to chainsaws and power tools. Lately, the wood chop exercise has grown in popularity, and you don’t need an axe, a power tool, a forest, or even a tree. You can use different options, such as a dumbbell, a medicine ball, or the cable handle on the pulley system.

Fire up your obliques

This lumberjack-inspired move resembles the motion of chopping wood. You begin with your arms up overhead before twisting your torso, engaging your transverse abdominis and oblique muscles, and bringing your arms down across your body as if you’re chopping wood. 

This simple exercise boosts your functional fitness, engages your whole body, and torches your abs and oblique muscles on the sides of your core. The rotational motion also enhances your core stability, athletic performance, mobility, balance, and more. What about raising testosterone? Researchers have explored just that and found that yes, wood chopping really does raise T levels.

The research: Can wood chopping boost testosterone?

In a study published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, the researchers sought to determine whether wood chopping and sports affect testosterone levels. Does testosterone rise during tasks like tree felling? How do shifts in T levels influence performance? 

The study involved 51 men aged between 16 and 80 from the Tsimane indigenous group in the Bolivian Amazon who farmed, hunted, and foraged. The researchers examined how the men’s testosterone levels changed during hard physical work. The researchers collected saliva samples before and after the wood-chopping activity to measure testosterone levels. A different group of men provided resting saliva samples for the study authors to compare. They also compared changes in the T levels during a competitive football game.

The study results

The results revealed the following:

• The Tsimane men who spent an hour chopping down trees to clear land for crops experienced a 48.6% increase in testosterone levels, regardless of their health or age.
• The rise in T levels was even more significant than when the same men played competitive soccer, which resulted in a 30.1% increase.

The researchers pointed out that testosterone rises not just during competition or sports, but also when these men are performing their everyday physical labor to support their families. These short-term surges in testosterone could help the men work harder, be more productive, and continue on with the physically demanding tasks.

Concluding thoughts

Studies have shown that HIIT and strength training also raise testosterone, so it’s worth hitting the gym. That being said, after seeing this study, while chopping wood might not be for everyone, you might consider adding the wood chop exercise to your workout routine. In this study, both older and younger men experienced these T spikes, showing that these benefits applied regardless of age.