Jamie Waters

Here's a fun idea if you want to feel great about your masculinity: Scroll through some of the 1.4 million posts on Instagram grouped under the subject #testosterone.

Yours truly, a beta male with pipe-cleaner arms, did just that the other weekend. Saturday afternoon evaporated as I watched AI videos of round, "low test" men's faces morphing into chiseled, "high test" ones-and gawked at photos of string-beans becoming Adonises seemingly thanks to testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) and "high test" foods like oysters and raw honey.

The vast majority of these "T-maxxing" posts were made by influencers with zero medical or scientific expertise, but that doesn't matter because their deltoids are outstanding. And if you click the link in their bio and use the code GETSTRONG, you can be just like them!

In recent months we've seen a spike in interest in all things testosterone, ever since Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced in a video posted to X in July that "warfighters" aged 30 and over will have their testosterone levels screened-and be recommended TRT where appropriate. Our hypermasculine era has already championed testosterone as a buzzword-an elixir that confers virility, confidence and power. But Hegseth's video, which was sent from "The High T Department of War" (the Brotherhood of Manly Men must've been taken), machine-gunned the hormone to the center of the news cycle.

On TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, T-maxxing is often framed as a catchall solution for men's problems. Influencers built like dump trucks say higher T levels can fix everything from relationships, energy levels and sex lives to weak chins and bad personalities. Literally anything your heart desires! (Except nice shiny hair. Testosterone treatment can accelerate baldness.)

The symbolism whacks you like a 90-pound dumbbell: Being more manly solves everything.

I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. I started my T journey innocently enough, analyzing the #testosterone posts like a slightly judgmental anthropologist doing field research. As a jaded millennial, I consider myself immune to claims that anything can give me abs or pecs. But it turns out that these influencers are pretty good salesmen, with a pitch for every kind of guy.

When several of them attributed sleepiness to low T, my droopy eyes widened. You know what, Mr. Tank Top, I have been taking a lot of naps lately. My energy levels are dipping. I do fall asleep on the train to work.

I began to wonder: Might I be a candidate for a bit of T-maxxing?

I'm not proud of it, but I emailed my physician to say I thought my testosterone might be low and I should probably get tested ASAP. He told me to come in for bloodwork.

He wasn't surprised to see me. He said he's been getting a lot of "very New Yorky" (read: competitive and trend-obsessed) men in their 20s, 30s and 40s inquiring about testosterone and peptides. He took my blood and sent it off to be tested for testosterone as well as a bunch of other things, including thyroid and iron levels.

In typical 2026 fashion, we're trying to optimize our testosterone levels like we do our sleep scores and protein intake. But according to the endocrinologist Dr. Marcus Goncalves, it doesn't make sense for men to hack their testosterone unless they're in the minority who suffer from hypogonadism, meaning the body produces very little testosterone. If you're within the normal T range, there's no evidence that upping testosterone "improves any medical outcome," said Goncalves, the director of the Holman Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at NYU Langone Health. He also noted that an individual's T levels fluctuate constantly and can be affected by stress and poor sleep.

This is set against the backdrop of research indicating that testosterone levels have generally declined over the last 50 years. Drama kings say this illustrates the death of old-school masculinity, while medical experts such as Goncalves attribute it to other factors, including an increase in obesity and diabetes.

In the past, Goncalves said, almost every man who came in for a consultation concerned about low-T was older than 60, which makes sense because testosterone levels decrease with age. Now? More than half the guys are under 50. He said only about 3-5% of men in that younger demographic have hypogonadism.

"The biggest piece of misinformation is that testosterone is a silver bullet for all men," said Dr. Alex Tatem, director of the Men's Health Center at Urology of Indiana. However, he noted, "When applied judiciously in the correct patient population, [TRT] is one of the most life-changing things we can do for a man."

A couple of days after my blood test I received the results. Everything was normal-except for my testosterone. It was, in my doctor's words, "on the high side." The expected range is roughly 250-850 nanograms per deciliter; mine was 1,295.

He told me "not to worry," that "it was probably a lab error."

Not to worry? NOT TO WORRY? I was thrilled! Sure, I had rolled my bespectacled eyes at the he-men flexing on my Instagram feed just the other day, but things were totally different now that I was a paragon of masculinity.

The results meant I was no closer to solving my tiredness problem, my partner pointed out, but I no longer cared. I was too busy telling anyone who would listen about my astronomical T levels. Most of my friends cracked up laughing. I was sure they were just jealous. According to one video I'd seen, by a man bursting out of his tank top, jealousy is a telltale sign of low T.

My doctor said he would retest my levels in a couple of weeks to be sure it wasn't a mistake, which frankly seemed petty to me. While getting retested, I momentarily snapped out of my testosterone delusion and asked him whether overly high T might lead to any health problems. He said that since my level was likely not "weightlifter high" (rude), there shouldn't be much to worry about.

It turned out to be a moot point when the new results thudded into my inbox: I scored a 666 ng/dL, right in the normal range. Is it bad that I was disappointed?

As a wimpy ectomorph, my temporary high-T status provided a validation I didn't realize I was looking for. It also revealed that I've been fibbing to myself: Much as I consider myself enlightened, being unmanly in an era that worships machismo does bug me a little.

But, alas, I would have to address my minor identity crisis-and dopiness-without the hormone's help. When I told Goncalves, the endocrinologist, that I'd initially gone into this to tackle tiredness, he said the root cause for lethargy is usually not testosterone deficiency but "an unsatisfying answer, like you should be sleeping better and exercising more."

I think I've been on enough runs. A very long nap it is.