One of the biggest questions most newbie beard growers ask is if working out would help facial hair growth?
The answer is yes.
Exercise has a net positive effect on your ability to naturally grow beard.
This is because lifting weights and any other type of explosive training will help to raise the bodily levels of testosterone and DHT, which are the hormones necessary for facial hair growth.
Cardio training – or even just simply walking – will also improve your circulation which helps to renew and replenish your hair and beard follicles.
Working out does not make you turn from completely beardless into a fully bearded hulk, of course.
But over time, it will have a small beard growth enhancing effect that should be noticeable (not within days or weeks, but within months of active exercise).
Don’t believe me? We’ll let’s take a look at the available evidence below. ↓
Working Out Enhances Beard Growing Hormones
The main reason why exercise helps your facial hair to grow out faster and stronger has to do with its impact on the hormones testosterone (T) and dihydrotestosterone (DHT).
These two hormones are called “male hormones” because they control the physical characteristics associated with manly features.
Testosterone helps prime the facial hair follicles for thicker growth, and DHT has a linear growth enhancing effect as explained in a 1982 study by Farthing et al.
In a nutshell, anything that has a positive impact on these two hormones, tends to also result in better, healthier, stronger beard growth as a result.
And luckily, working out is one of the best natural methods of stimulating both testosterone and DHT…
In a study of Tsimane tribesmen, one hour of playing soccer resulted in a nice increase in testosterone levels.
Likewise, a study looking at young men undergoing a rather basic bodybuilding routine, noted that their testosterone levels increased significantly after a 4-week exercise regimen.
According to a urologist Dr. Richard Jadick, the more muscle you have, the higher your testosterone levels will be.
And lastly, one trial noted that obese men who walked 10,000 steps per day for 12-weeks, noted a nice boost in their overall testosterone levels.
Bottom line: One way exercise improves your beard growth is by raising your natural levels of male hormones like testosterone.
Exercise Helps Beard Circulation
It’s common knowledge that pretty much all kinds of exercise from walking all the way to HIIT and other types of more “demanding” training types have the ability to improve circulation.
With the enhanced blood-flow to your beard area, more nutrient-rich blood can help nourish and replenish the follicles for a healthier more robust beard growth.
This is one of the reasons why micro-needling and other types of circulation boosting beard tools are so effective at stimulating facial hair growth rate.
Not only does exercise improve circulation on the short-term (during training), it also helps your flow of blood in the long-term (during rest) by helping you lean down and shed the fat pounds.
Lifting Weights May Stimulate Beard Receptors
For your beard to grow the hormones will first need to bind with special cells called the androgen receptor or “AR” for short.
These are located within your facial hair follicles and the more sensitive they are, the better your chances of growing a beard faster are as well.
Luckily, some research suggests that weight lifting in particular has the ability to stimulate these receptor sites, which is the third known mechanism behind the exercise-induced beard growth.
However, the type of exercise matters a lot when it comes to the receptors.
Light cardio or walking barely does anything, while explosive multi-joint lifts like the deadlift, squat, pull-ups, etc have a major impact.
Working Out Too Much Can Have the Opposite Effect
As with most things in life, too much of the good stuff can actually be bad for you.
Same goes for beard growth and exercise.
If you hit the gym hard everyday and do some cardio on top of it, you may eventually run into issues with overtraining.
When you overtrain, your body can’t properly rest and recover, and eventually your hormones will take a dip as well…
And as you might expect, a dip in hormones like T and DHT will inevitably hurt – not help – your beard growing endeavors.
Conclusion
To summarize the above; yes, exercise is a great way to improve your beard gains, not to mention the whole host of other benefits that come with it.
Strenuous activities like lifting weight and sprinting are the most effective types of training for facial hair growth stimulation, but there’s also a place for light cardio and even daily walks, which work through a different mechanism than traditional weight training does.
All-in-all, it’s never a bad idea to work out, even if it wouldn’t give you a sick-ass beard.
Just remember to rest properly and let your body replenish itself, otherwise you might be hurting your beard gains in the process.
