Hi Ken,

I hope you are well.

My knowledge of hormonal acne is somewhat limited. However, I thought I could recommend trying pull ups and chin ups. I have always been slim and like you have wanted to build my strength. A friend of mine recommended purchasing a portable bar. Personally, I feel stronger since I have started and my weight has increased too. There are also a variety of push ups such as the plank which can be beneficial.

I hope your acne subsides soon.

Kind Regards

Zkay

Hi, I'm a 21-year-old male with moderate hormonal acne. My situation:

• I've noticed strength training (lifting weights) causes noticeable new acne and inflammation in the immediate days following exercise
• I need to do strength training (either lifting weights or pushups)
• I am currently taking topicals with ingredients that inhibit DHT

My questions:

• Is doing pushups less likely to spike my testosterone (and DHT) than lifting weights is? I am relatively skinny and I think pushups are good enough for the time being.
• I've had success with my anti-DHT topicals so far, but would they be dramatically less effective if I were to start doing pushups/strength training? How much does testosterone levels (and therefore DHT) increase during strength training?

Thanks for any help you can give.

Hi Ken, merry christmas.

I have the same situation as you in terms of lifting weights and acne. I think you're right in terms of pushups being less likely to cause hormonal changes in the body over lifting weights.

However push ups will only get you so far, if you want bigger muscles you have to lift bigger weights, as stress on the muscle with make it adapt (grow). If you're skinny doing push ups, you won't be pushing alot of weight, therefore not stressing the chest and triceps enough.

I lift weights 4 times a week, following a standard bodybuilding split. But if I do cardio everyday and reduce my intake of simple sugars by themselves (limitings insulin spikes) I find it clears up my acne more then any topical treatment.

+1 on the heavy workout > acne.

but i don't see any way to pull something out. you just have to give up hard training. stick to stretches, easy aerobics, nothing in which you reach your max limit.

and i can tell you from my experience, that if you are big on muscles by nature, when doing heavy lifting you will be huge.

if you are skinny by nature, as much (natural) training as you possibly can will bring you almost nothing in muscle gain. get used to it.

likewise if a group of muscles are naturally big, like arms in my case, they will grow huge even if you avoid training them. AND after you stop training, they will remain huge for a lot of years. for the weak muscle groups it's the opposite: a lot of training, no big progress, easily losing any progress if no training.

that's it. good luck

On 12/26/2013 at 1:36 PM, ken321 said:

Hi, I'm a 21-year-old male with moderate hormonal acne. My situation:

• I've noticed strength training (lifting weights) causes noticeable new acne and inflammation in the immediate days following exercise
• I need to do strength training (either lifting weights or pushups)
• I am currently taking topicals with ingredients that inhibit DHT

My questions:

• Is doing pushups less likely to spike my testosterone (and DHT) than lifting weights is? I am relatively skinny and I think pushups are good enough for the time being.
• I've had success with my anti-DHT topicals so far, but would they be dramatically less effective if I were to start doing pushups/strength training? How much does testosterone levels (and therefore DHT) increase during strength training?

Thanks for any help you can give.

Hi Ken,

With a few rare exceptions, virtually all acne is hormonal.

No particular muscle group training will cause acne over another.

There are a few things that could be exaccerbating the problem.

1. Heavy training increases sweat production,

2. Clothing in contact with skin during training. For example, wearing a shirt while training or excessively sweating seems to cause a problem in the upper shoulder area. A shirt is essentialy hanging from your shoulders and in constant contact in this area.

The type of training you are doing effects hormone levels. For example, chronic (more than 6 weeks) cyclical aerobic work (running, jogging, eliptical work etc), increases cortisol and decreases growth hormone and sex steroids (bad for maintaing health and a youthful appearance). It also increaes infamation, oxidative stress and glycation. Inflamation and oxidative stress are 2 major risk factors for heart disease. Most physicians, the media and general public believe that cyclical aerobic training is healthy. It's not. It's also not very effective.

Intense weight training and high intensity interval training (sprints) also increase cortisol, however there is a much higher increase in growth hormine and sex steroids (androgens) that increase muscle mass, decrease fat mass, improve insulin resistance, reduce cardio vascular risk factors and improve both aerobic (vo2 max) and anaerobic capacity. By the way, interval training is also much more effective at buring fat than aerobic work and you only need to put in about 25% of the time to burn dramaticaaly more fat.

Intense weight and interval training less than 50 minutes will generally increase anabolic hormone levels and result in improved health (could possibly exaccerbate acne). Beyond 50 to 60 minutes and cortisol exceeds anabolic hormones resulting in inflamation and a catabolic state.

Please don't interpret this as a suggestion to excessively train beyond 60 minutes to lower androgens. The net increase in catabolic hormones, inflamation and dramatic sweating will likely exaccerbate acne.

For me, the best way to deal with the problem was to avoid all sugar, dairy, rice, potatoes, wheat etc. Eat meat, fruit and vegetables. It may not completely solve the problem but could decrease your acne such that topicals will keep it in check.

You could try this workout. Very, very good if you want to have the extremely flexible and strong physique of a gymnast. I have been training for 25 years and have been doing this for a while. You do most of this at home, it doesn't take long and will fix structural imballances between muscle groups and improve your posture. It starts at the most basic level. Anyone can start. If you have been training for any period of time using conventional weight training methodologies, then you will be shocked at how inflexible and weak you are. I was shocked when I started. The first phase Foundation 1 is $80. It will take you months to complete.

I highly recommend this (no financial interest here).

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Good luck!