Tue 19 Sep 2006
I was wondering if weightlifting causes hair to fall out. I am a 33 year old
mail with a full head of hair. I go through a period of shedding after I
work out for a few months. Once I stop working out and stop taking creatineand protein, a few weeks after, the shedding stops. All year I’m fine until I start working out again. After three or four months I notice some
shedding again. The strange part is that it happened around the same time
of year last year, July – September.I’m not sure if weightlifting is causing my hair loss or high protein intake or creatine. I do not take creatine or protein during the year when I am not lifting. The only problem is that I hear people say that weightlifting doesn’t cause hair loss because it doesn’t raise t-levels enough to do so.
Thank you for your help. Dan
Dan, You ask a good question. But I don’t have a clear answer. If the creatine combined with the protein alters your hormone levels then perhaps it could be a factor in your hair loss.
I did do a search on our hair restoration discussion forum and I found an interesting post about the possible effects of weightlifting on hair loss. In short this person makes the case that the effects of strenuous lifting could increase DHT levels.
Comment by poster:
“Lifting weight in itself doesn’t increase hair loss. No kidding. However, resistance training causes muscle tissue to break down. That muscle tissue has to be repaired, right? The body synthesizes dietary protein into amino acids and building blocks (other proteins) that result in muscle cell regeneration and growth.
Okay, you know what triggers that protein synthesis? Ahh yes, it’s our good ole friend the happy hormone testosterone. And it becomes a supply and demand thing. If I have a lot of muscle to repair because I’m doing resistance training, then the body responds by pumping out more testosterone.
But where in all this does the body say: “Okay, I need more testosterone to rebuild damaged tissue, but in the mean time, is okay to curtail testosterone to DHT conversion?” DOESN’T work that way. Unless you have a genetic resistance.
To say generically “lifting weights absolutely cannot lead to more rapid hair loss” is a false statement. It can for the reasons I’ve stated.
If you’ve got “super hair” that’s genetically resistant to falling out, then your statement is correct. If not, then exercising MIGHT in fact speed up hair loss because of increased DHT levels in the blood stream (which triggers hairloss in some men, like us).
Hope that clears this up.”
To read the whole discussion topic please click here.
Best wishes for restoring your real hair.
Pat, publisher of the Hair Transplant Network and the Coalition Hair Loss Learning Center
Technorati Tags: hair loss, hair restoration, DHT
December 17th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Here’s something crazy… It’s a widely known fact that stress can cause hair loss. This is supposedly due to excessive tightening of the scalp from straining. I noticed hair loss at my hairline after about 2 and half years of serious weight training — mostly grueling, high rep stuff. It got really bad after I changed my routine to include a lot of core exercises.
I changed my supplements and diet and bought all sorts of hair growth products. Some of this actually helped. But was ultimately did the trick was changing the way I breathed, and making sure I kept my face muscles at rest during the exercises. I was straining too much, causing tightening of the scalp and leading to chronic tellogen effluvium, that is, rapid non-hormonal hair loss. I also started doing some scalp massages.
The bottom line is that hormones can cause hair loss, but some of us are surely losing hair from weight lifting by an entirely different vector! Best of all, this is super-easy to do, and definitely worth trying if you are a weight lifter with thinning hair.